The Philippines expresses deep regret over the cycle of violence between the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples that continues to disrupt their daily lives.  Where, only a few years ago, a peace process once held great hope for a lasting solution to their problems, the world now stands witness to intermittent episodes of death and destruction that appear to have supplanted that process.

Of late, this violence, which often claims also innocent lives, has crept wider and begun to include even foreign workers in Israel, who are in the country for no reason other than the pursuit of a family livelihood - in short, pursuing life itself.

Filipinos, Chinese, Russians, Romanians and other guest workers were among who either perished or were hurt in last Sunday’s twin suicide bombings in Tel Aviv.  That they now join the non-combatants victims is in itself an irony too stark to ignore. Those visiting innocents are not party to the seeds of the conflict; yet they too are paying its price.

Each side in the conflict must realize that each new act of violence actually brings them who, incidentally, both profess fidelity and fealty to the Almighty as well as justness in their respective causes, farther from -- not nearer to -- a resolution.

The Philippines is still hopeful that the Israeli Defense Forces and the Palestinian Authority and the suicide bombers will desist from further acts that only feed mutual distrust and, in its stead, henceforth take the route of peaceful negotiation towards a permanent solution acceptable to them both.

The Philippines firmly believes that peaceful negotiations, held in conformity with relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions, is the key to end all this violence.  Both sides must take a step backwards from confrontation and enter into overdue negotiations for a comprehensive, just and enduring peace where both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples live beside each other within their respective secure and internationally-recognized borders.

08 January 2003