"The Resource Center for Nonviolence unequivocally rejects attacks on unarmed civilians and condemns the homicidal bombing in Netanya in the strongest terms.”

A Palestinian “suicide bomber” killed four Israeli civilians and himself when prevented by Israeli security guards from carrying out a far more deadly bombing in a Netanya, Israel, shopping mall.

Scott Kennedy, Coordinator of the Middle East Program of the Resource Center for Nonviolence, issued a public statement on December 6, 2006, condemning the bombing and attacks that purposely target civilians. “Attacks by any party on unarmed civilians contravene humanitarian international law. They damage the efforts of those who seek a political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And they offer a pretext for the continuing cycle of violence against other civilians. Such attacks on civilians are illegal, morally reprehensible, and politically disastrous for those who seek peace.”

The Resource Center for Nonviolence concurs with Amnesty International’s position of May 2004, that such attacks show “once again that these groups utterly disregard the most fundamental principles of international law, notably the absolute prohibition on the targeting of civilians.... Such deliberate attacks against civilians, which have been widespread, systematic and in furtherance of a stated policy to attack the civilian population, constitute crimes against humanity, as defined by Article 7 (1) and (2)(a) of the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal."

The Resource Center for Nonviolence unequivocally rejects attacks on unarmed civilians and condemns these murders in the strongest terms.

The Resource Center has joined other international Non-Governmental Organizations and human rights groups, including Amnesty International, that call "on all Palestinian armed groups to put an immediate end to the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians, in Israel and in the Occupied Territories [and] call on the Palestinian Authority to take all possible measures to prevent such attacks and to ensure that thorough and impartial investigations are carried out and those responsible for planning, organizing or carrying out such attacks are brought to justice in trials which meet international standards of fairness."

According to Kennedy, the Resource Center for Nonviolence stands by the statement issued immediately following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001: "We reject all violence as a political weapon. We especially abhor and reject attacks on civilians. No political cause, no historic injustice, and no political goal or religious belief, no matter how lofty, can possibly justify the inhumanity of this violence.” (for full statement click here)

More information::
Scott Kennedy, Coordinator
Middle East Program
Resource Center for Nonviolence
831 457 8003
kenncruz@pacbell.net