October 23, 2023—The cycle of perpetual violence in Southwest Asia, also known as the Middle East, consumes generation after generation in deadly war. We come together as one humanity to stop this immediately, we add our voices to what Brazil, China, and other nations of the Global Majority are suggesting to the United Nations.
China stated that it “supports the Security Council in holding an emergency meeting on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, agrees that the meeting should focus on humanitarian concerns, demand a ceasefire, an end to violence and the protection of civilians, form a binding international consensus and take concrete next steps.”
We believe this indicates the proper course of action.
We propose the following steps:
Step 1: We demand the end of forced migration from Gaza.
Step 2: We demand a ceasefire and an end to the daily killing by all means available.
Step 3: The United Nations must find ways to enforce its Resolution 242, adopted November 22, 1967, and that resolution’s two points: “(i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict” and “(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”
These steps will uplift the voice of the post-colonial Global South, instead of only that of “Global NATO.” The proper concern of all humanity is peace, not global war and we thus evoke the original intention of the United Nations charter to be upheld:
“WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS, DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom…”
We, the undersigned, commit to find what Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin called “the courage to change our axioms,” and to seek and win peace in Southwest Asia.