PALESTINE-RELATED EVENTS
in the SEATTLE AREA for May 2-9
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. We try to
limit this listserv to
Seattle area events and
news about the International Solidarity Movement to End
the Occupation. To have us post an event on this calendar,
please email
lindabevis1@aol.com. For
more general news and analysis on the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict without a
pro-Israeli-government bias, please see:
palestinechronicle.com,
electronicIntifada.net, btselem.org, 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 10, 7-9
* Next ISM Seattle subcommittee meeting: TBA
* Next ISM Seattle Discussion Cafe: May 5,
5-8 pm (every first Wed.)
* Next Sidewalk Education, May 8, 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. To find out about other videos PSC
has for lending:
palestinejustice@aol.com.
THIS WEEK:
WOMEN IN BLACK ***ISM
DISCUSSION CAFE ***SIDEWALK EDUCATION ***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 5, 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.
May 8, 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.
UPCOMING: SHADOWS OF
EXILE: REFUGEE COMMEMORATION***ISM TRAINING
***PALESTINE LIVES
***PALESTINE IN YOUR LIVINGROOM? BRING SPEAKERS AND VIDEOS TO YOUR
FRIENDS ANYTIME -- CALL
PSC FOR MORE INFO 206 633-1086***
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 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.
June 19, The next
PALESTINE LIVES event at the Crossroads community centre
will be Saturday June
19th. 5:30 - 8:00pm, in the gym. More info:
m.simonsen@comcast.net.
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