Looks like Duke's Hillel will parallel the generally successful effort that the Columbus, OH area anti-terrorist community had in 2003:
"Sister Hazel will headline the Students Against Terror Concert and Rally on Thursday, October 14, 2004. The event, featuring politicians, professors, and victims speaking against worldwide terrorism, will take place on Keohane Quad from 7pm - 11pm. It will open with Quitter John and close with a candle light vigil. " and
"Shabbaton Events Registration
There are many events from Planned During Shabbat on October 15th and 16th. We are dividing the events into three different sections:
1. Friday Night: Reform and Conservative services at 6pm, a FREE Shabbat dinner at 7:30pm, and a post-dinner lecture by Avraham Burg (former speaker of the Knesset).
2. Saturday Morning: Reform and Conservative services at 9:30am, Shabbat lunch at 12:30pm, and a panel discussion with Avraham Burg and national Jewish leaders.
3. Saturday Afternoon: Israel-Palestine teach-in from 3:30-6:30pm, Seudah Shlishit/ Dinner at 6:30pm, and Havdallah with Rabbi Friedman at 7:30pm."
Duke PSM Speakers - How Funded?
Who's funding these people? Dennis Brutus made the ADL watchlist as far back as 1993, and shows up with Rania Masri at various socialist conferences and demonstrations. Rebecca Stein goes from UC-Berkeley to Univ of Minnesota and oh, is named as one of the people to contact in 2002 in Ramallah. Nasser Abufarha doesn't think that even the Geneva "Accords", an aborted initiative that would once again have Israel give all and the Palestinians respond with - words, went far enough. Somehow, these folk seem to literally travel the globe with little obvious source of income. Brutus, Stein, and Qumsiyeh may teach a little and publish a little, but nothing enough to pay for world travel. Birzeit University asked North Carolina Muslims to donate for the Duke PSM conference - who responded?
Same ol', same ol' types of speakers for Duke as were found at OSU - looks like this conference will put special emphasis on the "right of return", with lots of repetition from the Durban Conference calling Israel colonists and worse:
A bit of name-calling from Rann Bar-on, "local spokesperson for PSM" and a Duke Univ. grad student in mathematics, from his attendance at the 2003 PSM Conference at Ohio State Univ., per http://www.amchacjc.org/news/news42.cfm: "....About 50 protesters waving Israeli flags also shouted "anti-Semites" at those arriving at the three-day event. 'I was born in Israel,' replied Rann Bar-On, who is among 500 students and activists from the United States and Canada attending the Palestine Solidarity Movement gathering. Mr. Bar-On, who said he was born in Jerusalem, said the taunts were an example of "rampant Zionism." 'They have the same blindness and loyalty that many white South Africans had to the apartheid regime or many Germans had to the Nazi regime,' said Mr. Bar-On, 23, a graduate student in mathematics at Duke University in North Carolina."
This world traveler may also be the same as the Israeli named in http://www.imemc.org/headlines/2004/june/week2/061404/al-zawiya-protest.htm: "Local sources reported that one Israeli, one Palestinian have been arrested and at least 40 wounded most of them as a result of inhaling gas, in an anti-wall demonstration in the village of Al-Zawiya near Salfit in the West Bank. Rann Bar-On 24, Israeli was detained by border police and put in a police van. The van was seen leaving the scene but to an unknown destination...."
A better biography on Diana Buttu, from http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66050: "Diana Buttu is a Canadian / Palestinian lawyer and peace activist. She is the daughter of Palestinian refugees, holds a doctorate from Stanford University on 'refugee issues' ....Based in Ramallah, she advises the PLO Negotiation Team on peace negotiations with Israel with special emphasis on the issue of refugees and compensation. "
Part of her analysis of the recent ICJ decision about the security fence, per http://www.world-crisis.com/analysis_comments/475_0_15_0_C36/: "....With these staggering facts, the ICJ could only conclude that the wall built in occupied Palestinian territory is not there for military necessity; it is there to consolidate Israel’s hold on the colonies. Though “security” is the proffered excuse, coveting Palestinian land (and water) is the real reason behind the wall. Because the colonies are illegal, so too is the very structure that is designed to ensure Israel’s hold on them--the wall. ....Israel has, for 56 years, viewed itself as above the law and the Palestinians beneath it. That will not change. Israel will continue to trample on the Palestinians’ rights. It will continue to build Jewish-only colonies on Palestinian land, and it will continue to build the wall--unless it is stopped. ..."
Brian Avery remains active in ISM - http://indybay.org/news/2004/03/1674722.php has a photo of his arrest in San Francisco, a day after he spoke to a group at a college in northern California. That month he was reporting on behalf of New Mexico Indymedia, according to http://www.freespeech.org/fsitv/fscm2/contentviewer.php?content_id=796.
Mazin Qumsiyeh just published a book on the "right of return". A "fact sheet" at http://www.palestinemonitor.org/factsheet/Refugee_Primer.htm includes this conclusion: "An overwhelming body of data now clearly demonstrate how and why the catastrophic situation of Palestinian refugees was created and perpetuated by Zionist colonization and expansion."
Rania Masri is a veteran of the OSU PSM conference. She advocates boycotts - quoted in http://www.socialistworker.org/2002-2/412/412_06_DivestInterview.shtml: “Rania - There’s a reason that boycotting Caterpillar can work….
When we simply talk about apartheid in Palestine….If we can get them to divest, that would be huge. ….
The AFL-CIO has a 50-year history of ties to Israeli unions. ….”
Durham and Duke area Jewish groups have received some funding for alternative events to this conference. More on those as news appears -
ECONergy will donate funds to a top-rated charity for Israel, the One Israel Fund, for people who sign up to receive their electricity and natural gas through this company. Available in MD, NY and NJ only. The program began in 2003; I suggest that someone check with the charity or with the energy company to make sure that it continues today. The Farmers Almanac, per http://www.farmersalmanac.com/forthepress/uspressrelease.html, says, “'The Farmers’ Almanac’s long-range weather predictions are pointing towards a very variable winter, featuring alternating periods of unseasonably cold conditions, then unseasonable warmth, as well as an active storm track along the eastern seaboard that ensures plentiful precipitation,'” reveals Farmers’ Almanac Editor and Philom., Peter Geiger. For example, in the Northeast, the Farmers’ Almanac is calling for a snowstorm in time for Christmas, and for possible blizzard conditions in mid-February, with a "wintermission" in January, when unusually mild weather takes hold.“We believe that the two most noteworthy storms of the winter season will come in December 2004 and in February 2005. The first, coming during the period of December 24 to 27, could deliver an old-fashioned White Christmas to much of the Northeast. The other, coming during the second week of February, has the potential to bring blizzard conditions in both the Midwest and Northeast regions of the country,” states Geiger."
I recently received an email requesting that people donate platelets for a child hospitalized at NYU hospital. The email came from people already active in One Israel Fund. It's quite a wide-ranging, beneficial organization.
If you haven't signed up for the daily updates on www.jcpa.org, do so. They are better than anything I could develop for the snippets, so I will try to find items for this blog that JCPA doesn't have. However, the PRISM organization mentioned in this 9/24/04 JCPA update looks like it deserves special mention (summarized by JCPA from http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=22159) :
The Impact of the War in Iraq on Islamist Groups and the Culture of Global Jihad by Reuven Paz: Post-Saddam Iraq presented to predominantly Sunni Arab Jihadist groups a golden opportunity to reinforce their struggle by viewing the struggle in Iraq as a return to the heart of the Arab world after years of struggle in "exile," including in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Central Asia. They have seized the opportunity to recruit a growing number of Islamic youth to support their political aspirations and Islamist interpretations. Islamist groups supplied new interpretations of Jihad that altered previous "red lines," including non-discriminatory killings of both "infidel" foreigners and Muslims. The war has also broadened opportunities for recruitment among Muslim communities in the West. The entire process of radicalization that followed the war in Iraq is accompanied by a massive indoctrination by Islamist scholars, clerics, and intellectuals, who promote the building of a new system based on Jihad.
The Palestinians have remained entirely unaffected by the war in Iraq. There is a constant decrease in Saudi support for Hamas, especially in the financial realm, as a result of American pressure. The killing of Hamas leaders Yasin and Rantisi in Gaza decreased the solidarity of Hamas with the global Muslim Brotherhood and shifted the leadership outside of Palestine, to people such as Khaled Mish'al and Mousa Abu Marzouq. The anarchy in the PA enables Hizballah and its Iranian backer to become influential in the territories. Neither of these Shi'ite elements are part of the radical Sunni global Jihad, and have a different agenda. The writer is director of the Project for the Research of Islamist Movements - PRISM, part of the GLORIA Center in the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya. (IMRA/International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism)
From today's daily briefing - also check out www.operationsick.com
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (21/9, Secretary-General, Office of the Spokesman): "In Israel we see civilians, including children, deliberately targeted by Palestinian suicide bombers."
Terrorists are recruiting more women and minors - www.jpost.com article by Margot Dudkevitch
According to the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, terrorist organisations are recruiting more women and minors to carry out terror attacks against Israelis. The organisations continue to believe that women and minors are less susceptible to security checks, and therefore are more likely to pass into Israel without raising suspicions. So far, 33 females who planned to carry out terror attacks have been caught, whilst seven have succeeded in carrying out their attacks. These women represent a cross-section of Palestinian society, and range from being single to being married with children. They also range from well-educated to poor backgrounds.
Children are also being exploited more frequently by terrorist organisations. They are used to transfer explosive belts and bombs, and are also employed as information gatherers to watch troop movements. So far this year, a total of 109 Palestinian minors have been arrested for their involvement in terrorist activities, compared to a total of 102 in 2003, 54 in 2002, and 27 in 2001. The youngest children sent by terrorists to launch an attack were two boys arrested in January 2003 by security forces in the Gaza Strip. Both carried knives and said they had been sent to place bombs in the area. One was eight years old and the other was 13."
“A private desalination plant began operating last Monday and will supply an annual 2 million cubic meters of drinking water. The Hof Hacarmel water desalinations plant, in Atlit on the Mediterranean coast south of Haifa, removed the salt from brackish water and cost $1.5 million to build. After the plant is connected to the country’s water system in 2 months’ time, most of the output will supply Carmel coast communities and Haifa. The remainder will go to other areas in the country….”
If you miss Dr. Sarna at Wittenberg University 9/26, you can hear him give the same lecture Thursday October 14 at 7:30PM at Reakirt Auditorium, Cincinnati Museum Center, Union Terminal, 1301 Western Avenue. Free. More information: 513-621-4020.
Arieh O'Sullivan article, published online and in the 9/17/04 edition of the International Jerusalem Post, p. 16-17: "The Shin Bet was also unprepared for the deep cultural disintegration that took hold of the Palestinian people. Major fissures emerged in Palestinian society which, by its own admission, the Shin Bet failed to predict. One was the rift between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Another was the split between the refugee/rural population and the urban elite. A third was between the younger, native-born generation and the 'old guard' from Tunis, which led to the disintegration of Fatah. The religious-secular divide actually became narrower, culturally speaking. And, as it turned out, these two groups - represented by Hamas/Islamic Jihad on one side and Fatah/Tanzim on the other - to greater cooperation in carrying out attacks."
Another Thought for this Season
Charley J. Levine, "Dirty Little Conflict", Olam Winter 2004 p. 16: "There's no reason, ultimately, to harbor that sense of conflict with God. He's just doing HIS job, awesome and unfathomable as it might be. Our conflict, rage and anger must be focused on our doing OUR job, striving to be Godlike, forging bits of perfection step by step....To do good in the face of evil. To be strong in the face of fear. To help all others not as fortified or capable as ourselves. That is OUR job. Roll up your sleeves. Figure out what today demands of you. And like they say in the commercial, Just Do It."
A Thought for High Holy Days
Rabbi Aryeh Markman, "Through My Daughter's Eyes," Olam, Winter 2004, p. 4: "For those who understand there is a God directing our lives, we need to recognize when we are being given a crisis in order to grow. The Jewish definition of a crisis is not being able to identify and access, as of yet, the tools that God embedded in us to deal with the situation at hand. We have to find those tools and then use such moments to become more than we are. The Almighty orchestrates the most perfect designer situation for each of us. If we learn to go with it rather than fight it, maybe we can understand how to become better from it. Maybe that will speed up the situation's resolution."
