FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES

The American policymaking process on Palestine and Israel is broken. If it wasn’t clear before, the events of the past year have shown that America’s longstanding policy has been a disaster that has mired our nation in a regional conflict, implicated the United States in catastrophic violations of international law, caused death and suffering to Palestinians, and has only undermined Israel’s security.

A New Policy supports policies that reflect American values and end the current suffering, while laying the foundation for sustainable coexistence in Palestine and Israel on the basis of liberty, equality, and human rights. To do so, we start from three foundational principles:

1. Advance American National Interests: U.S. policy toward the Middle East should advance American national security and foreign policy interests, and should, as such, contribute to peace and prosperity for all Americans.

2. Reflect American Values: U.S. policy toward the Middle East should reflect American political ideals, including freedom, equality, and human rights, and should enhance the health, security, welfare, and prosperity of all peoples.

3. Comply with American and International Law: The United States should apply its laws, regulations and policies governing the provision of security assistance or transfer of arms equally to all countries in the Middle East, including Israel.

POLICIES

Pursue a Just Peace

A New Policy supports Palestinian freedom, equality and human rights, and believes that the Government and Congress of the United States should support the Palestinian right to self-determination. Fundamental to the right of Palestinian freedom is an end to Israel’s occupation. A New Policy supports an end to U.S. support for illegal settlements in any form. Consistent with international law and longstanding stated U.S. policy, the United States should impose strict sanctions on all individuals, companies, governments, or other entities that support the settlement enterprise, and ensure that U.S. laws reflect our international legal obligations.

Moreover, the U.S. should ensure its role in any future diplomatic or statebuilding process is conflict-sensitive in terms of both Israeli-Palestinian and internal Palestinian political dynamics, and does not, whether intentionally or unintentionally, create incentives for the use of violence.

Follow American Laws, Use American Leverage

The U.S. government should enforce and strengthen its own laws that restrict the provision of U.S. assistance to countries and units that violate human rights, and where they occur within those restrictions, A New Policy will push to condition all U.S. arms transfers on Israeli compliance with human rights laws. When it does provide arms or military assistance, the U.S. should use its leverage by conditioning U.S. financial support and weapons transfers to Israel on an end to Israeli laws, policies and practices that create obstacles to a just and lasting peace, and which violate Palestinian human rights. The U.S. should also consider whether the amount of military support that it provides to Israel annually is in line with America’s global foreign policy priorities and reflects the best use of hard-earned taxpayers dollars from the pockets of American workers.

Protect Our Constitutional Freedoms

A New Policy will work to prevent the enactment of laws or issuance of policies that run counter to the American national interest and undermine the prospects for a lasting peace. That work starts at home, where efforts to repress free speech, to prevent accountability, and to limit Americans’ abilities to exercise their constitutional freedoms have proliferated in the past year. A New Policy will work at the Federal and State levels to oppose efforts that are designed to shut down debate before it can even start.