Get Involved: What You Can Do

• Contact Secretary of State Rice's office and your Senators/Representative using the most recent NILI Advocacy Statements as guidelines for what to communicate.
• Utilize church, synagogue and mosque newsletters, e-mail lists and websites to build a broad, interfaith public voice for peace. Urge your clergy/congregation to support the Interreligious Initiative and help communicate its message to the White House and Congress.
• Write a Letter to the Editor or arrange a forum in support of the principles and practical ideas for peace in the Geneva Accord Summary.
• Join or help create a local interreligious initiative with local religious leaders, modeled on the national initiative. Contact Ron Young and ask for help in forming a local initiative or invite him to come to your community to speak and meet with local religious leaders (his biographical information follows).
• Make a tax deductible contribution to support this interreligious work for peace to: USICPME, 16020 94th Avenue NW, Stanwood, WA 98292.

Contacting the Administration and Congress

For information on members of Congress, go to the web sites for the Senate and House of Representatives.

For information on Congressional committees and legislation go to the Library of Congress web site.

To send comments via email to your Members of Congress: Senators and Representatives.

Available to Speak in Congregations, Colleges and Community Forums

Ronald J. Young - Biographical Information

Ron Young is a consultant for the National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East; he can be reached by e-mail.

2003, Consultant for the National Interreligious Initiative for Peace (NILI). Leaders of 25 U.S. Jewish, Christian and Muslim national religious organizations are working together to mobilize public support for active, fair and firm U.S. leadership for Arab-Israeli-Palestinian peace. Building on founding Principles of Cooperation and an initial advocacy statement, Twelve Steps for Peace, 37 religious leaders issued a new consensus statement in December 2006, Arab-Israeli-Palestinian Peace: From Crisis to Hope, (Complete statement and List of Endorsers is available by E-mail from. Ron is available to speak and meet with religious leaders to discuss new interreligious efforts for Arab-Israeli-Palestinian peace.

The Interreligious Initiative initially was organized in 2003; leaders met with Secretary of State Powell in June 2004. From Fall 2004 thru Spring 2005 Ron held meetings with local religious leaders in 25 cities. In June 2005 the Initiative organized 50 local host sites for a Town Meeting for Peace (via the Internet) sponsored by A Different Future with speakers from Jerusalem and Washington DC. In February 2006 a delegation of Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders met with Karen Hughes, Under Secretary of State.

In January 2007 NILI leaders met with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. The religious leaders believe that Secretary Rice's initiative, the Arab Peace Initiative, and the U.S. intention to host a peace conference this fall makes interreligious efforts for peace all the more important and timely in the coming months. As follow-up to the meeting with Secretary Rice, a NILI delegation will meet regularly with Under Secretary R. Nicholas Burns. In their meeting on August 10, NILI leaders urged specific steps related to the fall peace conference. NILI offered specific recommendations related to the U.S. hosted Annapolis peace conference - a letter to Dr. Rice on November 1 and our press release on November 21.

Ron Young has spoken and written widely on the Middle East and interfaith cooperation; he taught a course on the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict at Haverford College; organized Interfaith Convocations for Peace; and led trips of U.S. Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders to the Middle East. Ron was invited by the White House for the signing of the historic Israel-PLO Oslo Declaration in 1993. Ron has lectured at the Chautauqua Institution, speaking on peace in the Middle East, and Religion As a Source of Violence or Peace; in 2005 he was Chaplain for a week on the theme, "Iraq and Its Neighborhood."

1987 - Organized the U.S. Interreligious Committee for Peace, a national organization of 2500 Jews, Christians and Muslims, including prominent leaders of all three communities, working together based on the deepest values in their three traditions. Ron organized the first National Interfaith Convocation and Congressional Visitation for Mideast Peace in March 1989 with 700 participants from 38 states; he's led ten interreligious trips of American Jews, Christians and Muslims to the Middle East.

1986 Authored Missed Opportunities for Peace: U.S. Middle East Policy, 1981-86, a book praised by Jewish American and Palestinian American leaders, and by prominent U.S. policy analysts.

1982 - 1985 Middle East Representative for American Friend Service Committee (Quakers). Ron and his wife, Carol Jensen, lived in Amman, Jordan and traveled regularly in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon to explore Arab and Israeli views about prospects for peace and how the United States could help to achieve peace.

1972 - 1982 National Peace Education Secretary, American Friends Service Committee. Ron coordinated peace education work nationwide on a range of international issues, including Vietnam, arms control, and human rights

1965 - 1972 National Youth Secretary for the Fellowship of Reconciliation; popular speaker at hundreds of high schools and colleges; and National Coordinator of the Marches on Washington for Peace in Vietnam in November 1969 and May 1970.

1960 - 1965 Student at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and participant in the Student Interracial Ministry in Memphis as Assistant to the Reverend J.M. Lawson, Jr.; in March 1965 Ron worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma, Alabama.

Suggested Topics for Lectures and Discussion

• Active U.S. Leadership for Peace: Is Arab-Israeli-Palestinian Peace Possible Now?
• Arab-Israeli-Palestinian Peace: From Crisis to Hope, Peace An Urgent Priority
• Iraq, Iran and Israel/Palestine: A Different Way of Looking at How the Issues Are Related
• Sharing Jerusalem: Impossible Dream or Essential Goal for Regional and World Peace?
• American Jews, Christians and Muslims: Conflict or Cooperation for Mideast Peace?
• Religion: Source of Peace or Source of Violence?