What Can Women Do?

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Since my return from my summer trip to home and family in North America, it has been a blur of re-adjusting to the time zone, cultural challenges, language gaps, and humidity. As I settle back into the rhythm of the work week and proofreading the upcoming journal, I find all my free hours being filled with conversations about women and peace.

I am applying for a PhD next fall pursuing the research I've begun here on the role of women in Israeli and Palestininan societies in the peace process and what agency they have in a conflict zone. My head is swirling from hours spent investigating academic departments and funding and reading abstracts of potential future supervisors' research. Each day, a new school is added to, or crossed off from, the list; a new checkbox added to the to-do list of applications leads to calculating postage of transcripts and panic over having forgotten high-school algebra for the GRE.

Yet, I am constantly encountering things here that seems to reinforce the feeling that this is the work I want to be doing, that these are the questions that we need to be asking. Earlier this week, I attended a conference hosted by IPCRI (Israeli-Palestinian Creative Regional Initiatives) that focused on the current role of women in the peace process and UN Security Council Resolution 1325. In 2000, the UN Security Council adopted the resolution which, 

"reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peace-building, peacekeeping, humanitarian response and in post-conflict reconstruction and stresses the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security. Resolution 1325 urges all actors to increase the participation of women and incorporate gender perspectives in all United Nations peace and security efforts. It also calls on all parties to conflict to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, in situations of armed conflict." 

This resolution is the cornerstone of the women and peace thesis which claims that women have inherent and important contributions to add to peace processes, based on their gender and based on the facts that historically they have been excluded from national and international conversations and decisions on peace and security.

I had a bumper sticker on my car from high-school from when I worked with The White House Project (an organization that supports women running for public office in the States). It said, "Add Women, Change Everything." While I fear that this saying and the notions behind these resolutions simplifies matters and portrays women in an overly simplified light as being inherently peaceful, I think it also captures a very real discourse that is unfolding around us globally and locally. In cases of violent, protracted conflicts which have been led mainly by men, what would happen if women were involved in the process? Julia Bacha of Just Vision spoke about women's power to transform conflict in Palestine in this phenomenal and highly recommended TedTalk. She highlights that the role of women in the public life and in a movement leads to the adoption of nonviolence as a tenet of resistance. She also remarks on how in many different historical moments, women were present but were invisible in the public sphere or media or narrative.  Just Vision is producing a new film about women in the First Intifada, and I cannot wait to see it.

All of this is just a small example of the research that is being done which reiterates again and again that including women in negotiations, decision making, and post-conflict plans results in more successful and long-lasting peace agreements. This summer's resolution of the brutal conflict in Colombia between the government and FARC was notable for its inclusion of women at the negotiations and for the provisions of gender equality and protection of women in the resulting agreement. The resolution to Liberia's civil war was also paramount in it's inclusion of women's perspectives. For more research on these concepts see the UN's Report on Women's Participation in Peace Negotiations (2012) and the Global Study on the Implementation of Resolution 1325.

Theory is one thing, but how does this apply in real life? The conversation at the IPCRI conference began to ask those questions. There were Palestinian women there from the Jerusalem Women's Center, there were Israeli women from grassroots movements, local organizations, an Israeli Member of the Knesset, and international representation by the Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, and Finnish Embassies. Topics were raised about the importance of creating equality for women in all spheres in Israeli and Palestinian societies in order to empower them to participate in the public and political spheres. Opportunities were discussed, and experiences were shared. The energy in the room felt effervescent, there was so much more that wanted to be said, discussed, asked, and strategized. As the evening drew to an end, and everyone began exchanging business cards and handshakes, I watched as networks were being formed before my eyes.

The next day, I joined one of the directors of IPCRI to attend a forum in Hebrew that was hosted by an Israeli organization (Itaach-Maaki) which is taking the lead in implementing the resolution in Israel. The room was filled--over 40 women and 3 men-- and representatives from many different organizations, experiences, lent their perspectives to the larger questions of how to use UNSCR 1325 as a tool, and how to work together. Representatives from Women Wage Peace, WIPS, Dafna Fund, Minds of Peace, Mahsom Watch, Combatants for Peace, and Forum for Regional Thinking were all present.

The conversation began with the basic questions of Why, What, and How:

Why are women being called upon to participate in peace processes? Why is this important?

What do they have to offer? What work exists, what work needs to be done?

How do we actually take the recommendations of the resolution and implement them in our own lives, work, and societies?

The responses were varied, were challenging, were thoughtful. The 4 hour meeting ended with, yet again, the feeling that the conversation is just beginning.

Later this week, I will be attending the third meeting of the women of Combatants for Peace--a side-project of the organization, and I've been invited to participate. A group of Israeli women and Palestinian women, all members of Combatants for Peace, are meeting to discuss how to insert women's voices into the larger conversations in the organization as a whole and how to create protest actions that more women would be enticed and able to participate in. The conversations are authentic and are questioning how to accommodate a gendered perspective in the very important dialogue work and on the ground activism of Combatants for Peace. Our first meeting was invigorating, and this one should be equally exciting.

Today is international peace day. But, I dedicate this week to women: the rabble rousers, the ground-shakers, the wagers of conflict, and the peace makers.

Everything is Okay.

"Everything is okay"

"No"

I noticed this graffiti the other day. The call and response of it captured the schizophrenic reality here these days.

Everything is okay in Tel Aviv. You go to the beach and drink fresh squeezed orange juice or a milkshake made from Halva and dates, and everything is okay. You go to dinner, you laugh with friends. Everything is okay. You order another drink, everything is okay.

You get on a bus that goes straight to work, disappear in your office, answer emails, hit the commuter grind at the end of the day and go straight home, and you can pretend everything is okay.

But it is not okay here. Earlier this month a 15 year old Palestinian boy was shot and killed for being near to a group of boys who were throwing rocks at soldiers. He was just heading home from a pool party.

A 13 year old girl was sleeping in her home inside the settlement Kiryat Arba. A 19 year old Palestinian boy stabbed her to death. (Her family just held a memorial service on Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, which also is shaking the foundations of “okay”). 

Then, less than 24 hours later, there was an attack in Netanya and a drive-by in the West Bank. The entire city of Hebron was put under curfew.

Al-Araqib, an unrecognized Bedouin village in the Negev, was demolished for the 100th time.

A crowd-funding campaign was launched to raise funds to pay the legal fees for the soldier, Elor Azaria, who shot a Palestinian in the head execution-style in Hebron in March. The campaign raised over 590,000NIS (over $150,000)  in 3 days.

And today, the NGO Transparency Law was just passed. While the concept of transparency is generally viewed in a positive light, this law’s underlying aims may be far from benign. This law targets specific human rights organizations within Israeli borders that receive foreign funding. It was promoted at the Knesset by Members Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennet—far right wing members of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition. The bill initially required that representatives of the targeted NGOs wear armbands when they entered the Knesset. This was dropped, as it was seen as too contentious a throwback to other times when people were required to wear armbands identifying them. The law that passed requires NGOs to report foreign funding—not private donors—just foreign funding. Who receives foreign funding here?

There are 27 NGOs listed as receiving half their money from abroad and who will be subjected to the new law. See the full list here. The list includes 25 human-rights organizations. (Read “left wing”). My personal favorites (truly, these are some of my favorite organizations):

• Coalition of Women for Peace (feminism at its finest),
• Yesh Din (a law organization specializing in legal assistance in the Palestinian territories),
• Who Profits (an amazing online site that compiles a list of which companies profit from continued occupation),
• Terrestrial Jerusalem (an organization that maps facts on the ground in East and West Jerusalem),
• Btselem (human rights watch group),
• Ir Amim (Jerusalem based organization documenting inequalities in the city),
• Breaking the Silence (the organization of soldiers which publishes testimonies from service that do not conform to the discourse of the IDF being the most “moral army in the world”),
• Gisha (an organization focused on accessibility in and out of the Gaza blockade and humanitarian needs in Gaza),
• and Sikuuy (an organization that promotes full equality and civil rights in Israeli borders).

Many writers are up in arms about this law as the first of many that are embedding fascist principles within Israeli democracy. (And not just writers in Israel. The UN and the US call this law an affront to democracy.)

This begins to feel routine. I turn off the news, I stop swiping through Twitter; it’s too much to read, too much to follow. How do you keep track of the pointless deaths, the demolished homes, the empty political speeches, and above all, the constant violence? The general cyclical continuation of humiliation, violence, suppression, and arrests under occupation continues.

But this routine is not okay. This sly slippery slope into fascism is not okay. The lived reality for Israelis and Palestinians is not okay. The rise in extremism, the rise in violence, the rise in fear, this is not okay. The moment when we begin to simply brush it aside and say "It's normal," that's not okay.

I begin to appreciate the person that wrote “No” in response to that spray-paint stencil: It is takes back the space. That “No” yells at the naivety and sweeps aside the sand which Jews living on this side of the Green Line bury their heads into. It wakes me up from my summertime haze and reverie in which I have hidden in myself, reading books at the beach and doing my best not to be present here. I look around, and all I can think to myself is “No. It’s not okay.”

At least this week, things are happening to push back against all this being routine. The Center for Jewish Nonviolence has officially kicked off their weeklong event “Occupation is Not My Judaism” in which over 50 Jews from 8 countries are currently here and participating in direct non-violent action against the occupation daily. They are working with Palestinian communities to plant, to build, and to reap justice. Follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

And this Friday is the Freedom March. Marking 10 years of the organization  Combatants for Peace, the march will be big. Come! I’ll be there. I'm thinking of making a sign that says:

No. This is Not Okay.

Oats and Olives

Jibbat al-Dheib

Today I went with the Israeli solidarity organization Ta'ayush to Jibbat al-Dheib, a Palestinian village with land in Area C in the Territories. We joined farmers and shepherds so that they can work their land.

We helped clear a field that surrounds olive trees. I kept remarking how soft my hands are, this lifestyle isn't suited for soft hands. I couldn't keep up with the 70 year old Palestinian man who was grabbing thorns with his bare hands.

A security guy from a nearby settlement showed up. He had a camera and walked into the field recording us. "Pixelization of the conflict," a weathered Israeli activist remarked. He circled us, our cameras circled him. It was one of the strangest dances I've seen. The IDF showed up. 4 jeeps of soldiers. We kept clearing the field. Some were sitting in the shade of an olive tree watching what was happening. The soldiers waited, the Israeli flag on the jeep flapping in the wind. Another car shows up: one of the commanders of the area. He has a notebook with him--it shows what part and parcel of land belongs to whom and who is allowed to be where when. This piece of land, which belongs to the Palestinians who were working it--was declared to not be a problem. But they approached us anyways. A conversation of waving arms and gesturing hands takes place. I watch from afar and feel the smallness of this moment, but also notice the grandiose existentialism of arguing over who's land this is. In the background, I hear the swish and clunk of a hoe hitting the earth and continuing its scraping motion of clearing away the plants and cleaning the field. The argument takes place, the Palestinian man keeps on working.

Guns hit the hips of the young soldiers as they start to weave their way through the wheat to demand our IDs. They took pictures of our posed pictures, wrote down our names. I asked why, the soldier responded "To know who is in the field."

They retreated to their air conditioned jeeps where they kept an eye on us the rest of the day. It's the same feeling as I got from the surrounding 3 settlements: they are keeping their eye on this Palestinian village and land that is located in the middle of the ring that they form. It's directly in their line of expansion. That prickly sensation on the back of your neck when someone is watching you...

We finished one row of the field today. The Palestinian laughed at the foreigners with their good intentions but their bad farming skills. We climbed back into the car, sweaty, dust covered, a bit sore around the edges, but determined.

The Good Ones Don't Make The News

Sitting over a glass of cheap red wine in Paris two weeks ago, I shared my life with my old friends from when I lived there. “How are you?” they asked me. Full, I said. I’m leading a full life—full of food and friends and coffee and meaningful work and challenging projects. “But what’s it like to live there?” they ask.“There’s a violent conflict going on,” I answered while shrugging, “It becomes normal...” I sat with one of my mentors. He asked me earnestly, “Sophie, tell me…is anything good happening there?”

The night after the attacks in Jaffa, I went out and it felt like a ghost town. Even the traffic of cars on the main boulevard had lessened—I felt like a specter gliding down the street on my bike alone. But I went out with a purpose: to sit at the local bar with my Palestinian friend from Building Bridges; to toast our glasses of beer together to life, to health, and to the continuation of friendships which are more important now than ever. While it seems small and futile in the face of terror and extremism coming from all angles, these little and powerful moments happen quite frequently in my life. But I've begun to realize that this reality doesn't reach the "outside" world and media. 

Good people are working hard and trying to carve out futures together amidst the madness of this place, and that is constantly overshadowed by hate and fear on all sides.

Like today. Today I went to a march of Jews and Arabs in solidarity against the occupation. This march is taking place the first Friday of every month.

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 The march was organized by Combatants for Peace, an organization of both Israelis and Palestinians who have put aside violence in the name of community building and activism, and another group called Standing Together. The march was the fifth organized event that walks alongside the highway of Route 60 to the Tunnel checkpoint near the Palestinian town of Bayt Jala and the Jerusalem neighborhood/settlement Gilo. February’s march ended in arrests of two Israeli organizers. Over 500 people showed up in March to walk alongside the wall and traffic in honor of International Women’s Day. Today we were around 300.

 I walked with friends and held a sign that said: "Standing together against the occupation" in both Hebrew and Arabic. The verbs were conjugated to be feminine. The drum circle was out in all their glory and there was a mix of Israeli and Palestinian flags. As we marched, many people honked their horns and shouted nasty things. But I strolled with a good friend who waved with a big smile to every person who yelled, "Go die" at us and returned a big thumbs up to each and every middle finger that was gestured in our direction. As we stood by the junction, a religious man driving by began yelling at us and we responded in Hebrew and wished him “Shabbat Shalom!” [The colloquial wishing of ‘Happy Friday’ in Jewish Israeli society, which is connected to the religious observance of the Sabbath.]

Soldiers from the Israeli army followed along by the side of the road and at the back of the protest for protection against the oncoming traffic and also to surveil a group of 300 people walking in the West Bank. The few who followed at the back of the protest were wearing balaclavas over their faces. One man walked on the other side of the road waving a huge Israeli flag in opposition to our presence and our voices shouting in unison, “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies.”

It has been months since I've attended a march or protest. Tensions have been so high and things here have actually been quite scary with the methodical demonizing of human rights organizations that criticize the occupation, you don't want to draw attention to yourself as someone who supports an end to the occupation.  It has not been optimal timing to wave signs and hold hands and say words like “Peace.” See this article by David Shulman that captures all that has been happening recently here.

But in March, I joined this group for the protest in honor of International Women Day, and I promised myself that I would be back every first Friday. The day was incredible. I saw a lot of different people I know from activist circles, powerful women from Women Wage Peace who I interviewed for my research, sweet, sweet Palestinian activists who I have met at various meetings (like Tiyul Rihle) and programs (like Global Village Square), people who joined us in Susiya last year, and more. I asked an old acquaintance “How are you?” He said, “Today? Right now? Right now I am good” and gestured at the crowd. “But when I’m not here, when I’m not with my people…hard. It’s hard.”

In March, for International Women’s Day, everyone was holding balloons. On the count of ten, with numbers flowing naturally from Arabic to Hebrew, the balloons were let go. Within moments, a perfectly timed gust of wind had blown the balloons right over the wall. Tied to them were invitations to the march each month. The sight of the brightly colored balloons in stark contrast with the grey and bleak concrete of the wall was overpowering. And seeing them freely glide over the barrier was incredibly moving. It seemed so simple: the power of the people and the cries for justice could just as easily overcome the walls and everything they stand for.

Today, the march culminated in the planting of olive trees. The symbolism is cliché; the discourse of peace is dead. But, the action of breaking dirt and leaving something behind that will grow is not to be overlooked. The march ended and I was left floating on (maybe unreal) hopes and (some say naive) optimism.

I’ll be there again May 6th. It’s good for my soul.

While in Paris people may have gained a new sense of what a violent attack on civilians can do to your personal psyche and your daily life and empathize more with my reality here, it’s not the full story. Here, while many people are promoting policies of hate every single day, there are also those who are building hope. 

Over 500 Israelis and Palestinians took part in march to mark International Women's Day and to call for an end to the occupation and violence, March 4, 2016.

Up and Up: Haifa

Just keep climbing...

I spent the day walking up flights of stairs in Haifa.

After glancing at the map and seeing that it was only a 30-minute walk to my destination, I told myself that I was up for the adventure. But as the hill kept getting steeper, I felt more like someone climbing the mountain in order to learn the meaning of life from a monk; I was not disappointed.

I met today with an amazing woman at the Haifa Women's Coalition Center, the building that several feminist organizations call home. Sarai Aharoni  had become my “academic crush” while I researching women’s peace and feminist movements in Israel. Aharoni has written a lot on feminism, women, peace and security, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. She put into words perfectly my discomfort with the academic boycott of Israel (read it here). To my pleasure, she responded to an email I had sent and invited me to Haifa to visit her and peruse the Women and Peace archives. It was a treat. She's part of the group that is establishing the Haifa Feminist Institute--giving an "official name," she explained to me, to something that already exists.

The center is home to organizations Kayan and Isha L'Isha, two of the most interesting feminist groups in Israel and Palestine. Isha L’Isha is one of the first feminist grassroots organizations and was founded in 1983. Kayan emerged from conversations amongst women in Isha L'Isha and is the Arab Feminist Center in the North working for equality of Palestinian women in Israel. The two organizations pursue many different activities, educational projects, and initiatives to promote women’s rights, women status, and women’s equality in Israel and Palestine. The Coalition is special because it is a space where Jewish and Arab women work together under one roof supporting women and victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence.

So here I was, sitting in this space that has been created for women by women and sharing methodological challenges of feminist theories with this brilliant woman sitting across from me surrounded by books and archives, an academic-dream-come-true.

Me excited to ride the funicular. Public transportation is fun(icular)! 

Haifa is a fascinating city in the North and one that I have not explored enough. It extends all the way to the seacoast and then the city rises up to the hills and the Carmel Mountain. I left the meeting and wandered around the rest of the day, heading to destinations that my friends had recommended to me. I stumbled upon a café where the waiter was originally from Lebanon and settled myself into a corner: cozy and happy with my laptop and my work. It is what is called a “mixed” city, one that has a vibrant Jewish and Arab population. As I sat in the café, I felt like I could breathe deeply. People were just living and being people here. It didn’t matter what your ethnicity was, where your allegiances lie, or where you were from originally. This may be too idealistic and just all assumptions and superficial judgments. It is definitely a city that I want to know better. My mom lived in Haifa for a stint when she lived in Israel and as I was trekking up and down the stairs and venturing out to find the funicular (called the Carmelite!), I felt strangely at peace with my life. That feeling that I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now.

Update from Israel and Palestine: attacks inside Israeli borders have slowed down with the arrival of the rainstorm and winter .Yet things sound far from calm within the West Bank, a young soldier, who was stabbed at a famously tense junction (Tzomat Tapuah) in the territories, died today. Six other Israelis were  injured in other attacks in the West Bank in the last several days including a particularly nasty drive-by. Settlers supposedly opened fire on farmers near Nablus. Soldiers killed a 72-year-old Palestinian woman after an alleged car attack. Clashes have erupted near Ramallah, protests in Gaza continue, shots are fired, people are dying, and from the perspective of Tel Aviv it feels like it’s being swept under a rug.

As Aharoni and I were talking today, a question left unanswered is haunting me. War and violence can be used as a catalyst to transform a society (with negotiations and compromise on the other side of the spectrum). The question facing us now: how much more violence is necessary to transform this one?

Coffee instead of Conflict

I traded my past frantic  life of running around Jerusalem and the stress of the conflict for a new life of coffee.

I now work at a neighborhood café and, for those of you who know me well, it is a dream come true. I come home from work smelling like Ethiopian dark roast; I have already learned to use the espresso machine. Next up—making hearts in  my cappuccinos. 

The café is a minute walk  from my new apartment, tucked away amongst quiet streets and facing a little square and playground. The place is definitely the community hub; neighbors who come daily victoriously receive the honor of the “Neighbor Cup” with their own name on the bottom and their own spot on the venerable shelf of glasses. A familiar face walks past the glass window, and the barista has already begun to make their drink. Keys are left at the counter for someone else to pick up, and kids run in and ask right away for one of the jelly filled, dusted with powdered sugar, flower-shaped cookies.

A bubble has begun to envelope me as my daily rhythm shifts. I wake up early, go to work, drink two, three, four coffees, and then come home and write papers (4 down, 5 to go!), or go to the beach. All in all, this is not bad at all.

But, it’s weird. While I’ve been learning Hebrew words to describe the taste of coffee (with a hint of cocoa, smooth, bitter, acidic, full-bodied), Jerusalem has been erupting in a renewed cycle of violence. (See this article that lists all that happened over the last few weeks). Notably:

• “Israeli police armed with stun grenades and tear gas clashed on Tuesday with Palestinians throwing rocks and barricading themselves inside Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque.” More here at NYTimes.
•  “Thirteen Palestinians, including children, and four policemen were slightly injured in violent clashes which erupted over the weekend between settlers and Palestinians in the neighborhood of Batan al-Hawa in the Silwan area of East Jerusalem.” Read more at Ha’aretz
•   An Israeli died after a rock was thrown at his car in East Talpiyot, a neighborhood in the southeast of Jerusalem. Here at Times of Israel.

The Old City of Jerusalem feels really far away. Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, which I used to see every morning cresting over the walls as I rode the bus to university, feels really far away. Rocks thrown at the train, (I used to trace the cracks they made in the train windows as I sat in my seat) feel really far away. The Qalandiya checkpoint connecting Jerusalem to Ramallah, which was only 20 minutes from home, feels really far away. Tel Aviv is only 45 minutes from Jerusalem,  but it is truly a bubble; people even call it the State of Tel Aviv, noting its exceptionality from the rest of the country. People living here live in a completely different world. And I’m falling into it. All my focus has turned westward to the sea, and my back is towards the West Bank (in the East).

I made the conscious choice to move to Jaffa because I wanted to be further from the conflict. I was burnt out, exhausted by the constant interactions, the inability to hide under your covers and ignore the scary political mess unfolding all around you. Living in  Tel Aviv/Jaffa, I can instead choose my dose of anxiety about the occupation in the West Bank and the  violence in Jerusalem as it suited my own mental health. I am learning to create a world where I can take care of myself and be recharged with enough energy to give back to the work I am engaging in. In doing so, I am turning a blind eye to the processes of gentrification happening in Palestinian areas in Jaffa, to the crises in South Tel Aviv with the asylum seekers and foreign workers, all in the name of living five minute walk from a yoga studio. Occupation doesn’t stop just because you choose to ignore it. The luxury of being able to turn on or off oppression is a privilege, yet one that I am grappling with how to handle it.

Elia Suleiman's The Time That Remains: Chronicle of a Present Absentee (2009)

There’s an addictive quality to conflict: the high adrenaline of constant events, political tension, and stress. I’ve begun to replace it by watching all the documentaries and movies about Israel and Palestine that before I couldn’t even glance at for fear of overdose. I spent a good few days re-watching and analyzing the incredible film The Time that Remains, directed by Elia Suleiman, for a paper. Think Wes Anderson whimsy, absurdism, quick dialogue and fantastical attention to details mixed with the history of the 1948 war and the psychological effects on a Palestinian family in Nazareth.

And I also spent a night watching The Gatekeepers, a chilling documentary that features interviews with six heads of the Shin Bet (or the Israeli intelligence agency) as they recount the Israeli policies since 1967. Powerful and moving to hear a retired intelligence man say that the current policies of occupation are untenable and corrupt everyone, or to hear that the future is dark unless Israeli politicians begin talking with anyone from the other side. Both films are highly recommended.

 What's incredible is how in so many places, whether it's Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or Ramallah or New York City or Paris or Denver or Ferguson, reality and perceptions can change so quickly based on location. It's easy to get caught up in a world that is all consuming and difficult to extract oneself far enough away to gain perspective of conflict and oppression in the face of lived realities.  I don't know if by living in Jaffa I have gained distance and perspective, or if living on the southern border of Tel Aviv, I'm just living in a world that pretends that these other realities don't exist. 

Neither Jerusalem nor Jaffa is perfect, the question now is, where is the best place to gain a vantage point in order to understand the nuances?

Several events are coming up in the next few weeks. On September 29, there is a learning tour in Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem that has been the site of many home demolitions and evictions. Then on October 1, Breaking the Silence is taking activists on a learning tour to the areas surrounding Ramallah. I’m also looking forward to the next few weeks as the Jewish high holidays end and my dear friends in All That’s Left: Anti-Occupation Collective return and we get booted up for plans for future actions. The least I can do is bring the coffee to our next meeting.