I think Jackson Lee is an excellent US Representative, and an excellent leader.  I am proud that she’s my Rep.  Go Sheila…

-b

Jackson Lee calls on Bush to name Middle East envoy

By ROSANNA RUIZ
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle, June 15, 2003, 9:42PM

Upon her return from a summit in Norway involving Palestinian and Israeli women leaders, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said here Sunday that she will call on President Bush to name a special envoy to monitor the peace process in the Middle East.

She proposed former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, and former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton or George Bush as ideal candidates for the job.

“We cannot have a start and stop to the peace process — it’s imperative that these negotiations continue,” said Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat who served as honorary chairwoman during the Oslo summit called the Women’s Partnership for Peace in the Middle East.

Jackson Lee said the primary goal of the summit was to claim a greater role for women in the peace negotiations and in the so-called “road map” for peace.

The meeting began Thursday with much tension in the air, punctuated by the early departure of some delegates and interruptions to announce the death toll from the outbreaks of violence, Jackson Lee said. The group ultimately banded together, she said, to stand in support of the plan for peace and to call for an end to the recent violence that threatens it.

The summit was organized by the Global Peace Initiative of Women, an offshoot of the United Nation’s Millennium Peace Summit of 2000, which gathered more than 2,000 religious leaders in New York.

The delegates met at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, where Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres were selected for the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.

The Oslo talks will be followed with another gathering in Washington, D.C., then a larger meeting in Jerusalem in November, Jackson Lee said.