"I've been waiting for over 30 years for 60 minutes to do something like this !
If this isn't proof that we are finally breaking through in the mass media, I don't know what is! "
- Gene St. Onge [whose Lebanese heritage helps him pay attention to what the Israeli Defense Force is doing, not only in Lebanon, but also in the West Bank and Gaza and Jerusalem. He has waited a long time for the main Big Corporation-owned media to join him is paying attention to how Israel behaves in the Middle East. Surprise: 60 Minutes revealed what goes on thanks to IDF soldiers where Palestinians live.
--BobF.]
CLICK HERE TO WATCH LAST NIGHT'S CBSNEWS PROGRAM: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4752349n
and read here much of what 60 Minutes' Boib Simon reported:
Time Running Out For A Two-State Solution?
60 Minutes: Growing Number Of Israelis, Palestinians Say Two-State Solution Is No Longer Possible
January 25, 2009
TRANSCRIPT:
(CBS) Getting a peace deal in the Middle East is such a priority to President Obama that his first foreign calls on his first day in office were to Arab and Israeli leaders. And on day two, the president made former Senator George Mitchell his special envoy for Middle East peace. Mr. Obama wants to shore up the ceasefire in Gaza, but a lasting peace really depends on the West Bank where Palestinians had hoped to create their state. The problem is, even before Israel invaded Gaza, a growing number of Israelis and Palestinians had concluded that peace between them was no longer possible, that history had passed it by. For peace to have a chance, Israel would have to withdraw from the West Bank, which would then become the Palestinian state.
It's known as the "two-state" solution. But, while negotiations have been going on for 15 years, hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers have moved in to occupy the West Bank. Palestinians say they can't have a state with Israeli settlers all over it, which the settlers say is precisely the idea.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daniella Weiss moved from Israel to the West Bank 33 years ago. She has been the mayor of a large settlement.
"I think that settlements prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state in the land of Israel. This is the goal. And this is the reality," Weiss told 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon.
Though settlers and Palestinians don't agree on anything, most do agree now that a peace deal has been overtaken by events.
"While my heart still wants to believe that the two-state solution is possible, my brain keeps telling me the opposite because of what I see in terms of the building of settlements. So, these settlers are destroying the potential peace for both people that would have been created if we had a two-state solution," Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, once a former candidate for Palestinian president, told Simon.
And he told 60 Minutes Israel's invasion of Gaza - all the death and destruction - convinces him that Israel does not want a two-state solution. "My heart is deeply broken, and I am very worried that what Israel has done has furthered us much further from the possibility of [a] two-state solution."
Palestinians had hoped to establish their state on the West Bank, an area the size of Delaware. But Israelis have split it up with scores of settlements, and hundreds of miles of new highways that only settlers can use. Palestinians have to drive - or ride - on the older roads.
When they want to travel from one town to another, they have to submit to humiliating delays at checkpoints and roadblocks. There are more than 600 of them on the West Bank.
Asked why there are so many checkpoints, Dr. Barghouti said, "I think the main goal is to fragment the West Bank. Maybe a little bit of them can be justified because they say it's for security. But I think the vast majority of them are basically to block the movement of people from one place to another."
Here's how they block Barghouti: he was born in Jerusalem, grew up in Jerusalem and worked in a hospital there for 14 years. Four years ago he moved to a town just 10 miles away, but now, because he no longer lives in Jerusalem, he can't get back in - ever.
He says he can't get a permit to go. "I asked for a permit to go to Jerusalem during the last year, the last years about 16 times. And 16 times they were rejected. Like most Palestinians, I don't have a permit to go to the city I was born in, to the city I used to work in, to the city where my sister lives."
What he's up against are scores of Israeli settlements dominating the lowlands like crusader fortresses. Many are little cities, and none of them existed 40 years ago. The Israelis always take the high ground, sometimes the hills, and sometimes the homes. And sometimes Arabs are occupied inside their own homes.
One house for example is the highest house on the highest hill overlooking the town of Nablus. 60 Minutes learned that Israeli soldiers often corral the four families who live there and take over the house to monitor movement down below.
Simon and the 60 Minutes team went to an apartment owned by a Mr. Nassif. That morning, Israeli soldiers had apparently entered the apartment, without notice, and remained there when Simon knocked on the door.
"We cannot speak with you, there are soldiers," Nassif told Simon. "We are in prison here."
Asked what was happening, Nassif says, "They are keeping us here and the soldiers are upstairs, we cannot move. We cannot speak with you."
Nassif said he couldn't leave the house and didn't know how long he'd have to stay in place. Asked if they were paying him any money, he told Simon, "You are kidding?"
Abdul Nassif, a bank manager said he had to get to his bank to open the safe, but one of the soldiers wouldn't let him go. He told 60 Minutes whenever the soldiers come they wake everybody up, and herd them into a kitchen for hours while soldiers sleep in their beds. They can't leave or use the phone, or let 60 Minutes in.
He sent 60 Minutes downstairs to see if his brother would open the door so we could ask the soldiers why they keep taking over this house. But the brother told Simon, "The soldiers close the door from the key. They take the key."
So Simon and the crew left, and that night, so did the soldiers. But when 60 Minutes returned two days later, the soldiers were back for more surveillance. This time they kept the women under house arrest, but let the men go to work and the children go to school. When the children returned, we caught a glimpse of two armed soldiers at the top of the stairs.
Then more children came home, but the soldiers wouldn't open the door again.
A commander told Simon that he and the crew would have to go back behind a wall in order for the children to be let in.
The commander declined to talk to 60 Minutes. "But we are talking to you now," Simon pointed out, standing outside. "Why don't you tell us what you are doing here? Have you lost your voice? Well they've closed the door now, they've closed the window so I guess if the children are going to get home now we have to leave, so that is what we will do."
An army spokesperson told us the army uses the Nassifs' house for important surveillance operations. The Nassifs told 60 Minutes that soldiers usually stay for a day or two, always coming and going in the middle of the night. When they do go, the Nassifs never know when they will be occupied again. It could be tomorrow, next week, or next month. The only certainty, they say, is that the soldiers will be back.
Another crippling reality on the West Bank is high unemployment, now about 20 percent. So some Palestinians can only find jobs building Israeli settlements. They're so ashamed to work on the construction sites that they asked 60 Minutes not to show their faces.
The settlers now number 280,000, and as they keep moving in, their population keeps growing about five percent every year. But the 2.5 million Arabs have their strategy too: they're growing bigger families.
Demographers predict that within ten years Arabs will outnumber Jews in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Without a separate Palestinian state the Israelis would have three options, none of them good. They could try ethnic cleansing, drive the Palestinians out of the West Bank, or they could give the Palestinians the vote. That would be the democratic option but it would mean the end of the Jewish state. Or they could try apartheid - have the minority Israelis rule the majority Palestinians, but apartheid regimes don't have a very long life.
"Unfortunately, and I have to say to you that apartheid is already in place," Dr. Barghouti argued.
Apartheid? Israel is building what it calls a security wall between the West Bank and Israel. The Palestinians are furious because it appropriates eight percent of the West Bank. Not only that. It weaves its way through Palestinian farms, separating farmers from their land. They have to wait at gates for soldiers to let them in. Settlers get a lot more water than Palestinians, which is why settlements are green and Arab areas are not.
Moderate Israelis who deplore the occupation used to believe passionately in a two-state solution. That is no longer the case.
Meron Benvenisti used to be deputy mayor of Jerusalem. He told Simon the prospects of the two-state solution becoming a reality are "nil."
"The geopolitical condition that¢s been created in '67 is irreversible. Cannot be changed. You cannot unscramble that egg," he explained.
Asked if this means the settlers have won, Benvenisti told Simon, "Yes."
"And the settlers will remain forever and ever?" Simon asked.
"I don't know forever and ever, but they will remain and will flourish," Benvenisti said.
"The settlers, the attitude that I present here, this is the heart. This is the pulse. This is the past, present, and future of the Jewish state," Daniella Weiss told Simon.
She says the she and the settlers are immovable. "We will stay here forever."
But one very important Israeli says she intends to move them out. She's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a candidate to become prime minister in elections next month. She's also Israel¢s chief negotiator with the Palestinians, and she told 60 Minutes peace is unthinkable with the settlers where they are.
"Can you really imagine evacuating the tens of thousands of settlers who say they will not leave?" Simon asked.
"It's not going to be easy. But this is the only solution," she replied.
"But you know that there are settlers who say, 'We will fight. We will not leave. We will fight,'" Simon asked.
"So this is the responsibility of the government and police to stop them. As simple as that. Israel is a state of law and order," Livni said.
It's also a state of law and disorder. When the army evicted just nine families from a West Bank settlement called Amona three years ago, it was chaos. It was the first time since the creation of the state that Jews were in pitched battles against Jews. To Israelis of all stripes, it was not a pretty picture. And it made the government loath to try again.
Officials fear that more battles to empty settlements could rip Israel apart. They're afraid that religious officers in the army - and there are an increasing number of them - would disobey any order to evict settlers.
The army is evicting Arabs from their homes in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hoped to make their capital. Outraged, Arabs tried to save their homes, but the Israelis have the guns. Israel demolished more than 100 Arab homes in the past year, ruling they had been illegally built. Arabs say this is just another tactic to drive them out. But officials say they also knock down unauthorized Jewish buildings on the West Bank. They're put up by youngsters, the next generation¢s campaign to populate the land.
Daniella Weiss told 60 Minutes they will not be stopped.
Despite the army tearing down a structure, the settlers began rebuilding it on the same day. "We will have the upper hand," Weiss vowed.
"But the army will tear it down again," Simon pointed out.
"And we will rebuild it," Weiss said. "The experience shows that the world belongs to those who are stubborn, and we are very stubborn."
Stubborn, she says, because they were ordered to populate this land by no less an authority than God. "This is the mission of our generation and I want to emphasis the most important point is to this," Weiss said, picking up some soil, "to hold strong to the soil of the Holy Land."
Monday, January 26, 2009
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Alice Walker speaks for many of us
Alice Walker's open letter to Obama
from the FOR.org web site
Nov. 5, 2008
Dear Brother Obama,
You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It
is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors
of hope, previously only sung about.
I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance.
A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large.
We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.
I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.
A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker
Source: http://www.theroot.com/id/48726
from the FOR.org web site
Nov. 5, 2008
Dear Brother Obama,
You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It
is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors
of hope, previously only sung about.
I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance.
A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large.
We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.
I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.
A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker
Source: http://www.theroot.com/id/48726
Saturday, November 01, 2008
latest story from Lorin Peters in Hebron
An Unsuccessful Olive Harvest
Lorin Peters [retired Bay area Catholic high school teacher, visiting Hebron]
2008 October 18
Tel Rumeida is the 200-foot high round hill half a mile southwest of Abraham and Sarah’s Tomb. Remnants of an ancient city wall and gate lie near the top of the tel
(archeological mound). Everyone believes King David’s first palace must have stood
somewhere on it.
David, the great warrior, slayer of Philistines (Palestinians in English) and unifier of ancient Israel, is the archetype and hero and role model of the Hebron settlers. For them this tel is therefore of inestimable value. They have tried to buy out the Palestinian families living on top of the tel, unsuccessfully. So they have harassed those families almost daily for the past two decades.
The east slope of Tel Rumeida is covered with terraced olive groves. Some of the trees appear to be at least 500 years old, if not older. When the current CPT (Christian Peacemaker Teams) delegation (first-time visitors) discovered there would be an olive harvest on the tel, they rearranged their schedule.
The delegation leader asked me to lead the group up the tel. The best route is also the route where two of us were stoned heavily two years ago. So this morning, when I woke three hours earlier than usual, I knew exactly why I felt anxious. I prayed for an hour. I repeated my mantram for two hours. In the end I chose to face, as best I could, my fears.
At 8:30 am, five delegates and I walked through the Old City / Kasbah, out the Ibrahimi Mosque Gate, then back along Shuhada Street, where Palestinians, and sometimes internationals, are not allowed. As we passed several pairs of soldiers, and several groups of settlers, I greeted them “Shabbot shalom” (Sabbath peace). Somewhat unexpectedly, they all returned my greeting. I felt somewhat relieved.
We paused at Avraham Avinu to read the settler billboard claiming that “this land was stolen from the Jews in 1929”. There was a massacre of Zionists in that year, but their Muslim neighbors saved virtually all of the native Palestinian Jews. Then we started up Tel Rumeida itself, pausing again at Abraham’s Well, an ancient cave with a small pool of clear water at its bottom.
When we arrived at the top of the tel, we found perhaps five internationals, 10
Palestinians, and 15 Israelis already picking olives, plus perhaps 10 photojournalists busy taking pictures. The local Palestinian organizer asked our CPT delegation to work about 100 meters back down at the bottom of the olive grove.
The owner had already spread tarps and old rugs under one tree. So we began picking the small dark olives from the lower branches. One person stood on a ladder, another found an old chair, another climbed up into the tree. We dropped the olives into old buckets. But a fair number fell onto the tarps, so some of us crawled around picking up these
loose olives.
We had been picking about an hour when, suddenly, we heard cries behind us. Abed, a
Palestinian photographing harvesters in a tree 20 meters away, had just been attacked by four tall settlers wearing their kippas and long white shirts. They had knocked him to the ground and were kicking and hitting him savagely.
Jan, a petite but tough Scotswoman, and I, the two CPT members, rushed over and up the steep terrace. As Jan arrived, one settler had taken Abed’s large professional camera away. She asked him to return it. As he swung the camera away behind himself, its strap swung all the way around. Just as I snapped a photo, Jan grabbed the strap. The settler instantly swung his right fist into her right cheek, full force, knocking her off her feet.
As I looked up from my camera, the settler was swinging his hand toward me. For an
instant I thought he was going to deck me also. But he actually was hurling Abed’s large professional camera as far as he could down into the rocky terrace behind and below me, apparently hoping to damage or destroy it.
About that moment, the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) soldiers arrived. Jan shouted, “That man attacked me. Detain that man!” But the soldiers made no effort to detain the attackers. When the attackers left the scene, I walked over to retrieve Abed’s camera. Thankfully, it appeared to be unbroken. One soldier later said to Jan, “We stopped the fighting. Don’t ask for anything more.”
When the Israeli police arrived, they declared Tel Rumeida a “closed military zone”,
meaning that all non-residents have to leave. Of course the settlers were already gone.
Most of the Israeli peace activists wanted to continue the harvest. But Israel has a law banning all Israelis, other than settlers, from entering Palestinian areas. The effect, and probably the intent, of this law is to make it difficult for Israelis who oppose Israel’s occupation to meet and work with Palestinians. Eventually the Israeli police began detaining the 15 Israeli activists and escorting them out of Tel Rumeida.
The police left us alone. But they called our landowner over and spoke to him. When he returned, he said that we should stop working soon. Five minutes later he served us Arabic tea and cookies. After another ten minutes, he suggested we exit the olive grove through his basement. Perhaps he was protecting us from the police.
We had picked only one tree, collecting maybe eight gallons of olives. The four young settlers got what they presumably wanted. The olive harvest was stopped. Today’s harvest was mostly unsuccessful.
Except that the harvest is not really about olives. It is actually about the struggle for power and control over the land. And the settlers may have miscalculated. A half-dozen of the other photojournalists were standing 15 meters away on the terrace above the attack, with their video cameras running.
That same evening Jan and I were chatting with the manager of our hostel in Jerusalem, when we suddenly saw ourselves on the TV in the hostel lobby. Al Jazeera and the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) both broadcast, worldwide, the complete footage of both attacks.
The settler movement was extremely embarrassed, and immediately began making false
allegations. They claimed we had “marched” through “their” street, “throwing stones” and “provoking” them to defend themselves. But the next morning the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz carried an extensive front-page story, and four-color photos, of the settler attack.
Blessed are the gentle, nonviolent ones; they shall inherit the earth...
Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called the children of God.
Lorin Peters [retired Bay area Catholic high school teacher, visiting Hebron]
2008 October 18
Tel Rumeida is the 200-foot high round hill half a mile southwest of Abraham and Sarah’s Tomb. Remnants of an ancient city wall and gate lie near the top of the tel
(archeological mound). Everyone believes King David’s first palace must have stood
somewhere on it.
David, the great warrior, slayer of Philistines (Palestinians in English) and unifier of ancient Israel, is the archetype and hero and role model of the Hebron settlers. For them this tel is therefore of inestimable value. They have tried to buy out the Palestinian families living on top of the tel, unsuccessfully. So they have harassed those families almost daily for the past two decades.
The east slope of Tel Rumeida is covered with terraced olive groves. Some of the trees appear to be at least 500 years old, if not older. When the current CPT (Christian Peacemaker Teams) delegation (first-time visitors) discovered there would be an olive harvest on the tel, they rearranged their schedule.
The delegation leader asked me to lead the group up the tel. The best route is also the route where two of us were stoned heavily two years ago. So this morning, when I woke three hours earlier than usual, I knew exactly why I felt anxious. I prayed for an hour. I repeated my mantram for two hours. In the end I chose to face, as best I could, my fears.
At 8:30 am, five delegates and I walked through the Old City / Kasbah, out the Ibrahimi Mosque Gate, then back along Shuhada Street, where Palestinians, and sometimes internationals, are not allowed. As we passed several pairs of soldiers, and several groups of settlers, I greeted them “Shabbot shalom” (Sabbath peace). Somewhat unexpectedly, they all returned my greeting. I felt somewhat relieved.
We paused at Avraham Avinu to read the settler billboard claiming that “this land was stolen from the Jews in 1929”. There was a massacre of Zionists in that year, but their Muslim neighbors saved virtually all of the native Palestinian Jews. Then we started up Tel Rumeida itself, pausing again at Abraham’s Well, an ancient cave with a small pool of clear water at its bottom.
When we arrived at the top of the tel, we found perhaps five internationals, 10
Palestinians, and 15 Israelis already picking olives, plus perhaps 10 photojournalists busy taking pictures. The local Palestinian organizer asked our CPT delegation to work about 100 meters back down at the bottom of the olive grove.
The owner had already spread tarps and old rugs under one tree. So we began picking the small dark olives from the lower branches. One person stood on a ladder, another found an old chair, another climbed up into the tree. We dropped the olives into old buckets. But a fair number fell onto the tarps, so some of us crawled around picking up these
loose olives.
We had been picking about an hour when, suddenly, we heard cries behind us. Abed, a
Palestinian photographing harvesters in a tree 20 meters away, had just been attacked by four tall settlers wearing their kippas and long white shirts. They had knocked him to the ground and were kicking and hitting him savagely.
Jan, a petite but tough Scotswoman, and I, the two CPT members, rushed over and up the steep terrace. As Jan arrived, one settler had taken Abed’s large professional camera away. She asked him to return it. As he swung the camera away behind himself, its strap swung all the way around. Just as I snapped a photo, Jan grabbed the strap. The settler instantly swung his right fist into her right cheek, full force, knocking her off her feet.
As I looked up from my camera, the settler was swinging his hand toward me. For an
instant I thought he was going to deck me also. But he actually was hurling Abed’s large professional camera as far as he could down into the rocky terrace behind and below me, apparently hoping to damage or destroy it.
About that moment, the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) soldiers arrived. Jan shouted, “That man attacked me. Detain that man!” But the soldiers made no effort to detain the attackers. When the attackers left the scene, I walked over to retrieve Abed’s camera. Thankfully, it appeared to be unbroken. One soldier later said to Jan, “We stopped the fighting. Don’t ask for anything more.”
When the Israeli police arrived, they declared Tel Rumeida a “closed military zone”,
meaning that all non-residents have to leave. Of course the settlers were already gone.
Most of the Israeli peace activists wanted to continue the harvest. But Israel has a law banning all Israelis, other than settlers, from entering Palestinian areas. The effect, and probably the intent, of this law is to make it difficult for Israelis who oppose Israel’s occupation to meet and work with Palestinians. Eventually the Israeli police began detaining the 15 Israeli activists and escorting them out of Tel Rumeida.
The police left us alone. But they called our landowner over and spoke to him. When he returned, he said that we should stop working soon. Five minutes later he served us Arabic tea and cookies. After another ten minutes, he suggested we exit the olive grove through his basement. Perhaps he was protecting us from the police.
We had picked only one tree, collecting maybe eight gallons of olives. The four young settlers got what they presumably wanted. The olive harvest was stopped. Today’s harvest was mostly unsuccessful.
Except that the harvest is not really about olives. It is actually about the struggle for power and control over the land. And the settlers may have miscalculated. A half-dozen of the other photojournalists were standing 15 meters away on the terrace above the attack, with their video cameras running.
That same evening Jan and I were chatting with the manager of our hostel in Jerusalem, when we suddenly saw ourselves on the TV in the hostel lobby. Al Jazeera and the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) both broadcast, worldwide, the complete footage of both attacks.
The settler movement was extremely embarrassed, and immediately began making false
allegations. They claimed we had “marched” through “their” street, “throwing stones” and “provoking” them to defend themselves. But the next morning the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz carried an extensive front-page story, and four-color photos, of the settler attack.
Blessed are the gentle, nonviolent ones; they shall inherit the earth...
Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called the children of God.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
When Israeli soldiers come to call
“The Soldiers Are in Your House!”
Lorin Peters, Bay area retired Catholic high school teacher, living and observing life in Hebron, a good sized Palestinian city with several hundred angry, illegal Jewish settlers living on a hill in the center of the city, near the Tomb of Abraham and Sarah --- 2008 October 17
I went on a long shopping walk this morning – a pharmacy, a hardware store, a leather shop, a dairy shop, and the farmers’ market. As I turned into our alley, a young Palestinian friend said, “The soldiers are in your house!” And, just as he said, when I rounded the last bend, there they were.
Two Israeli soldiers were standing, guns drawn, in our street doorway. We choose to keep this door unlocked during the day. Four more soldiers were standing in our stairwell.
But right above them stood two of our CPT women, Laura, an Italian, and Jan, a Scot, and our Palestinian neighbor woman who shares our stairwell, arguing with the captain.
Johann, a Canadian teammate, was taking digital photos.
Actually, when they first heard and saw the soldiers, Laura hid our three computers. Jan called our lawyer in Israel-Palestine. What this poor officer, who struggled to speak English, did not know is that these two women love to argue with soldiers. They have
both been doing this for two years.
“I need to check your house.”
“Why?”
“To check security for the settlers.” (This is Sukkot week, which brings many Jewish visitors to the settlements.)
“What about security for the Palestinians?”
“That is not our mission.”
“It should be. The Geneva conventions say that an occupying army is responsible for the security and safety of all the civilians under its control.”
“I’m just following orders.”
“”Soldiers, especially Jewish soldiers (after the Holocaust) should know better than to ‘just follow orders’.”
“I would be willing to discuss that some other time and place.”
“What about Israeli law? Some of the settlements here in Hebron are unrecognized and illegal even under Israeli law.”
“Hebron is a closed military zone right now.”
“Where are your orders?”
“No papers are required.”
Soldiers are required to present and allow photos of military closure orders and maps.
Jan called a contact with the Israeli military, who later confirmed that this closure was authorized.
“Our only view of the settlers and “their” street is from our rooftop, not from our
windows.”
“May two soldiers go to your rooftop?”
“OK.”
I finally thought to serve the soldiers coffee (an idea I read in Michael Nagler’s
Nonviolence course at UC Berkeley seven years ago.) I began preparing six cups of coffee (instant, not Arabic, unfortunately).
Just before I finished, the soldiers were gone. The captain had finally agreed to not search our apartment at all. Our Palestinian neighbor had agreed to allow the captain to search her apartment alone, as long as some CPTers accompanied him. He accepted that arrangement.
Afterwards, I thought I could have proposed another solution: “Our House is a
weapons-free zone. One soldier stays outside with all your guns. The rest of you come in, without your guns, for coffee.”
Blessed are the gentle, nonviolent ones; they shall inherit the earth...
Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called the children of God.
Lorin Peters, Bay area retired Catholic high school teacher, living and observing life in Hebron, a good sized Palestinian city with several hundred angry, illegal Jewish settlers living on a hill in the center of the city, near the Tomb of Abraham and Sarah --- 2008 October 17
I went on a long shopping walk this morning – a pharmacy, a hardware store, a leather shop, a dairy shop, and the farmers’ market. As I turned into our alley, a young Palestinian friend said, “The soldiers are in your house!” And, just as he said, when I rounded the last bend, there they were.
Two Israeli soldiers were standing, guns drawn, in our street doorway. We choose to keep this door unlocked during the day. Four more soldiers were standing in our stairwell.
But right above them stood two of our CPT women, Laura, an Italian, and Jan, a Scot, and our Palestinian neighbor woman who shares our stairwell, arguing with the captain.
Johann, a Canadian teammate, was taking digital photos.
Actually, when they first heard and saw the soldiers, Laura hid our three computers. Jan called our lawyer in Israel-Palestine. What this poor officer, who struggled to speak English, did not know is that these two women love to argue with soldiers. They have
both been doing this for two years.
“I need to check your house.”
“Why?”
“To check security for the settlers.” (This is Sukkot week, which brings many Jewish visitors to the settlements.)
“What about security for the Palestinians?”
“That is not our mission.”
“It should be. The Geneva conventions say that an occupying army is responsible for the security and safety of all the civilians under its control.”
“I’m just following orders.”
“”Soldiers, especially Jewish soldiers (after the Holocaust) should know better than to ‘just follow orders’.”
“I would be willing to discuss that some other time and place.”
“What about Israeli law? Some of the settlements here in Hebron are unrecognized and illegal even under Israeli law.”
“Hebron is a closed military zone right now.”
“Where are your orders?”
“No papers are required.”
Soldiers are required to present and allow photos of military closure orders and maps.
Jan called a contact with the Israeli military, who later confirmed that this closure was authorized.
“Our only view of the settlers and “their” street is from our rooftop, not from our
windows.”
“May two soldiers go to your rooftop?”
“OK.”
I finally thought to serve the soldiers coffee (an idea I read in Michael Nagler’s
Nonviolence course at UC Berkeley seven years ago.) I began preparing six cups of coffee (instant, not Arabic, unfortunately).
Just before I finished, the soldiers were gone. The captain had finally agreed to not search our apartment at all. Our Palestinian neighbor had agreed to allow the captain to search her apartment alone, as long as some CPTers accompanied him. He accepted that arrangement.
Afterwards, I thought I could have proposed another solution: “Our House is a
weapons-free zone. One soldier stays outside with all your guns. The rest of you come in, without your guns, for coffee.”
Blessed are the gentle, nonviolent ones; they shall inherit the earth...
Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called the children of God.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Some days we have GOOD NEWS
A Successful Olive Harvest
Lorin Peters [retired teacher at Bishop O'Dowd High School, Oakland]
2008 October 3
Olive trees are the pride and joy of every Palestinian family. They know which ancestor planted each of their trees, and when. Some trees bear fruit for 500 or more years.
So one of the more painful injuries of the military occupation of Palestine is the felling, burning, bulldozing, uprooting, or even stealing, of olive trees. And one of the more insidious tactics of the settlers is the interruption of the olive harvest. If they can prevent a farmer from tending his land for three years, he loses his land to the State of Israel, and then it is sometimes transferred to the settlement that interrupted the harvest in the first place.
The olive harvest will officially begin October 11 this year. But the Ja’abari land and trees are the only obstacle to the merger of two major settlements one mile northeast of the Tomb of Abraham and Sarah. So local Palestinian leaders decided to harvest these trees today, before the settlers might try to harvest them or otherwise interrupt their owner.
When I was still teaching school, I could never be here in October. This was going to be my first olive harvest. Unfortunately, I developed a secondary infection and fever last night, so my teammates requested I stay home and rest. They left without me at 8 and returned about 11:30 this morning, glowing with joy.
About 20 Israelis and internationals showed up to help the Ja’abaris with the harvest, and about 20 photojournalists showed up to record the event. About 20 settlers, with several children and babies, showed up to interrupt the harvest, and 40 to 60 Israeli soldiers and police also showed up.
The settlers generally try to provoke a violent reaction – by name-calling, swearing, threatening gestures, covert kicking, hitting, shoving, or stoning. Usually, the police and soldiers just watch until a scuffle or fight or other violence begins. Then the settlers immediately scapegoat a harvester and demand the police arrest him. Typically, in recent years, the police detain the scapegoat, declare a closure so everyone has to go home, and then release the scapegoat.
Today, however, the police did not just watch and wait. They assigned a specific officer to each of the known violent settlers in advance. Each officer kept himself between his assigned settler and the olive harvesters. Whichever way the settler moved, the officer mirrored that movement. This mirroring went on throughout the harvest. My teammates said the entire event resembled a huge, intricate, unending ballet.
The scene was in fact quite chaotic, with dust flying everywhere. The settlers did in fact shout and swear and pull out the tarps catching falling olives and rush at harvesters, trying to obstruct and interrupt. But they apparently had been told, perhaps by the police, perhaps by their own leadership, to not touch. Public opinion in Israel has apparently been shifting against the settlers, or at least against settler violence.
A few harvesters were covertly kicked or shoved or knocked down. But Rabbi Arik Asherman, one of the leaders of Israeli resistance to the occupation of Palestine, kept saying, “No matter what they do, just keep picking.” One Israeli was detained and questioned when the settlers accused him of violence. He had tried to prevent a known settler from snatching a full bucket of olives. But he was then released. Videotape later showed that he had not in fact been violent.
The harvesters felt the police and soldiers did the best job they have seen so far of controlling the settlers and allowing the owner of the land to harvest his olives. After two and a half hours, the owner served tea to all the harvesters, to thank them. They had finished five trees, and harvested two large bags (perhaps 40 gallons) of olives.
Blessed are the gentle, nonviolent ones; they shall inherit the earth...
Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called the children of God.
Lorin Peters [retired teacher at Bishop O'Dowd High School, Oakland]
2008 October 3
Olive trees are the pride and joy of every Palestinian family. They know which ancestor planted each of their trees, and when. Some trees bear fruit for 500 or more years.
So one of the more painful injuries of the military occupation of Palestine is the felling, burning, bulldozing, uprooting, or even stealing, of olive trees. And one of the more insidious tactics of the settlers is the interruption of the olive harvest. If they can prevent a farmer from tending his land for three years, he loses his land to the State of Israel, and then it is sometimes transferred to the settlement that interrupted the harvest in the first place.
The olive harvest will officially begin October 11 this year. But the Ja’abari land and trees are the only obstacle to the merger of two major settlements one mile northeast of the Tomb of Abraham and Sarah. So local Palestinian leaders decided to harvest these trees today, before the settlers might try to harvest them or otherwise interrupt their owner.
When I was still teaching school, I could never be here in October. This was going to be my first olive harvest. Unfortunately, I developed a secondary infection and fever last night, so my teammates requested I stay home and rest. They left without me at 8 and returned about 11:30 this morning, glowing with joy.
About 20 Israelis and internationals showed up to help the Ja’abaris with the harvest, and about 20 photojournalists showed up to record the event. About 20 settlers, with several children and babies, showed up to interrupt the harvest, and 40 to 60 Israeli soldiers and police also showed up.
The settlers generally try to provoke a violent reaction – by name-calling, swearing, threatening gestures, covert kicking, hitting, shoving, or stoning. Usually, the police and soldiers just watch until a scuffle or fight or other violence begins. Then the settlers immediately scapegoat a harvester and demand the police arrest him. Typically, in recent years, the police detain the scapegoat, declare a closure so everyone has to go home, and then release the scapegoat.
Today, however, the police did not just watch and wait. They assigned a specific officer to each of the known violent settlers in advance. Each officer kept himself between his assigned settler and the olive harvesters. Whichever way the settler moved, the officer mirrored that movement. This mirroring went on throughout the harvest. My teammates said the entire event resembled a huge, intricate, unending ballet.
The scene was in fact quite chaotic, with dust flying everywhere. The settlers did in fact shout and swear and pull out the tarps catching falling olives and rush at harvesters, trying to obstruct and interrupt. But they apparently had been told, perhaps by the police, perhaps by their own leadership, to not touch. Public opinion in Israel has apparently been shifting against the settlers, or at least against settler violence.
A few harvesters were covertly kicked or shoved or knocked down. But Rabbi Arik Asherman, one of the leaders of Israeli resistance to the occupation of Palestine, kept saying, “No matter what they do, just keep picking.” One Israeli was detained and questioned when the settlers accused him of violence. He had tried to prevent a known settler from snatching a full bucket of olives. But he was then released. Videotape later showed that he had not in fact been violent.
The harvesters felt the police and soldiers did the best job they have seen so far of controlling the settlers and allowing the owner of the land to harvest his olives. After two and a half hours, the owner served tea to all the harvesters, to thank them. They had finished five trees, and harvested two large bags (perhaps 40 gallons) of olives.
Blessed are the gentle, nonviolent ones; they shall inherit the earth...
Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called the children of God.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
latest news on how Israeli settlers and army act
CPTnet
19 October 2008
HEBRON: Israeli settlers beat up Palestinian reporter during olive harvest, punch woman CPTer
On the morning of Saturday 18 October 2008, a group of four Israeli settlers beat up a Palestinian reporter, Abed Hashlamoun, in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron. He required hospital treatment for his injuries.
Hashlamoun had been photographing Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals harvesting olives together in an event organized by Tel Rumeida Palestinian ARab landowners. Hashlamoun was walking alone through the olive groves when male settlers knocked him to the ground and began beating and kicking him.
Several of the olive pickers heard his cries and ran to help him. One of the settlers seized Hashlamoun's camera. CPTer Janet Benvie approached the settler and asked him to return the camera, but he did not respond. When Benvie took hold of the camera strap the young man punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground. He then hurled the camera into the rocky field below.
The settlers were still nearby when Israeli soldiers arrived. "I repeatedly asked the soldiers to detain the men who attacked us, but instead they permitted the attackers to leave the scene," said Benvie.
The Israeli military declared the area a closed military zone, ordered an end to the olive picking, and required the Israeli and international olive pickers to leave the area.
Photographs are available at http://cpt.org/gallery/album261
Hashlamoun was taken to hospital for treatment, but released shortly after. Benvie sustained a cut and bruising to her face, but did not require medical treatment.
[[Editorial note: Ir ia fascinating to me that while leaders of Israel are taking a fresh look at the 6 year old Saudi Peace Proposal for ending all angry and too often violent interactions between the Arab nations and Israel, the Israeli settlers, often immigrants from the USA or Russia, the latter often looking simply for subsidized brand new housing, but some US settlers are eager to pick a fight with Palestinians daring to still remain on the land they have lived on and owned legally for generations and even centuries. They are breaking "God's command to allow this to be the Jewish Promised Land forever and ever" even tho the Roman empire took it over in the first century, destroyed the Temple and much of Jerusalem, and Jews have never had any real occupation of any numbers since 2000 years ago.
Most of us live like the Palestinians on land we took away by force from the Native Americans, with the complication that the Palestinians were the Natives of the land that Israel now occupies, part of it legally with UN blessing in 1948 after the Holocaust, but the other half promised to the "natives", the Palestinian inhabitants. So the Israelis are the very recent, 60 year re-occupiers of their ancient homeland, so they are newcomers at what we have done with Native Americans for 5 or 6 centuries, but they are very quickly pushing them into the modern equivalent of Reservations called Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem, all lands that the Saudi proposal proposes be returned fully to the Palestinian owners and inhabitants, and rooting out the Settlers illegally building homes with Israeli government assistance and encouragement. And sometimes using physical violence to keep the "natives" out of "their land of Isreal" -- promised to them by God, of course.
But that is the same line we used in the 1500s and 1600s as we former Europeans invaded and took over the Natives' land we now live on: "this is the land Promised to us by God when we read the Bible in Europe", and as Christians assumed we were the new Chosen People of God. Heaven help us in our various misreadings far too literally of Holy Scriptures, and with muskets in one hand and Bible in the other.]]
----------------------------------------------
CPT's MISSION: "Getting in the Way." What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war? Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) seeks to enlist the whole church in organized, nonviolent alternatives to war and places teams of trained peacemakers in regions of lethal conflict.
COMMENTS: To ask questions or express concerns, criticisms and affirmations send messages to peacemakers@cpt.org.
19 October 2008
HEBRON: Israeli settlers beat up Palestinian reporter during olive harvest, punch woman CPTer
On the morning of Saturday 18 October 2008, a group of four Israeli settlers beat up a Palestinian reporter, Abed Hashlamoun, in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron. He required hospital treatment for his injuries.
Hashlamoun had been photographing Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals harvesting olives together in an event organized by Tel Rumeida Palestinian ARab landowners. Hashlamoun was walking alone through the olive groves when male settlers knocked him to the ground and began beating and kicking him.
Several of the olive pickers heard his cries and ran to help him. One of the settlers seized Hashlamoun's camera. CPTer Janet Benvie approached the settler and asked him to return the camera, but he did not respond. When Benvie took hold of the camera strap the young man punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground. He then hurled the camera into the rocky field below.
The settlers were still nearby when Israeli soldiers arrived. "I repeatedly asked the soldiers to detain the men who attacked us, but instead they permitted the attackers to leave the scene," said Benvie.
The Israeli military declared the area a closed military zone, ordered an end to the olive picking, and required the Israeli and international olive pickers to leave the area.
Photographs are available at http://cpt.org/gallery/album261
Hashlamoun was taken to hospital for treatment, but released shortly after. Benvie sustained a cut and bruising to her face, but did not require medical treatment.
[[Editorial note: Ir ia fascinating to me that while leaders of Israel are taking a fresh look at the 6 year old Saudi Peace Proposal for ending all angry and too often violent interactions between the Arab nations and Israel, the Israeli settlers, often immigrants from the USA or Russia, the latter often looking simply for subsidized brand new housing, but some US settlers are eager to pick a fight with Palestinians daring to still remain on the land they have lived on and owned legally for generations and even centuries. They are breaking "God's command to allow this to be the Jewish Promised Land forever and ever" even tho the Roman empire took it over in the first century, destroyed the Temple and much of Jerusalem, and Jews have never had any real occupation of any numbers since 2000 years ago.
Most of us live like the Palestinians on land we took away by force from the Native Americans, with the complication that the Palestinians were the Natives of the land that Israel now occupies, part of it legally with UN blessing in 1948 after the Holocaust, but the other half promised to the "natives", the Palestinian inhabitants. So the Israelis are the very recent, 60 year re-occupiers of their ancient homeland, so they are newcomers at what we have done with Native Americans for 5 or 6 centuries, but they are very quickly pushing them into the modern equivalent of Reservations called Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem, all lands that the Saudi proposal proposes be returned fully to the Palestinian owners and inhabitants, and rooting out the Settlers illegally building homes with Israeli government assistance and encouragement. And sometimes using physical violence to keep the "natives" out of "their land of Isreal" -- promised to them by God, of course.
But that is the same line we used in the 1500s and 1600s as we former Europeans invaded and took over the Natives' land we now live on: "this is the land Promised to us by God when we read the Bible in Europe", and as Christians assumed we were the new Chosen People of God. Heaven help us in our various misreadings far too literally of Holy Scriptures, and with muskets in one hand and Bible in the other.]]
----------------------------------------------
CPT's MISSION: "Getting in the Way." What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war? Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) seeks to enlist the whole church in organized, nonviolent alternatives to war and places teams of trained peacemakers in regions of lethal conflict.
COMMENTS: To ask questions or express concerns, criticisms and affirmations send messages to peacemakers@cpt.org.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Please try to attend this Berkeley meeting Saturday
What can we do now to end the war?
A strategy discussion for anti-war activists.
Saturday, October 18, from noon to 4 pm.
Noon to 1 – light potluck
1-4 – Discussion.
1744 University Avenue, between Grant and McGee.
About a ten-minute walk from downtown Berkeley BART. Street parking available.
Speakers:
David Raymond, Iraq Initiatives Project.
Helena Cobban, author of Re-Engage! America and the World After Bush.
Our challenge and our opportunity for peace.
Less than one month from now, Barack Obama will probably win the presidential election. Yet this will not by itself end the war in Iraq. Obama plans to withdraw only half the troops (combat troops) within 16 months. There are powerful forces that will fight withdrawal from Iraq. The U.S. military will not allow itself to be "defeated," and oil companies finally see a chance to profit from the invasion.
Yet we now have a better chance than ever before to end the war in Iraq quickly and completely.
The Obama campaign is, in Tom Hayden’s words, the largest political movement since the 1960s. Thousands of new activists, experienced at winning, can be mobilized next year to help end the war.
The American people are angry about the economic crisis. People will not tolerate another $200 billion spent on the war in Iraq next year when that money is desperately needed here at home.
In Iraq, major political parties and religious leaders (Ayatollah Sistani) have finally had enough and have called for a national referendum on the U.S. occupation.
Around the world, people are angry about the economic crisis that began in the U.S. and literally threatens many people’s lives. Ending the Iraq War is a litmus test for whether they can trust the new Obama administration to support their interests.
HOW CAN WE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THESE20NEW OPPORTUNITIES TO BUILD A MOVEMENT THAT CAN FINALLY BRING AN END TO THE IRAQ WAR?
PLEASE JOIN US.
For more information and to RSVP, email: draymond@sfsu.edu.
David Raymond is the co- founder of the Iraq Initiatives Project, which calls for a democratic, international solution to the Iraq War. He has been an activist for peace and justice for thirty years. Helena Cobban is a Quaker activist and an expert on the Middle East. She writes the Just World News blog
Sponsored by the Ecumenical Peace Institute/Clergy and Laity Concerned, and the Iraq Initiatives Project.
From a statement that Alameda Peace Network member Susan Toth will read to the Alameda City Council on Tuesday night. She alone gathered 500 signatures on the petition to place an anti-war initiative on the Alameda ballot.
"The majority of Alameda residents I approached eagerly signed the petition. [They were particularly concerned about the terrible impact of the war on the economy and on funding for schools and health care and other services.] Lots of people said just give me the petition and I’ll sign it.
I met a couple whose son is fighting in Iraq. The parents told me about the constant fear and anxiety they experience every time the telephone of the doorbell rings or when they get their mail. The father asked, "Why is this war going on? What did the Iraqi people do to us? Why do we have to bomb and kill them?"
"I talked to the sister of a sergeant who said that her brother is still alive, but last time he came home he was no longer himself. He was traumatized and sick. He constantly talked about his buddies being maimed, blinded, or killed. He talked about dead bodies, car bombs, being baked in blood, heat, sweat and sand. She broke down and cried and said, "Is this happening for the sake of oil? What are we doing in Iraq?"
I also met two soldiers who came home for a few weeks. One of them was newly married and his wife was pregnant. They said that the morale of the soldiers is very bad and they do not want to return to fight this war. In the beginning of the war they believed that the aim was to bring democracy and freedom to Iraq and do away with Saddam. However, instead of peace, stability and democracy there is endless war and the Iraqi people do not want the U.S. occupation to continue. The two soldiers said Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld lied to us. "This war is about expansion and greed."
A strategy discussion for anti-war activists.
Saturday, October 18, from noon to 4 pm.
Noon to 1 – light potluck
1-4 – Discussion.
1744 University Avenue, between Grant and McGee.
About a ten-minute walk from downtown Berkeley BART. Street parking available.
Speakers:
David Raymond, Iraq Initiatives Project.
Helena Cobban, author of Re-Engage! America and the World After Bush.
Our challenge and our opportunity for peace.
Less than one month from now, Barack Obama will probably win the presidential election. Yet this will not by itself end the war in Iraq. Obama plans to withdraw only half the troops (combat troops) within 16 months. There are powerful forces that will fight withdrawal from Iraq. The U.S. military will not allow itself to be "defeated," and oil companies finally see a chance to profit from the invasion.
Yet we now have a better chance than ever before to end the war in Iraq quickly and completely.
The Obama campaign is, in Tom Hayden’s words, the largest political movement since the 1960s. Thousands of new activists, experienced at winning, can be mobilized next year to help end the war.
The American people are angry about the economic crisis. People will not tolerate another $200 billion spent on the war in Iraq next year when that money is desperately needed here at home.
In Iraq, major political parties and religious leaders (Ayatollah Sistani) have finally had enough and have called for a national referendum on the U.S. occupation.
Around the world, people are angry about the economic crisis that began in the U.S. and literally threatens many people’s lives. Ending the Iraq War is a litmus test for whether they can trust the new Obama administration to support their interests.
HOW CAN WE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THESE20NEW OPPORTUNITIES TO BUILD A MOVEMENT THAT CAN FINALLY BRING AN END TO THE IRAQ WAR?
PLEASE JOIN US.
For more information and to RSVP, email: draymond@sfsu.edu.
David Raymond is the co- founder of the Iraq Initiatives Project, which calls for a democratic, international solution to the Iraq War. He has been an activist for peace and justice for thirty years. Helena Cobban is a Quaker activist and an expert on the Middle East. She writes the Just World News blog
Sponsored by the Ecumenical Peace Institute/Clergy and Laity Concerned, and the Iraq Initiatives Project.
From a statement that Alameda Peace Network member Susan Toth will read to the Alameda City Council on Tuesday night. She alone gathered 500 signatures on the petition to place an anti-war initiative on the Alameda ballot.
"The majority of Alameda residents I approached eagerly signed the petition. [They were particularly concerned about the terrible impact of the war on the economy and on funding for schools and health care and other services.] Lots of people said just give me the petition and I’ll sign it.
I met a couple whose son is fighting in Iraq. The parents told me about the constant fear and anxiety they experience every time the telephone of the doorbell rings or when they get their mail. The father asked, "Why is this war going on? What did the Iraqi people do to us? Why do we have to bomb and kill them?"
"I talked to the sister of a sergeant who said that her brother is still alive, but last time he came home he was no longer himself. He was traumatized and sick. He constantly talked about his buddies being maimed, blinded, or killed. He talked about dead bodies, car bombs, being baked in blood, heat, sweat and sand. She broke down and cried and said, "Is this happening for the sake of oil? What are we doing in Iraq?"
I also met two soldiers who came home for a few weeks. One of them was newly married and his wife was pregnant. They said that the morale of the soldiers is very bad and they do not want to return to fight this war. In the beginning of the war they believed that the aim was to bring democracy and freedom to Iraq and do away with Saddam. However, instead of peace, stability and democracy there is endless war and the Iraqi people do not want the U.S. occupation to continue. The two soldiers said Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld lied to us. "This war is about expansion and greed."
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