PALESTINE-RELATED
EVENTS in the SEATTLE AREA for May 15-23
For information about history, issues, and our
Seattle Divest from Israeli
Military
Occupation campaign, please see www.palestineinformation.org
E-mail us at
palestinejustice@aol.com.
To have us
post an event on this calendar, please email
For more
general news and analysis on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict without a
pro-Israeli-government bias, please see:
www.palestinechronicle.com, www.electronicIntifada.net, www.btselem.org, www.miftah.org and other sites listed on our website.
To send a
letter about anything you learn here to your congressional rep:
http://www.truemajority.com/index.asp?action=2174&ms=irqpeace
PALESTINE
SOLIDARITY COMMITTEE / ISM SEATTLE NEWS
* Next Palestine Solidarity Committee
Meeting: May 24, 6-9
* Next ISM Seattle subcommittee meeting: TBA
* Next ISM Seattle Discussion Cafe: June 2,
5-8 pm (every first Wed.)
* Next Sidewalk Education, June 12, 12-2 p.m.
* Next Divestment meeting: TBA, 7-9 pm.
* Next Theatre meeting:,May 18, 6:30-8:30 (usually every first Tuesday)
* Next ISM pre-training: May 22, 23, 2004
* Next ISM Palestine Campaign: Summer 2004 --
June 25-Aug. 14
* Palestine Film Festival: October 2004
Call 206
633-1086 for locations, dates, times.
PSC now has
a copy of the new Media Education Foundation video, "Peace, Propaganda and
the Promised Land: American Media and
the Subversion of Peace" (75
minutes) that you can borrow to show in your living room or community
hall. We previewed the video and found
it extremely informative as a tool for understanding what is really happening
in the Occupied Territories and why Americans don't know about it. For more details on the video, go to the
website of the Media Education Foundation at www.mediaed.org. To borrow the video, email
woodwend@earthlink.net with your request. For information about other videos in
PSC’s lending library, contact: palestinejustice@aol.com
THIS
WEEK:
-SHADOWS
OF EXILE: REFUGEE COMMEMORATION
-RABBIS
FOR HUMAN RIGHTS SPEAKER
-ISM
TRAINING
-WOMEN
IN BLACK
-PALESTINE
IN YOUR LIVINGROOM? BRING SPEAKERS AND VIDEOS TO YOUR FRIENDS ANYTIME --
CALL PSC FOR MORE INFO 206 633-1086
WOMEN IN
BLACK.
Stand
against occupation and war every Thursday at Westlake. 4th & Pine. 5-6 pm.
Wear Black. Men can support.
May 15, 7 pm, SHADOWS OF EXILE
An
outdoor art and performance event. THE ARTS BREWERY, 3100 Airport Way South,
Seattle. Contact: Edward Mast, (206) 633-1086 edwardmast@aol.com. Over thirty artists, dancers, performers
and writers present Shadows of Exile, an outdoor art and performance event
exploring the theme of refugees. Music,
masks, dance and spoken word will be part of an interactive guided procession
through our refugee planet. SHADOWS OF
EXILE will commemorate al-Naqba/the Catastrophe of 1948, when over 400 villages
were destroyed and almost a million Palestinians were driven out to become
refugees. Over 4 milliion Palestinian
refugees live outside Palestine today, with no
right
to return to their homes or even their country. The performance will include poetry by Mahmoud Darwish and an
installation containing all the names of the destroyed Palestinian villages.
Shadows of Exile is presented by the Palestine Solidarity Committee and Voices
of Palestine, as part of the the Art of Resistance Conference, May 15 and
16. For more information about the conference
itself: 206 208 4241 or www.artofresistance-seattle.net
May 19,
RABBIS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS…
…member
Arik Asherman, Israeli rabbi and part of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel,
also works with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. He will be speaking at Temple Beth Am, Wed,
5/19, 7 pm, 2632 NE 80th St, Seattle. He is a strong advocate for Palestinian
rights and is active in resisting the demolitions of Palestinian homes.
May 22, 23,
ISM TRAINING IN SEATTLE.
Join
the Freedom Summer Campaign of the International Solidarity Movement to End the
Occupation, June 25-August 14. Minimum stay is 2 weeks. Do nonviolent direct action to confront the
Israeli occupation. Training before you
go over is required. Some partial funding and lots of advice available. Also a PALESTINE-FOCUSED FIRST-AID TRAINING
More info: 206 633-1086.
UPCOMING:
***ISM
DISCUSSION CAFÉ
***SIDEWALK EDUCATION
***
NATIONAL WEEK OF
ACTION
***PALESTINE
LIVES
***PALESTINE
IN YOUR LIVINGROOM? BRING SPEAKERS AND
VIDEOS
TO YOUR FRIENDS ANYTIME -- CALL PSC FOR MORE INFO 206 633-1086***
June
2 ISM DISCUSSION CAFE …
…at
the B&O Espresso, Belmont and Olive on Capitol
Hill.
Drop by anytime between 5 and 8 pm to learn more about the
International
Solidarity Movement to End the Occupation.
Every first Wednesday of the
month.
More info: 206 633-1086.
June 12,
12-2 pm. SIDEWALK EDUCATION FOR PALESTINIAN HUMAN RIGHTS.
Usually
every 2nd Saturday from 12-2 pm.
We
have info, banners, signs, and welcome all anti-racists to join us. Palestine
Solidarity Committee. More info: palestinejustice@aol.com. Check our calendar for updates. Call 206 633-1086 if you need to confirm a
location. Next Sidewalk Ed is May
8, 2004. Westlake Park: 4th
& Pine, downtown Seattle.
US
Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
National
Week of Action--June 5-11, 2004
No
More U.S. Support for Israel's Illegal Military Occupation!
On
June 5-11, join with the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation in a
NATIONAL WEEK OF ACTION national week of action to demand that our government
end its military, economic, and diplomatic support for Israel's illegal
military occupation of the West Bank,
Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. For
more information about Israel's illegal occupation, its violations of
international law, and the role of the United States in supporting them, please
see "Ending the Occupation: It's the Law" at:
http://endtheoccupation.org/downloads/fact_sheet_2.pdf
and "Dual Occupations: If It's Wrong in Palestine, Why is the U.S. Doing
it in Iraq?" at: http://endtheoccupation.org/downloads/dual_occupations.pdf
June
19, The next PALESTINE LIVES event at the Crossroads community center
will
be Saturday June 19th. 5:30 - 8:00pm, in the gym. More info:
PALESTINE
IN YOUR LIVING ROOM:
As
always, Palestine Solidarity Committee would love to help you discuss this
issue with your community. Invite friends over for dinner or tea and show a
video and host a speaker who’s just back from witnessing the occupation. All
for free. Let us know if you’re interested: 206 633-1086, palestinejustice@aol.com .
ONGOING
CAMPAIGNS
-STOP
THE WALL CAMPAIGN
-GO TO RAFAH
TO INVESTIGATE RACHEL CORRIE’S DEATH CAMPAIGN
-OLYMPIA-RAFAH
SISTER CITY PROJECT
-SEATTLE
DIVEST FROM ISRAELI MILITARY OCCUPATION CAMPAIGN
STOP THE
WALL CAMPAIGN.
The
Wall is higher than the Berlin Wall, will take millions of American tax dollars
to build, and cuts the West Bank in two: confiscating some of the richest
Palestinian farmland and many wells for Israeli use. For more info: John Reese, jreese@scn.org
, 206-568-7110 or Community Action
Network can@drizzle.com
This
link is to a translation of a May 23rd article in Yediot Ahronot titled
“A
Wall in the Heart.”
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1546.shtml
These
links have additional information on the wall including maps.
http://www.gush-shalom.org/thewall/index.html
http://www.poica.org/casestudies/Changing%20Wall%20Path%2016-06-03/index.htm
The
Israeli government continues to build a massive wall to surround Palestinian
areas and turn their ghettos into large prisons. Twice as high and planned-to-be three times as long as the Berlin
Wall, Israel's latest project of dispossession has already uprooted tens of
thousands of Palestinian fruit and olive trees and has destroyed or isolated
from Palestinian farmers tens of thousands of dunams of farmland, de facto
confiscating the Palestinian people's most fertile land and most important
water wells. Entire farming communities
are losing all of their agricultural land.
More statistics:10% of the West Bank
will
be confiscated by and for Israel by the path of this wall. As of December 2002, some 11,500 dunams of
land have been razed for the footprint of the wall, and 83,000 trees uprooted. Over 31 groundwater wells will be in the
confiscated areas of the wall's first phase. A number of villages are to lose
their ONLY source of water. Land
confiscation, destruction, and severe restriction of movement will translate
into the loss of over 6,500 jobs. Over
100 buildings have thusfar been destroyed to make way for the wall, mainly
shops, an important source of income for families and communities At least 17
Palestinian communities will be trapped between the wall and the Green Line.
Some communities will be surrounded on all sides by the wall. If completed as
planned, some 95,000 Palestinians will be isolated. A number of small villages have been informed that their
proximity to the wall will deem most of their community demolished.
Courtesy
of PENGON. For more information and
statistics, see: www.pengon.org
The ISM invites you to join the Palestinian
people in coordinated direct-action, nonviolent resistance to this
strangulation, oppression and affront to peace initiatives. While leaders talk about peace and the
"road map", take part in working for justice on the ground and paving
the road to freedom. For more
information: www.palsolidarity.org
SEATTLE
DIVEST FROM ISRAELI MILITARY OCCUPATION CAMPAIGN:
Ask
Seattle City Council to divest its pension funds from American companies
selling war machines to Israel. Includes Caterpillar and Boeing. More info: www.palestineinformation.org ;
206 633-1086.
GO TO
RAFAH CAMPAIGN
CALL ON YOUR
REPRESENTATIVES TO GO TO RAFAH TO INVESTIGATE RACHEL CORRIE’S DEATH & TO
SUPPORT THE RACHEL CORRIE RESOLUTION (H.Con.Res. 111 calls for a U.S.
investigation into her death. Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old American peace
activist who was killed by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bulldozer while
nonviolently protesting the demolition of the home of a Palestinian doctor and
his family in the Gaza Strip on March 16. For more details, please see: http://www.endtheoccupation.org ):
Murray: 206.553.5545; Cantwell: 206.220.6400;
McDermott:
206.553-7170; Baird:360.695.6292....
DONATIONS
IN MEMORY OF RACHEL CORRIE:
International
Solidarity Movement -- Palestine
c/o
Linda Bevis & Ed Mast
4330
2nd Ave. NE
Seattle,
WA 98105
(you
can also send donations to Rafah to this address; make checks out to “MECA”)
Rachel
Corrie Memorial Fund
The
Community Foundation of South Puget Sound
111
Market Street NE, Suite 375
Olympia,
WA 98501
More
information on the Community Foundation can be found at:
http://www.thecommunityfoundation.com
Rachel
Corrie Memorial Fund
c/o
The Evergreen State College Foundation
Library
Building, Room 3122
The
Evergreen State College
2700
Evergreen Parkway NW
Olympia,
WA 98505
Corrie
Scholarship Fund
c/o
Elizabeth Abuhayder
351
Lee Street
Seattle,
WA 98109
Plant
An Olive Tree in East Jerusalem in Rachel’s Memory
$20
buys a tree
Contact:
Joan Abu Jebara
PR
& Advocacy Desk Coordinator
YWCA
Palestine
email:
pr.advocacy@ywca-palestine.org or olivetree@ywca-palestine.org
You can also send a check to "Friends of
Sabeel-North Amerca", which is an
IRS
registered 501(c)(3) organization and
the local contact is: sister Elaine
Kelley,
admin. officer, 2036 SE Jefferson St., Milwaukie, OR 97222-7660 Ph:
503-653-6625
email: kelleysfcc@aol.com (do this and sister Elaine sent us a
receipt
and forwarded the forms to the YWCA/ YMCA in Jerusalem).
The
Corrie family also encourages people to remember Rachel by doing
volunteer
service in their community.
Cards
and remembrances for the Corrie family should be sent to:
P.O.
Box 12149
Olympia,
WA 98508
Emails
to the family can be sent to:
rachelsmessage@the-corries.com
"MIDDLE
EAST JUSTICE SCHOLARSHIP IN MEMORY OF RACHEL CORRIE" has been
created. This was created with the
generous contributions of our communities.
If
people are still interested in making contributions to this fund they can do so
by writing a check to the name of the scholarship fund and send this to
Evergreen State College at 2700 Evergreen Parkway NW., Olympia, WA, 98505.
OLYMPIA-RAFAH
SISTER CITY PROJECT
Dear
Friend,
We’re
writing to ask your help on an urgent matter. As you likely know, the
Palestinians of Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, have been enduring a terrifying
assault by the Israeli occupation forces.
Hundreds of homes in Rafah were wantonly demolished last month in an
indiscriminate campaign of destruction that Amnesty International labeled a
“war crime”. Thousands of people, already impoverished, were then left
homeless,
and
the campaign of home destruction continued with scores of houses leveled in the
month of November. A grave humanitarian
crisis is taking shape, with many
injured
persons cut off from medical care by the Israeli Occupation forces, and local
hospitals unable to cope with the growing number of casualties.
One
international volunteer currently working in Rafah sent this dispatch on
November 19th, which gives a look into the grim daily existence of Gaza:
We
are spending much of our days visiting families who have lost children and
other family members from Israeli bullets. The other day in Gaza City, halfway
through Ramadan, a very poor family lost one of its sons. The 13 year old was
out catching birds with other kids from the neighborhood when an Israeli
military foot patrol came upon them. The autopsy report describes the child as
being shot 17 times at close range and his face was injured from being stomped
on by the soldiers’ boots. His arm was broken when they dragged him from the
place of his murder to the border, in order to claim they shot him because he
got too close to the Green Line.
In
Rafah, another 13 year old child was shot in the stomach on his way home from
school. That day there was an unusual amount of gunfire all day long…In Block
O, one of the refugee camps along the border, this child was just getting out
of class and on his way home when he was either targeted or hit with a stray
bullet. He was not killed instantly, but was taken to the ICU where over the
course of 3 days was given 16 liters of blood. In the end the doctors could not
stop the bleeding and the child died.
Stories
of such atrocities are almost entirely absent from U.S. media reporting, yet
are common fare to those involved in solidarity work inside Palestine. As citizens of the country that finances and
enables the Occupation, we are trying to provide some immediate relief and hope
to the victims, while laying the foundation for long-term change.
Who
We Are: The concept of an Olympia-to-Rafah sister city relationship was begun
last year by our friend and colleague Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an
Israeli military bulldozer on March 16.
Rachel insisted on living in Rafah because she thought it was there that
people faced the occupation’s harshest conditions. It is well known that she was a member of the International
Solidarity Movement and that she lost her life defending a Palestinian family’s
home from destruction. Not so well
known were her efforts at establishing a sister-city relationship. She traveled to Rafah with the names of
school children from her hometown, seeking to pair them with counterparts in
Rafah in a pen-pal exchange. She
imagined all sorts of cultural exchanges, aid projects, and direct ways of
connecting people across the many barriers of distance, language and
misunderstanding that separate us. She
believed that only then might our country’s misguided policies be confronted
and changed.
Although
Rachel’s life was cut short, many of us were inspired by her and have resolved
to carry out her project. Beginning
with a small core group, we have steadily expanded since our formation last
Spring. A number of our members have
gone to live in Rafah, building connections with people and institutions
there. We have begun a Fair Trade
exchange for Palestinian artwork through the Union of Palestinian Women, we
support a Center for Disabled Persons, we have sponsored cultural exchanges,
and we offer translation between English and Arabic for our pen-pal
program. You can find out more about
us, or contact us, through our website at http://www.orscp.org/.
What
You Can Help With Right Now: Right now the people in Rafah are asking us for help
in
obtaining medical equipment and supplies.
The idea of a Sister City in the U.S. has raised hopes inside Rafah, and
we wish to respond to their appeal as generously as possible. While we have longer-term ideas about
setting up doctor exchanges and assistance from local hospitals, we would like
to respond to the more immediate request of obtaining medical supplies. Our
group’s ability to respond to such an appeal is limited, and so we are reaching
out to you for assistance.
Any
contribution you can make to support this project will be fully tax-deductible,
and our transfer of funds to Palestine will be completely legal and
transparent. Our 501(c)3 fiscal sponsor
is the Middle East Childrens’ Alliance in Berkeley, CA, directed by longtime
activist Barbara Lubin. If you are not
familiar with them, see their website at
http://www.mecaforpeace.org/ . MECA is one of the most established aid
organizations in the U.S. working in the Mideast.
The
funds they send to Rafah for us will be distributed through Dr. Mona El-Farar
of the Union of Health Work Committees. You can read Dr. El-Farar’s recent
report on Rafah’s medical crisis at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2054.shtml
If
you have any questions, feel free to contact us by phone at (360) 867-0290 or
via email at tomwright59@comcast.net
Thank
you so much for your help.
Tom
Wright and Therese Saliba