Breaking the Siege of Gaza and Challenging the Israeli Lobby’s Stranglehold on U.S. Policy!

Second Freedom Flotilla begins its voyage to Gaza with two Massachusetts peace activists on board!

Hear from Ridgely Fuller and Paki Wieland about their imminent voyage on the “Audacity of Hope” to break the siege of Gaza. And Daniela Loffreda from Italy, a good friend of Vic Arrigoni, the longtime Italian human rights activist recently murdered in Gaza and in whose spirit “stay human” the Flotilla sails.

In addition, we will have a report of the tumultuous events in DC during the recent Move Over AIPAC Conference: Marty Federman, Rick Colbath-Hess, Ellen Graves, Priscilla Lynch and Sarah Roche-Mahdi will share their highlights or lowlights.

This eye-opening two-part evening will be moderated by Heike Schotten, Asst. Professor of Political Science at UMASS, Boston.

Wednesday, June 15, 7-9pm
Cambridge Friends Meeting Hall
5 Longfellow Park
Cambridge

Sponsors: AFSC, American Jews for A Just Peace, Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights, Greater Boston Codepink, Jewish Voice for Peace, United for Justice with Peace, Sabeel New England, Boston WILPF, Boston United National Antiwar Committee

and

The Palestinian Cultural Center for Peace

invite you,

Remembering the Nakba – Celebrating Palestine

Reflection on the Past…Hope for the Future

with

Professor Yaser Najjar

Also featuring Dr. Kareem Azab with a fine selection of Arabic music and songs.

Dinner will be served after the presentation.

When: Sunday, May 15, 2011 (6:00 pm; Note: the program will start at 6:15 sharp – presentation first.)

Where:  Palestine Cultural Center for Peace

41 Quint Ave .  Allston

Free Parking is available, a parking assistant will be available on the premises.

Donations to this event are welcome at the door.

Dr. Najjar is a  Professor at Framingham State University. His research focus include Geopolitical Structure of the Middle East,  Transportation Planning;Urban design and Land Use Planning;Housing and Squatered Urban Settlements:Site Analysis of Tourism and Recreational Destinations.

AlNakba: An Arabic word meaning “catastrophe or disaster”.
Palestinians use this word – AlNakba, in reference to the events that took place in Palestine in 1948 and culminated on May 15 of that year in the forced creation of the state of Israel followed by the first Arab Israeli war.
63 years after the Nakba, Palestinians across the globe continue to commemorate that part of their modern history. It is a constant reminder of the 800,000 Palestinians who were forced to flee their homes, villages and towns to become refugees – the grand parents of 7 million Palestinians today. It is also a reminder of the 535 Palestinian villages destroyed by Zionist terrorist groups.

For details and more information please visit the following websites:

www.palestineremembered.com
www.alnakba.org

Thursday May 19th
7:00 PM
Saint Katharine Drexel Parish Center
175 Ruggles St. Roxbury
(across Tremont St from the Ruggles T Stop on the Orange Line)*

*****

“In Jerusalem
there is a sky dispersed in people.
She protects us, we protect her,
and we carry her on our shoulders,
if the times grow too cruel for her moons…

In Jerusalem
there’s a scent compounding Babel and India,
in the perfume market by the oil quarter,
a scent that, by God,
has a language.
You’d understand it if you listened.

And when they throw their tear gas,
it says: never mind,
And when the gas has dispersed,
it says: you see?”

Tamim Al-Barghouti, Fil Quds (In Jerusalem)
Translated by Tasnim Qutait

*****

HISTORY

This May marks the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”) in Palestine in 1948 when over
935,000 Palestinians (85% of the indigenous population of Palestine at that time) were forced off their land,
in some cases at gunpoint, in other cases through massacres or threats of massacres like the massacre at
Deir Yassin. As a result, 530 of an estimated 550 total villages were completely destroyed or depopulated.
“Israel” was founded on the racist ideology of zionism. It has followed the expansionist and genocidal logic of
white supremacy and colonialism for over sixty years. Today, the genocide in Palestine continues: from the
planned demolition of Palestinian homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied Al Quds (Jerusalem)
to the attacks by Zionist settlers on Palestinian farmers in the Qana valley to the continued siege of the people of Gaza– deprived of food, water, electricity, and medicine– to the mass detention of over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners.

PLEASE JOIN US.

*This is the second event in the P3 Series: Palestine, Poetry, and Politics and is free and open to the public. Free parking will be available.

Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee present:

Omar Barghouti
On the Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights

With moderator and discussant:

Alice Rothchild, MD

Author, “Broken Promises, Broken Dreams”

Wednesday, April 13
7:30-10:30 PM
Emerson Hall 105 (map)

After months of extended delays and an international public pressure campaign, the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem has granted Omar Barghouti a visa to visit the United States. Mr. Barghoti is a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the Palestinian Civil Society Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

Mr. Barghouti will discuss his new book, Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, which will be available for sale after the talk.

Please RSVP on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=199878913378667

See the PSC website for the latest updates www.harvardpsc.com

Cosponsored by Justice for Palestine at HLS, Middle East Law Students Association and GSAS Alliance for Justice in the Middle East.

For more information, please contact Lena Awwad (lena.awwad@college.harvard.edu) or Sarah Macaraeg (sarah@haymarketbooks.org).

Reviews:

“A lucid and morally compelling book… perfecting timed to make a major contribution

to this urgently needed global campaign for justice, freedom and peace.”

–Archbishop Desmond Tutu

“No one has done more to build the intellectual, legal and moral case for BDS than Omar Barghouti. The global Palestinian solidarity movement has been transformed and is on the cusp of major new breakthroughs.”

–Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine

“There is no more comprehensive and persuasive case than his for boycott, divestment, and sanctions to end the Israeli occupation and establish the ethical claim of Palestinian rights.”

–Judith Butler, Co-director of the Program of Critical Theory at the University of California at Berkeley

Saturday,March 26, 6:30-Palestine Cultural Center for Peace,Allston
EVERY DAY IN PALESTINE IS LAND DAY

Join us Commemorate Land Day with an Eye Witness
account on the Current Resistance in Palestine with
Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh.

Program includes:
- A Talk, a discussion, and a book signing by Dr.
Mazin Qumsiyeh of his new book “Popular Resistance in
Palestine, A History of   Hope and Empowerment”.
- Palestinian Dinner, and an Arabic Musical program
featuring Kareem Azab.

Where: The Palestine Cultural Center for Peace, 41
Quint Ave, Allston.
When: Saturday, March 26, at 6:30pm.

$10 Donation is suggested; students are free;

Three Visions of the Middle East

(Use Discount Code PFF35 )

By Naomi Wallace
Presented by Underground Railway Theater
Nov. 18-Dec. 19, 2010
Central Square Theater
450 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA  02139

For the schedule and info about the free Talk-in-the-Box series, visit: http://centralsquaretheater.org/season/10-11/fever.html

The Fever Chart – Three Visions of the Middle East is a unique combination of lyrical theatricality and political passion, presented by Underground Railway Theater.  Three visions: An Israeli soldier’s encounter with a mysterious Palestinian woman in the Rafah Zoo; A Palestinian father’s revelation to a young Israeli woman of their shared history; A bookish Iraqi bird collector’s tale of his conscription into Saddam’s army.

Directed by Elena Araoz, with a cross-cultural cast featuring local favorite Ken Baltin and Najla Said, daughter of author/activist Edward Said, The Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle East reaches out like prophecy, challenging us to envision peace during the holiday season.

Organization:  Massachusetts Residents for International Human Rights

Voters in the 34^th Middlesex district of South Medford – West Somerville, the 23^rd Middlesex district of Arlington, the 15^th Suffolk district of Boston (Jamaica Plain), and the 29th Middlesex of Watertown voted “Yes” on a Question that asked: “Shall the state representative from this district be instructed to vote in favor of a non-binding resolution calling on the federal government to support the right of all people, including non-Jewish Palestinian citizens of Israel, to live free from laws that give more rights to people of one religion than another?”

The winning percentages were 55%, 54%, 66%, 61% respectively.  In total 30,778 people voted Yes (57%) and 22,813 voted No.

Voters in one district, the 2^nd Suffolk district of Charlestown – Chelsea voted 48 % in favor but came up just short in passing the ballot question.

The victories in 4 of 5 districts came even though only 1 municipal elected supported the ballot question.   Nearly 5 dozen elected officials were contacted and all except one, supported the ballot question.

In 2008, 73% of voters in the 25th Middlesex district (Central Cambridge) and 62% of Somerville voters in 27^th Middleses District (Central Somerville) voted Yes on the same question.  The ballot question has carried in 7 of 8 cities in the last two years.

John Spritzler, a Brighton resident of the Massachusetts Residents for International Human Rights (MRIHR) says “We’re ecstatic.  Voters showed that they support the principle of equality and don’t support Isreali laws that discriminate.  When given a chance to choose between the principle of equality versus the Zionist principle of inequality (i.e. that Israel must be a Jewish state in which the sovereign authority is “the Jewish people” and not all citizens equally) then Americans chose equality, even when few if any politicians will support openly equality.

Kathy Felgran, a Watertown resident of MRIHR, stated “the road to lasting peace is equality for all, and the recognition of the oneness of all humanity.  It’s heartening that the majority of residents agreed”.

Sprtilzer believes that MRIHR can help Americans throughout the nation understand this: the principles of equality and democracy that they overwhelmingly support, are the opposite of the principles of inequality and top-down control that our politicians and mass media defend, by telling us lies about Israel and about Palestinians.

Massachusetts Residents for International Human Rights

P.O. Box 441259

Somerville, MA 02144

Phone: 617 230-2835

Contact: John Spritzler <spritzler@comcast.net> for more info ]]> http://www.bostonfreepalestine.org/2010/11/10/fever-chart-three-visions-of-the-middle-east-naomi-wallace/feed/ 0 http://www.bostonfreepalestine.org/2010/10/13/fundraiser-for-the-us-boat-to-gaza-with-noam-chomsky-saturday-oct-16-400-pm/ http://www.bostonfreepalestine.org/2010/10/13/fundraiser-for-the-us-boat-to-gaza-with-noam-chomsky-saturday-oct-16-400-pm/#comments Wed, 13 Oct 2010 14:38:27 +0000 admin http://www.bostonfreepalestine.org/?p=182 Boston Fundraiser For The U.S. Boat To Gaza: Featuring Noam Chomsky!

When

Saturday, October 16 · 4:00pm – 9:00pm

Where

The Boston area Students For Justice in Palestine groups will be holding a fundraiser for the U.S. ship that will be leaving from New York this fall to take part in an international effort to break the siege on Gaza. Despite fund raising efforts from across the nation, funding for the U.S. ship has still fallen short, making this fundraiser all the more urgent.

The fundraiser will be Saturday, October 16 at the Palestinian Cultural Center For Peace.

Agenda

4:00 : Appetizers / social w/ live music

6:00 : Dinner

7:00 : Guest speakers featuring Noam Chomsky, Diane Buttu, and Nancy Murray

MCed by Eva from Northeastern U SJP

Co-Sponsors: Code Pink, ItIsApartheid.org, United for Justice with Peace, Boston Coalition For Palestinian Rights, Dorchester People For Peace, Greater Boston Stop The Wars Coalition, Veterans for Peace (Chapter 9, Smedly Butler Brigade), ANSWER (Boston), American Jews For a Just Peace (Boston), Solidarity