 May 2002
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Patrica Watson, Editor Sara Burke, Assistant Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
"Please Tell your President to Stop the Killing" Gary Anderson is one of five Coloradans with the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace taking part in nonviolent actions in solidarity with Palestinians under siege. More of their experience can be found at www.ccmep.org/palestine.html
His gift to American friends? A picture of flowers in the sunshine. Other Aida kids paint pictures of things they have never seen, and never will, unless we change their world: pictures of deer, forests, streams, meadows, ponds. How can they find this quietness, this gentleness, in the harsh world that we have put them into? I am at a gate to the old walled city in Jerusalem and instead of seeing the sights, I talk with Arab men. They are polite and even friendly with me and ask why do the Americans support the taking of our land? I buy a sandwich and talk with an old man who says, "Please tell your people to ask your president to stop the killing." This afternoon (Sunday) ten of us went to the Tantur checkpoint on the south side of Jerusalem with signs. I talk with a Palestinian lady who has escaped in recent days with her family from Ramallah. She is with her son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren. She tells of the home she has near Tel Aviv that they were driven from in 1948 at the formation of Israel It was taken from her more than half a century ago, but it is still her home and real in her mind. She tells of life in camps in Jordan at Es Salt, west of Amman and life in other camps in the Palestinian Diaspora. They settled in Ramallah 40 years ago so her children could have a good education. Her life in Ramallah is shattered; friends killed, civil order destroyed. At 80 years of age, she is on the road again. She asks, "Why is America silent? Do your people see what is being done to us in your name?" The man in the bookstore says, "We just want to live our lives, have jobs, have a family, sleep without terror. We Palestinians accept the reality of Israel, want to live in peace with the Israelis as neighbors. We want to hold onto just 22% of our land, leave them the rest. Why does America stand with Israel to crush us?"
The man in the camera shop says that he heard that Bush has given
Sharon until Friday to "finish the operations" in
West Bank and Gaza. "Why?" he asks me, "Why
does your president give them another six days to kill us with
American permission? Are we wild animals for Bush to give out
hunting permits for us?" 
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