We need your help in reaching the public opinion shapers in your community—and the national policy makers.

Here is what you can do:

1. Create a study group. Read and master the book by Rabbi Michael Lerner: Healing Israel/Palestine. It will give you a very clear and balanced account of both sides—and help you understand how to defend the position that "both sides are right and both sides are incredibly screwed up and hurtful in the way that they've treated each other." In light of what you get from that, then read and master the details of the Geneva Accord.

2. Create a local Tikkun Community. For people of all (or no) faith traditions and all backgrounds who agree with The Core Vision of Tikkun. Spend at least one meeting reading and discussing the Core Vision together. And take as many sessions as you need to to study Healing Israel/Palestine together.

Why a group? Because it is much harder to have public influence when you are articulating a new and relatively unfamiliar perspective when you are doing it by yourself. You'll find that having even one or two people to stand up with you when people try to isolate you can make a huge difference. On issues related to Israel/Palestine, the Tikkun Community's perspective—even-handed, both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine—is very new and likely to provoke hostility from both extremes. So a group can be very helpful, particularly if the members of the group have taken the time to become familiar with the key arguments in Healing Israel/Palestine and in The Geneva Accord and in our Q&A about the Accord. After you join The Tikkun Community, we will send you a package of information that will help you do outreach work.

3. Call up your Local Congressperson and your US Senators. Ask for a meeting with the Congressperson. If you can only get a meeting with staff, ask for a follow up meeting after you meet with staff so you can meet face-to-face with the Congressperson.

Ask them to sign the letter to the President supporting the Geneva Accord—and ask them to attend the National Teach-In to Congress on the Geneva Accord in D.C. In 2004 it will be: April 24-27th in the Capitol Building in D.C. right in their own office buildings. If you are part of a local Tikkun Community, set up a meeting for the whole group. If you are not yet part of such a group, create it (see point 4 below). But in the meantime, meet with the staff people at your Congress person's office and let them know your feelings on Geneva.

Don't think that your views are insignificant. Your congresspeople will be hearing from people who are seeking to obstruct this process (those who believe that whatever Ariel Sharon says is the only right path), so they need to hear from you as well. Don't be afraid to speak to the US Senator's office—they too need to hear from you.

Here is the Letter to the President:

Dear Mr. President:

We are very heartened that leading Israelis and Palestinians have negotiated the Geneva Accord, the first specific and detailed model agreement between major figures on both sides. We are impressed by the growing number of Israeli security and military professionals of the highest levels criticizing their government's failure to engage in a political process with the Palestinians to bring about an end to the carnage through a fair and viable two-state solution.

We urge your Administration to take strong and decisive action to ensure that this unique opportunity for peace and reconciliation doesn't get lost. Although Secretary of State Powell has already said some positive things about this Accord, Prime Minister Sharon still shows no serious willingness to undertake the necessary withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. Nor has the Palestinian Authority endorsed the model agreement. Your Administration's decision to deduct several hundred million dollars from the offer of loan guarantees to Israel has not deterred the Sharon government from its construction of a barrier well inside the West Bank. More than mere symbolic pressure is required.

Mr. President: you are going to have to use the full power and prestige of the U.S. to get Israel and Palestine to reach a final settlement agreement based on the Geneva Accord. We want you to know that should you take decisive steps to place the Geneva Accord at the center of American policy and insist to both sides that they take immediate steps to reach a final settlement based on the principles embodied in this initiative you will have our full backing. Once both sides have agreed on the outcome they are seeking, defined so clearly in the Geneva Accord, your Road Map can be restarted with broad public support among Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans, and we believe you can achieve the vision you have enunciated for Middle East peace.

Signed:
 [Your Congressperson or U.S. Senator]

Sincerely, (Your Congressperson and Your Senator, hopefully)

Please be sure to let us know if your Congressperson on Senator agrees to sign on—or what contact you've had and what you've been told. This information will help us know what are the next steps we should take, and will be very useful for those of us who go to the National Teach-In to Congress. Send the info to Robyn Lundy:Robyn@tikkun.org or call her at (510) 644-1200.

4. Call the Media. Call the media and insist that they cover the fact that many Americans support the Geneva Accordncluding the Tikkun Community. Create a press conference in your area to announce support.

If you are in a local Tikkun Community, call them up and get them to work with you to create a press conference immediately. It is far easier to get media attention if you are calling the press conference as a local Tikkun Community than as just an ordinary citizen. If you are not in a local Tikkun Community, understand that this is one good reason you ought to be—because when we need to act together, it is good to have the mechanism already in place. And it's not too late—you can join online now. Read our Core Vision and then if you agree with it, please please join. In the meantime, there's still a point in calling media and asking them to cover the fact that many Americans support Geneva—and tell them to contact us at (510) 644-1200.

If you are willing to make media calls, brush up on the facts—please read the Geneva Accord as it appears on the Tikkun website:
http://www.tikkun.org/community/geneva/index.cfm?action=full_text

Also, read the Questions and Answers on our website about the Accord (some people are calling it an Accord and others are calling it the Geneva Initiative). Find that at:
http://www.tikkun.org/community/geneva/index.cfm?action=q_and_a

Who do you call? We have a list of people to call at major national media. You can find it by going to:
http://www.tikkun.org/community/index.cfm/action/media_list.html

Do not think: "These people are too important to get a call from me." You are important, and hearing from you makes a difference. In most cases you'll get their voice mailo leave a message saying that you are calling to ask them to cover the fact that many Americans support the Geneva Accord, want our governement to act strongly in support of it, and want the media to quote the perspective of The Tikkun Community (which they can get by calling for Robyn Lundy, Deb Kory or Rabbi Michael Lerner at 510-644-1200 or 510-528-6250). Also urge them to insist that the candidates for the presidential nomination in the Democratic Party take clear stands on Geneva and what specifically they would do to help it be adopted by the Israeli government.

In addition to calling national media, call your local media (local newspapers, television channels, and radio stations). Phone numbers are available in the yellow pages of your phone book. Ask for the city desk for newspapers and the assignment desk for electronic media, and then tell them you want to speak to someone who would or could be covering this news story. Emphasize that you are part of an Interfaith national organization, The Tikkun Community, that has strongly endorsed Geneva. Encourage them to contact us.

Please inform us of what has happened when you've made these calls, so that we can pass that information on to others who might need to know what responses we are getting. Particularly if you find someone who is relatively open—let us know their names!

Then, after watching the coverage, write letters to the editor of the newspaper or station manager of the t.v. or radio station, urging them to give more attention to the widespread support and to insist that candidates for President take an unambiguous stand on what specifically they would do to put the US behind that plan.

5. Help us Reach Students. Our Tikkun Campus Network is for everyone from law and med and other professional graduate schools to undergrads, and we even want to start a group for high school students. We have some groups already functioning on college campuses. The Tikkun Campus Network is perfect for the many students who want to be pro-Israel but don't want to be pro-Occupation or pro-the policies of Ariel Sharon; or for students who want to be pro-Palestine but don't want to be pro-the demeaning of Israel or Jews that sometimes accompanies or is implied by the ruthlessness of campus discourse about the conflict. We recognize that the best interests of Isael can only be met if the Palestnians get the security and self-determination they've fought for, and the best way for Palestinians to achieve national self-determination is for them to provide Israel with the security it is seeking. So we are both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. Help us find and organize students who would like to be part of this. Attend our national student conference for Middle East peace focused on Geneva and on training students to be Tikkun campus activists. High school students also welcomed.

6. Donate for a Media Campaign in Support of the Geneva Accord. We are trying to buy media ads in the LA Times, Wash Post, Newsweek, Yediot Achranot, and in various Palestinian newspapers (following up from the full page ad in the NY Times on Friday, Dec. 5, 2003). We hope to print the names of those who donate $250 or more for each ad (though any amount will be helpful). If there is space, we will print the names of everyone who has donated at least $100 (but of this we can't be sure). If we get enough money, we'd like to buy radio space and t.v. space to educate about the Accord.

We intend to make appropriate modifications as time moves on to keep it current—so the ad in the Times is a guideline but we may make a few changes as circumstances require. Please send us money to make the ad campaign possible. You can send the money immediately on our website using your credit card, or you can send us a check (made to Tikkun) or your credit card info and mail to TIKKUN, attn: Geneva Ads, 951 Cragmont Ave, Berkeley, Ca. 94708.

7. Come to the National Teach-In to Congress April 24-27. If we want our voices to be heard, we need to bring people from every Congressional district in the U.S.—so do your best to bring your friends from all around the country. If you live in Canada or some other country, do the same and create a national gathering there to get your government to actively back the Geneva Accords (for example, come to the Canadian NationalTikkun Conferencein Toronto May 14-16). The Tikkun Community is the progressive pro-Israel, pro-Palestine alternative to AIPAC and the other organizations that give a blank check of support to the right-wing government in Israel. But to get our voices heard, we need to be seen by our elected officials, both in your local district and at the National Teach-In. Please make plans to attend.

8. Set up a monthly date to send letters to media and public officials in support of the Geneva Accord—and bring together all the people in your community who support that perspective. Start with a presentation and discussion on some article or editorial in Tikkun or from the Tikkun website or mail. Follow that with everyone writing at least one personal letter to a local newspaper, elected official, religious leader, or other community opinion shaper. Then, have a veggie pot-luck, or a fancy dinner, or some other way to reward people who write these letters. Have some poetry reading and singing and a prayer or blessing or ritual to deepen the connection of people in the group on an emotional level.

9. Create a team of speakers to go to local religious institutions, schools, unions, community centers, and even social change organizations—and get them to endorse the Geneva Accord and to sign our petition in support of it.

Most important: do something in the public arena to support the Geneva Accords.