By Jaclynn Ashly, in Aljzeera, Jan 2, 2018
(This reminds me strongly of the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 during the Freedom Struggle in the US —Skip Schiel’s note)
Israeli authorities are seeking 12 charges against Ahed Tamimi, a prominent 16-year-old Palestinian activist filmed slapping and kicking two Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank. Continue reading “Israel indicts Palestinian teen activist Ahed Tamimi”
In February 2017 Friends Central High School in Philadelphia had fired two teacher-advisors to a student group which had invited a Palestinian Quaker, Sa’ed Atshan, to discuss the situation in Palestine-Israel. In this interview, after a long discernment, Sa’ed speaks about what happened and how he approaches what some feel is censorship by a quaker school.
READ THE ARTICLE HERE Continue reading “The Challenges We Face and Community We Forge: An interview with Sa’ed Atshan”
By David B. Green December 6, 2017 in Haaretz
Jerusalem is holy to three religions. Jerusalem is a powder keg, and the smallest wrong move there could set off a religious war. The Arab-Israeli conflict will never be solved until the Jerusalem question is resolved. Continue reading “Jerusalem: Why the World Doesn’t Recognize It as Israel’s Capital”
Gaye Theresa Johnson and Alex Lubin,
on Literary Hub website, Sept 1, 2017
A telling excerpt:
…GTJ & AL: Your most recent scholarship is focused on the question of Palestine, and its connection to the Black freedom movement. When did this connection become obvious to you and what circumstances, or conjunctures, made this insight possible? Continue reading “Angela Davis on Black Lives Matter, Palestine, and the Future of Radicalism”
To the casual visitor or tourist driving through the occupied West Bank or Jerusalem, Israeli settlements may appear as just another set of houses on a hill.
The middle-class suburban style townhouses, built fast and locked in a grid of uniform units, stand like fortified compounds, in direct contrast to the sprawling limestone Palestinian homes below.
Settlement homes, mostly constructed of cement with a cosmetic limestone cladding, tend to fashion a similar look: American-style villas topped by red-tiled roofs and surrounded by lush, neatly trimmed green lawns.
The largest settlement, Modi’in Illit, houses more than 64,000 Israeli Jews in the occupied West Bank. The mega-settlement has its own mayor, as well as schools, shopping malls and medical centres.
Some settlements even have their own universities.
By Dr. Swee Chai Ang, September 13, 2017
This September will be the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre in West Beirut. Three thousand unarmed refugees were killed from 15-18 September 1982.
I was then a young orthopedic trainee who had resigned from St Thomas Hospital to join the Christian Aid Lebanon medical team to help those wounded by Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. That invasion, named “Peace for Galilee”, and launched on 6 June 1982, mercilessly bombarded Lebanon by air, sea, and land. Water, food, electricity, and medicines were blockaded. This resulted in untold wounded and deaths, with 100,000 made suddenly homeless.
The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel’s Public Relations War in the United States, a documentary movie rarely shown publicly in the United States, reveals the PR campaign by the Israeli government to obfuscate and falsify realities of the occupation and blockade of Palestine. Interviewed on Democracy Now, Roger Waters, founding member of the iconic rock band Pink Floyd, and Sut Jhally, professor of communication at the University of Massachusetts and founder and executive director of the Media Education Foundation which produced the documentary, discuss the film’s meaning and reception.
(Dating back to late 2014, after a summer of unprecedented violence over Gaza and inspired by a statement from Britain Yearly Meeting in August 2014, Friends Meeting at Cambridge, followed by Salem Quarterly Meeting, and finally the Yearly Meeting itself unites on the following statement.)
Minute 2017-46 Annual Sessions at Castleton, Vermont, August 8, 2017
The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) testimony on peace, justice, and nonviolence is based in our experience of the divine in all of creation and within all persons. Thus, we are deeply troubled by the suffering and injustice caused by the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and we are concerned that our government perpetuates that violence by continuing to send billions of dollars of military aid to the region. Continue reading “NEYM unites on a statement about Palestine-Israel”
The New England Yearly Meeting Annual Sessions takes place August 5–10, 2017 at Castleton University, Vermont. Our team is currently planning programs.
WORKSHOPS
Israel, Palestine and New England Yearly Meeting — a two part workshop with Jennifer Bing of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Chicago office — Tuesday & Wednesday, 3:30-5pm
Israel/Palestine flares into the headlines periodically but intense work to resolve issues continues in the background with little notice. This workshop with share some of that work and help move NEYM to finding its voice on the problem. Day One will focus on two AFSC campaigns. “No Way To Treat a Child” has been tracking child detentions and raising these concerns with Congressional leaders and the State Department. “Gaza Unlocked” seeks to draw attention to the ongoing trauma in Gaza as well as the beautiful resilience of the people. Day Two will continue talking about that work as well as explore ways for Meetings and NEYM to have a voice in work for peace with justice. Jennifer Bing from the AFSC will be a resource for this workshop. Continue reading “Plans for NEYM Annual Sessions 2017”
Layla Helwa and Ariel Eure supervised a Palestinian peace club that had invited Sa’ed Atshan, a Palestinian Quaker professor, to speak in February, but the talk was canceled at the last minute after some Jewish parents and students and others complained. The teachers were fired for supporting their students’ protest over the cancelled talk.
Read more in article from the Philadelphia Inquirer, updated May 9, 2017…
During March and April 2017, with their minute on the US Role in Israel-Palestine, Friends Meeting at Cambridge (FMC) members, who had participated in the minute-writing process, visited local meetings in Salem Quarterly Meeting. The Quarterly Meeting heard FMC’s minute at its October 2016 meeting and sent the minute back to local meetings for their consideration. Continue reading “Findings from Visits in Salem Quarter”
