Posted on 03/07/2008 11:16:59 AM PST by NormsRevenge
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The council of world leaders launched by former President Nelson Mandela is sending a three-person team to help ease tensions in the troubled Middle East, the organization known as The Elders said Friday.
Former President Jimmy Carter, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and former Irish president Mary Robinson will visit Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia from April 13-21.
Launched last year to celebrate Mandela's 89th birthday, the group of 12 world leaders is dedicated to fostering peace and resolving global crises.
Annan noted his recent mission to Kenya in which he mediated a power-sharing agreement in the country's disputed presidential election.
"I have just completed an intense and grueling negotiation in Kenya and learned that conflict is easier than peace, but persistence makes peace possible," said Annan, adding that he was "acutely sensitive to the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis in the mind of many in the Middle East."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who chairs The Elders, appealed to the Israelis and Palestinians to stop the "cycle of violence."
Tutu said he condemned "unequivocally the dastardly" attack Thursday by a Palestinian gunman on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight Israeli students.
He also "equally vehemently" condemned the deaths of civilians in the recent Israeli offensive on Gaza. The campaign, in which more than 120 Palestinians have been killed, targeted militants who have been barraging southern Israel with rockets.
"Peace will not come from the barrel of a gun, as we learned in South Africa," he said. "Peace will only come when the inexorable cycle of reprisal provoking counter reprisal, ad nauseam ends. When the inalienable rights of all, Israeli and Palestinian, are recognized and respected."
Pray tell, what are the protocols of the Elders?
That’s some trifecta!
stop the “cycle of violence.”
Stop the rockets and the violence will end.
Let's send Jimmy to straighten out the Iran problem...you know, since he did such a great job of that last time.
“When the inalienable rights of all, Israeli and Palestinian, are recognized and respected.”
Hamas will NEVER recognize and respect the inalienable rights of Isralis.
They keep SAYING as much; over and over again. I guess if it isn’t what the “Elders” WANT to hear, they don’t hear it at all.
Mary Robinson??? The same one who ran the scandalous U.N. “Racism” conference years ago which turned into a (surprise!) Jew-hating orgy worthy of Goebbels? THAT Mary Robinson?
Where can I buy a cycle of violence?
Isn’t there some sort of law against conducting foreign policy independent of the Federal Government?
Tell Jimmy Carter to stay home and shut up.
On behalf of whom?
Freelancing, freewheeling foreign policy, just what the world needs.
Carter is one of “The Elders”. He is asking himself to do something. Big deal. These has-beens have to find ways to keep themselves in the news and the money flowing.
Just when you thought Coffee Cup had gone away for good .....
The Protocols of the Elders of Zionism Is Racism.
James Earl Carter: our national `Officious Intermeddler’.
They are not equivalent. The Israelis do not want civilians to die. The Palis do.
“The council of world leaders launched by former President Nelson Mandela”
This tells me all I need to know. Mandela apparantly misses having people kiss his ring in reverence.
Why in the world would anyone let these two shisters into their country.
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