3 Av 5767

18/07/2007

letter to ehud olmert, prime minister of israel

dear ehud,

i am writing, first of all, to ask your permission to drive across the border that leads to lebanon at the “good fence” in metula in northern israel.

in lebanon i would like to meet with the leadership and membership of hezbollah and all the other political and ethnic sectors to share with them the covenant of peace at peacecircle.org, and i also want to inquire about our captured brothers ehud goldwasser and eldad regev. 

i believe that dialogue is the beginning of understanding, which is the beginning of trust, which is the beginning of peace. 

since peace begins at home, i invite you, ehud, to place covenant of peace on the agenda for discussion of the israeli knesset, and to encourage the knesset members to search for ways to amend it that will create the broadest possible consensus among them.

i would like to meet with you about this as soon as possible.

i have been a peace activist for several decades, and was the first united states citizen to be arrested for disrupting the u.s. congress in protest of the vietnam war when i shouted "stop the war" in the u.s. senate gallery in 1971.

the so-called "clinton plan" for jerusalem, of two capitals for two peoples without a physical barrier between them, and with each people policing and governing themselves where they dwell, was my idea and i was the first to publish it and the first to lobby for it begining in 1984.  now i believe that such a vision would be very dangerous and unwise for israel to ever try to implement until there's an end to the "honor" killings of sisters, daughters and mothers in arab muslim culture, for peace begins at home.  the expression of jihad in a violent manner will also need to be rejected by arab muslims before a deep and lasting peace can be created with them.  logically jerusalem should be the capital of those who pray facing it.

twice i tried driving my truck to iraq to share covenant of peace with the iraqi government and people:  the first time in 1991 just before the gulf war broke out and the israeli authorities stopped me at the allenby bridge where i began a hunger strike, and the second time in 1999 when i got as far as the jordanian-iraqi border where i was turned back by jordanian authorities because they thought the iraqis would hang me if i continued.  

in the year 2000 i was interrogated by the shin bet because they found my name on a "hamas list" about which they would not provide any further information.  ever since that time i've been subject to very severe searches when leaving or returning to israel, and i call upon you to order that any further such severe searches of me and my belongings by israeli security personnel be discontinued.  the only reason i might have been on a "hamas list" is because i spoke with hamas leader mahmoud zahar many times on the telephone to discuss covenant of peace with him.  mahmoud zahar told me that he read parts of this essay to sheikh ahmed yassin.

i never had a bar mitzvah when i was 13, and i would like to invite you, mahmoud zahar, george w. bush, osama bin laden and other leaders to my bar mitzvah in jerusalem at some future date.  please read dear friends at peacecircle.org in which you can learn, among other things, about the specific torah portion and haftorah portion that i was born under and that would be read at my bar mitzvah.

i believe the messiah is all of us and that i’m just as much a part of the messiah as anyone else.   

i refer you to the written material and music at peacecircle.org and look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

sincerely,

david eli barchas
teudat zehut # 0 1298813 5

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