PalestineRich, honest, and amusingly poignant, Palestine is a compassionate look at the Middle East from the unique perspective of Najla Saïd, a self-described politically agnostic Upper West Side Palestinian American princess (and the daughter of eminent scholar Edward Saïd), who traveled to the occupied territories to discover her deeper identity as an Arab American woman.
A few days after Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted in 2005, Gershon Baskin got a phone call from a Palestinian professor and colleague asking for his help in negotiating the soldier's release. Gershon was put in touch with a spokesman for the Hamas government and for five years, as an intermediary between senior Hamas and Israeli officials, Baskin worked through back channels to broker a deal for Shalit's freedom in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Baskin is a member of Israeli's Green Movement Party, is the founder of the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information and has been active in increasing understanding and promoting peaceful dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. He has been involved in peace process as an outside advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak and writes a column for the Jerusalem Post.
I am coming to the University of Pennsylvania this week to incite violence against the State of Israel - pro-Israel groups and commentators have contended - and, along with hundreds of students and other speakers who will attend the 2012 National Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Conference, to engage in an "act of warfare."
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, we are coming together to push forward an inclusive movement that supports nonviolent action to promote the human rights of the Palestinian people, because only full respect for these rights can lead to peace. Today, millions of Palestinians live without basic rights under Israeli rule. This intolerable situation is at the root of problems that affect the whole world. . . . [continued]
Philly Against War forum with Vijay Prashad
The Parents Circle – Families Forum is an organization of bereaved families on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle who are becoming a powerful force for peace there. Ali Abu Awwad is a Palestinian nonviolence activist who knows about loss: shot in the leg by an Israeli settler, he returned from a lengthy treatment to find that his brother Yusef had been killed by an Israeli soldier. So too has the life of Yuval Rahamim been touched by tragedy: His father was killed fighting for Israel in 1967’s Six Day War, and his desire for revenge led him up the ranks of the Israel Defense Forces, until his subsequent life and family convinced him that the tragedies, killings, and hate on both sides must stop and that he needed to play an active role in it. Together they are part of a group of 500 Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost close family members and who work together for reconciliation and a just resolution to the conflict. They spoke at Villanova yesterday on a Catholic Relief Services-sponsored tour, and they're our guests today in our studio.
The fact that the Israel-Palestine conflict grinds on without resolution might appear to be rather strange. For many of the world’s conflicts, it is difficult even to conjure up a feasible settlement. In this case, it is not only possible, but there is near universal agreement on its basic contours: a two-state settlement along the internationally recognized (pre-June 1967) borders -- with “minor and mutual modifications,” to adopt official U.S. terminology before Washington departed from the international community in the mid-1970s.
The basic principles have been accepted by virtually the entire world, including the Arab states (who go on to call for full normalization of relations), the Organization of Islamic States (including Iran), and relevant non-state actors (including Hamas). A settlement along these lines was first proposed at the U.N. Security Council in January 1976 by the major Arab states. Israel refused to attend the session. The U.S. vetoed the resolution, and did so again in 1980. The record at the General Assembly since is similar.
There was one important and revealing break in U.S.-Israeli rejectionism. After the failed Camp David agreements in 2000, President Clinton recognized that the terms he and Israel had proposed were unacceptable to any Palestinians. That December, he proposed his “parameters”: imprecise, but more forthcoming. He then stated that both sides had accepted the parameters, while expressing reservations.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Taba, Egypt, in January 2001 to resolve the differences and were making considerable progress. In their final press conference, they reported that, with a little more time, they could probably have reached full agreement. Israel called off the negotiations prematurely, however, and official progress then terminated, though informal discussions at a high level continued leading to the Geneva Accord, rejected by Israel and ignored by the U.S.
A good deal has happened since, but a settlement along those lines is still not out of reach -- if, of course, Washington is once again willing to accept it. Unfortunately, there is little sign of that.
Substantial mythology has been created about the entire record, but the basic facts are clear enough and quite well documented.
The U.S. and Israel have been acting in tandem to extend and deepen the occupation. . . . [continued]
Despite "looks" from neighbors and her family's fears, Susan Johnson, "a little grandmother from Doylestown," traveled to the West Bank in 2004 and this May visited the Gaza Strip.
For Johnson, a local resident for 50 years, travel to the West Bank and Gaza follows a career of passionate activism, having protested the Iraq War both in Doylestown and Washington.
Tonight at a coffee house in Doylestown, she plans to speak about what she saw in the Middle East.
From very early, Johnson argued fervently in favor of Israel's right to exist, but the Israeli construction of the separation wall in 2002 angered her. Then through "divine intervention" at a protest of the Iraq War, a woman approached Johnson and asked if she would consider going to the West Bank with a group called Women of a Certain Age.
After meeting the group of 13 "bright, funny, articulate, women +10 of them were Jewish, which was a big awakening to me," Johnson decided to go to the West Bank. She calls it "a life-changing experience."
When Johnson received a letter from the organization UN Relief, forwarded by one of the women from Women of a Certain Age, with an application to travel to Gaza, she considered the opportunity for several days. She applied and the UN accepted her to join a delegation of 13 other people and departed in May.
"I really wanted to see for myself," says Johnson, who after her trip believes that media coverage of Israel and Palestine is unbalanced.
One example Johnson gives is the coverage of Hamas.
"Hamas is described as terrorists + Hamas and others shoot rockets over into Israel. I also saw that Hamas supplies or facilitates aid to the people in Gaza that they wouldn't get otherwise," Johnson said. "Suppose your house was demolished, then they come and give your family money."
Hamas does "not brainwash all of the kids or people, or it wouldn't be safe to walk around in Gaza," she said. Johnson felt safe the entire time she was in Gaza City and Rafa.
With the delegation, Johnson also visited the Qattan Center for Children and Culture, which "could be a children's center built in Doylestown for all the suburban kids and their parents would be thrilled."
The center provides a library, computer rooms, English classes, arts and crafts, music, and dance classes. Most importantly, the center provides one of the only places, according to Johnson, that the children feel safe enough to have fun and act like children.
Though it would mean leaving behind her grandchildren, Johnson is considering volunteering at the Qattan Center to care for "the world's grandchildren," because, " I want my grandchildren to respect me and know that I've done what I could to make the world a better place. + I think it's why we're here on earth + that may sound high or lofty, but I believe that with all my heart."
Now back in Doylestown, Johnson wants to ensure that as many people learn about both her experience and the plight of Palestinians. Despite "challenges" with the computer, Johnson started a blog, "Palestine: Seeing for Myself" at seeingformyself.blogspot.com. . . .
On March 24, twenty people from the Philadelphia area flew together from Newark to Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel. These twenty, actually nineteen, were local Muslim, Christian and Jewish clergy and lay leaders whom I brought together to form the Delaware Valley Interfaith Delegation to Israel/Palestine. The twentieth member of our group, my Rabbi, Sandy Roth of Kehilat HaNahar (kehilathanahar.org), in New Hope, Pa., already was in Israel and would be meeting us at the airport along with Leah Green, director of the Compassionate Listening Project (compassionatelistening.org), and Maha El-Taji, her associate.
In less than a year, I put together an interfaith journey, got my rabbi and the Rev. Al Krass to agree to take part and help me, and got Leah to alter the format of her 21 previous delegations (made up of people from across the United States and Canada) to accommodate a local interfaith delegation. I had been a member of her delegation in 2001. We built a delegation that agreed to meet regularly, raise the money together, study Compassionate Listening together, make the trip and return to work together to tell the stories we heard to educate the public about the Middle East, and encourage individuals to become involved in peacemaking. . . . (continued)
The two-day mobilization was covered by Democracy Now! To view video or listen to show click HERE.
Sunday began with an early morning drive into Philadelphia to catch the bus from 4722 Baltimore Avenue to DC and take part in a rally and march to end the 40-year occupation of Palestine. The program was developed by a coalition of organizations under the banner US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation in coordination with a second coalition coming together with the heading United for Peace and Justice. . . . (continued)
