When Settlers get Abusive, Israeli Soldiers Attack the Abused, but the Sun Shines on All
On Thursday the 16th of October, hundreds of Israeli settlers / squatters gathered in a Palestinian hill known as Oush Gurab located in Beit Sahour (Shepherd’s Filed). This location was used for many years as an Israeli military outpost. Palestinians who live in its vicinity recall daily the violence and terror they experienced from Israeli soldiers stationed there. When the location lost its strategic advantage to the illegal separation barrier, the Israeli military evacuated the location. They no longer had to be in the middle of a Palestinian residential area, they can move to the other side of the prison walls now. After the evacuation, Palestinians returned to Oush Gurab and began working on numerous humanitarian and recreational projects including a children’s hospital and an outdoor activity park.
Dear Friends,
From the 24th of September to the 10th of October i will be participating with hundreds of people from across the world in a Grace Pilgrimage for Peace in Colombia. The idea for this pilgrimage grew out of the long standing cooperation between the Peace Research Centre Tamera, Portugal, and the Peace Village San José de Apartadó. Together with the inhabitants of other Colombian Peace Villages, they will show with this peace action their commitment to build up a global peace force which no longer stops at national borders.
The pilgrimage will pass through villages and hamlets surrounding San José, where, due to their remoteness, people live near military posts, police headquarters and other significant locations of the rebellion, totally unprotected between the fronts of the civil war. The goal of the pilgrimage is to become familiar with the threat to which Colombian peasants are exposed, to develop peace strategies, and to strengthen the Ring of Power – a confraternity for a future without war!
To learn more about the Pilgrimage and / or to support it please visit the following stie: http://www.tamera.org/index.php?id=462&L=0
Text of interview published in http://www.globalonenessproject.org/
Sami Awad
When I talk about nonviolence, and when I discuss nonviolence with people, the first word that comes to mind related to nonviolence is the word empowerment. And this is, for me, what nonviolence is all about. It is to empower individuals, empower families, empower communities, empower nations to deal with issues of injustice and oppression that they face in their lives on a daily basis. It is both a strategy of resistance, and also a strategy for moral and ethical growth within society. As a Palestinian, for example, living in this land, nonviolence becomes a core value for me because it is how we as Palestinians need to deal with oppression and resisting the injustice that we are facing, to be empowered not to be victims of the circumstances, not to give in to the circumstances but to deal with them in direct and effective ways. The power of nonviolence is for me also creates a situation where barriers are broken down between nations and between peoples, and even again within individuals themselves and the things that they go through in their own personal life. Nonviolence does not threaten the other, does not threaten the existence of the other but threatens the structures of injustice that are created that prevent that relationship from developing between you and those who are doing injustice to you. And the result of engaging in nonviolence is not in the fact that it stands on resistance one, nonviolence is powerful because it goes beyond resistant. It goes to creating the future that you seek with the other. And this is where equality becomes important—nonviolence really creates that foundation that premise where you can build that relationship of mutual trust and respect with those who have treated you unjustly that is founded on equality between you and them.
The challenge is to create a common thread of values where Jews, Christians, and Moslems begin to see that what is common between them outweighs, tremendously, what makes them different from each other.
in The Core Essence
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Sami Awad is the Executive Director of Holy Land Trust (HLT), a Palestinian nonprofit organization which he founded in 1998 in Bethlehem. HLT works with the Palestinian community at both the grassroots and leadership levels in developing nonviolent approaches that aim to end the Israeli occupation and build a future founded on the principles of nonviolence, equality, justice, and peaceful coexistence. read more…
In between all the violence, Mubarak Awad has slowly brought the Gandhian way to bear…
by Robert Hirschfield,
Mubarak Awad
Another path to peace? Palestinians revel in Gandhi and the nonviolent struggle.
by Aimee Ginsburg,
LINK TO ARTICLE
Join people from across the globe in this incredible and moving expereince; be personally invovled in re-building a home for a family that has suffered so much.
I know it may seem cold now, but summer will eventually be here and many of you are planning their vacations. Some will travel to traditional tourist locations, get a nice tan and a T-shirt they will be too embarrassed to wear at home, others will want more than to be tourists and will seek for an opportunity to change their life and to the lives of those they meet.
Let me therefore ask you a few question….
- Would you like to experience the Holy Land in a way that does not only introduce you to its rich history but also to its present situation?
- Are you interested in truly knowing what life is like in the Palestine and learn about its culture and traditions?
- Are you interested in learning about the political conflict in the Middle East from those who are living it and are working on resolving it?
- Are you interested in increasing your role in achieving peace in the Middle East when you return home?
- Are you interested in volunteering and truly helping a community in need?
- Are you interested in learning Arabic and even get college credit for that?
- Are you interested in living with a local family and to have a second home in Palestine where you will always be welcomed for a traditional meal and some good coffee?
If the answer is “NO” then maybe, just maybe, what you are really interested in is to learn the traditional Palestinian line dance called the “Dabkeh.”
If you got Happy Feet after watching this youtube and your answer is now “YES” then visit the Palestine Summer Encounter Program website… and join us for a life changing experience….
Even though he is very busy this time of year giving gifts to children all around the world; this Christmas season Santa Claus took some time of and came on an early visit to Palestine. He did not come with gifts but came to stand in solidarity and bring hope to Palestinians suffering from the continued occupation of their land. He came to bring hope to the people of Bethlehem where on a daily basis farmers and villagers are having their land stolen for the building of the Separation Wall and the expanding of illegal settlements.
On the 21st of December Santa joined the weekly nonviolent protest. This protest takes place in the Southern villages of Bethlehem every Friday and it includes Palestinians, internationals and Israeli nonviolent activists working together to oppose the military occupation. Every Friday, the nonviolent protest is faced with tens (sometimes hundreds) of heavily armed Israeli soldiers. This Christmas Friday was not any different and even Santa was not surprised.
The colored strings of lights are now decorating its streets. As you drive past homes you now see Christmas trees proudly placed in front of windows so that all may see. Manger Street is full of traffic at night but no one is complaining for everyone is waiting their turn to receive candy from one of the many Santa Clauses dancing with joy in the street. Everywhere you go you hear Christmas songs played from small radios placed in front of stores or on balconies. In Manger Square, the main Christmas tree shines with bright colors and decorations. The joy is doubled in this holy city this year as both the Palestinian Christians and the Muslim communities celebrate. Christmas and Eid Al-Adha (the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice) have come together this year.
