Dear Mr. President,

We are American Jews who care deeply about Israel and seek a negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We commend you and Secretary of State Rice on your support in reaching the current cease-fire, and we applaud other steps that are being taken by both sides, by the European community, and by you to restart the peace process outlined in the Road Map to Peace.

We now ask that you take the next steps.

Call upon the Palestinian Authority to use the cease-fire to take concrete steps toward:

* controlling militant factions, including merging all armed militias into a unified security force under civilian control,

* eliminating arms smuggling into the Palestinian territories, and

* closing down facilities used to manufacture weapons.

Call upon Israel to:

* halt all settlement expansion activities,

* halt further work on the security barrier over the green line pending full public disclosure of the planned re-routing, and

* suspend all new construction initiatives being developed for East Jerusalem.

All recent surveys indicate that the Israeli and Palestinian people are calling upon their leaders to "seek peace, and pursue it" (bakesh shalom v'rodfehu). The American Jewish community asks no less of its government, whose leadership and even-handed stewardship of the Road Map to Peace is essential if Israelis and Palestinians are to get what they both want: a mutually agreed upon settlement and a permanent peace.