Category: Middle East

Chat with Others about The Struggle News Programs On-line

Stanley Heller, The Struggle Video News

When you premiere a show with YouTube, you get to have a chat column on the side where you and your viewers can converse. We had fun with it last Sunday and we’re hoping to do this every Sunday at the same time.

Watch The Struggle #851 on Sunday, May 31, 8:30 p.m. at http://www.TheStruggle.org. Stay for the chat!

The Struggle #850 was shown May 24 and featured the following: Verdict in murders of Dawabshe family *** poem “72 Years a Birth Certificate” for Palestine *** #Act4Daraa to warn world of Assad threat to Daraa *** new look for RPM.world *** Martha Klein talks about the threat of pipelines and fracked gas plant *** Tony Cherolis on transportation and climate *** What We Didn’t See at the Botanical Garden (NY) during Coronavirus 2020.

Remember, you can always access past shows on our website http://www.TheStruggle.org.

Telling the Palestinian Story – Palestinian Women Global Art Exhibit opening on Sunday, March 8

The exhibit features over 200 works of art from about 50 Palestinian women artists who have made significant contributions to the art scene in their immediate communities and around the world. Artworks that will be on display include paintings, sculptures, photographs, and embroidery pieces.

The exhibit will be unveiled during a ceremony on the afternoon of Sunday, March 8, and will be open on Sundays 1 to 5 p.m. through May 30, 2020.

“The exhibit will give dozens of Palestinian women artists an opportunity to exhibit their artwork in the United States for the first time,” said Museum founder, Faisal Saleh. “Our mission is to celebrate and showcase Palestinian artistic excellence – this event goes a long way in fulfilling that promise.”
Partial list of artists participating in the exhibit are:

  • From the US & Canada: Samia Halaby, Manal Deeb, Samar Hussaini, Rawan Anani
  • From Europe: Laila Shawa, Jacqueline Bejani, Halima Aziz
  • From Jordan: Raida Shahin, Dalia Ali, Reem Khader, Nadia Al Khateeb, Aya Abu Ghazaleh
  • From Palestine: Nameer Qassim, Sana’ Tahboub, Hya Kaabneh, Reen Natsheh
  • From Africa: Kholoud Subhi (Kenya)
  • From South America: Ruby L. Yunis (Chile), María Eugenia Akel (Chile)

Palestine Museum, 1764 Litchfield Tpke, Woodbridge, CT 06525 Museum Hours: Every Sunday 1 – 5 p.m. Admission fees: Adults: $8; Students and seniors (age 65+): $5; Children 12 or under: Free. Maximum $20 per family.

Why We’re Still Standing Out Here in 2019 (and Will Be Again in 2020)

Sunday Vigil flyer, Dec. 22, 2019

This vigil for peace and justice has been observed every Sunday from noon until 1 p.m. since May of 1999. Twenty years and four U.S. presidential administrations later, we are still here.

Often people ask us what we mean when we say, “RESIST THIS ENDLESS WAR.” What we mean is that the serial wars fought by the U.S. and its allies are one war being waged on many fronts. Men, women, and children are being slaughtered, maimed, traumatized and driven from their homes all over the world so that immense wealth and power can be concentrated in the hands of a very few people.
The weapons of this war are many. Here are just some examples: continued development and production of an ever more deadly nuclear arsenal; drone attacks against human beings many thousands of miles away (targets whose bodies the bombardiers, operating their weapons by remote control, will never have to see); mass incarcerations and deportations of immigrants and refugees (condemning them, in many cases, to a future of torture or death); the systematic dismantling of infrastructure and social programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security that most of us not only depend upon but have funded with our hard-earned tax dollars all our lives; the destruction of our environment; and the undermining of workers’ rights and the refusal to pass a national minimum wage that is a living wage.

In 2016, we had a presidential election in which the issues of war, peace and economic justice were never seriously addressed. The state of endless war was accepted as the norm. Now we are dealing with an administration that, during its nearly three years in power, has exponentially escalated on all fronts this war that we have been describing and resisting for two decades and more. The 2018 “mid-term” elections largely ignored these issues.

With its bloated military budget, its blatantly racist and xenophobic rhetoric and policies, its utter disregard for the U.S. Constitution and international law, its attempt to roll back even the modest attempts at addressing the climate crisis that are embraced by the Paris Agreement, its utter disregard for human rights at the borders, and its unapologetic war against poor, working-class and non-white people on behalf of the billionaire class it represents, the Trump ad-ministration has made transparent the existential threat of the 1% to all our lives and to the future of our planet.

RESIST THIS ENDLESS WAR

As this year draws to a close and a new one begins, and as we enter another election cycle, we ask you to think about the issues this vigil has been trying to address in a very modest way over the past 20 years. The war we now face on all fronts transcends partisan politics, and we didn’t get here merely as the result of one terrible election. Simply voting, while important, will not resolve this existential crisis or lead us to a just, peaceful and healthy world. Only a truly engaged citizenry, able and willing to think critically and to use every nonviolent tactic we can muster, will be able to make the serious, deep, systemic changes that are so very long overdue, changes upon which our very survival depends.
We invite you to join the conversation any Sunday, here at Broadway, Park and Elm Streets in New Haven, noon to 1 p.m. http://newhavensundayvigil.wordpress.com.

Mazin Qumsiyeh to Give Shafer Lecture Jan. 18

by Stanley Heller, Promoting Enduring Peace

On Saturday, Jan. 18 at 6 p.m., Mazin Qumsiyeh will speak at the Palestine Museum US, 1764 Litchfield Turnpike, Woodbridge. The Shafer Lecture is a continuing project of Promoting Enduring Peace (which gave its Gandhi Peace Award to Omar Barghouti in 2017). Qumsiyeh is the Director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History at Bethlehem U. See this National Geographic page about him: www.nationalgeographic.org/find-explorers/mazin-b-qumsiyeh. He was the Director of Cytogenetics at the Yale Medical School for a number of years and has written “Sharing the Land of Canaan” among other works. He lives in Palestine near Bethlehem.

Nov. 2 Book Launch, Zionist Betrayal of Jews, New Haven

News release

On Saturday, Nov. 2, Stanley Heller will talk about his new book “Zionist Betrayal of Jews: From Herzl to Netanyahu.” It’s a history of the many, many times Zionist groups and Israel put their state-building project ahead of the vital interests of Jews. The event will take place in the Community Room in the lower level of the New Haven Public Library, 133 Elm St., at 2 p.m. Free and open to the public, there will be light refreshments. Sponsored by the Middle East Crisis Committee and co-sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace (New Haven), part of the meeting will be about their projects.

Most people know something about the disastrous effects of the Zionist movement on Palestinians and other Middle Eastern peoples, but the story of the cost of Zionism to Jews is less well known. The account ranges from Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, making a deal with the notorious anti-Semitic Imperial Russian minister von Plehve to Israel’s current Prime Minister Netanyahu declaring friendship with authoritarians who use dog whistles of anti-Semitism to appeal to their bases. The book describes the Zionist destruction of the powerful anti-Nazi boycott of the ’30s, Israel’s friendly relations to Argentina under the rule of Jew-hating generals and Israel’s sale of weapons to modern Ukraine whose army includes a neo-Nazi Azov Brigade.

One of the reasons for writing the book was to expose the Zionists who constantly accuse critics of Israel for being anti-Semitic. Again and again a sentence is taken out of context or a political cartoon is taken to task for resembling something anti-Semitic from the ’30s. Heller’s book exposes the hypocrisy of the Zionist movement which made deals with anti-Semites and in some cases killers of Jews, deals that put Jews in peril.

This is Heller’s second book. His first was titled “The Uprising We Need” (2017), which was a collection of his articles that appeared in newspapers and media. The book is available for a donation of $10 or more to the Middle East Crisis Committee.  See ordering information about both books at stanleyheller.com.

From Turtle Island to Palestine: Indigenous Peoples’ Resistance

by Shelly Altman, Jewish Voice for Peace New Haven

Jewish Voice for Peace New Haven (JVPNH) and Southern Connecticut State University Women’s and Gender Studies (SCSU-WGS) invite you to join us in October at the Palestine Museum US and at SCSU, on the land of the Quinnipiac people, to honor and celebrate indigenous peoples.

Jennifer Kreisberg — Tuscarora, North Carolina — is mother, singer, composer, producer, teacher, and activist, and comes from four generations of Seven Singing Sisters through the maternal line. She is known for fierce vocals, soaring range, and lilting, breath-taking harmonies.

Ali El-Issa — Palestinian American — is the President of the Flying Eagle Woman Fund, named in honor of his wife, Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa. Ali works on guaranteeing the rights of indigenous peoples across the globe. He is on the Board of the Rigoberta Menchu Túm Foundation and is a principal representative of Ms. Menchu Túm to the United Nations.

Through song and word, Jennifer and Ali will celebrate indigenous peoples on Sunday, Oct. 13, noon-1:30 p.m. at the Palestine Museum US, 1764 Litchfield Turnpike, Wood-bridge and on Monday, Oct. 14, 6-7:30 p.m. at SCSU, Engleman Hall A107, 501 Crescent St.

Indigenous peoples, Palestinian and Native American, have endured parallel attempts to destroy their cultures. Stereo-typed by European settler-colonists as savage, not worthy of occupying the land they occupy, easily relocated, dislocated, eliminated. Walls were built that divide their communities and lands, and surveillance technology has been tested against one people and then applied to the other.
One need only look at the surveillance towers built by the U.S. division of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest military company, tested on the Apartheid Wall in Palestine and now used to surveil the border lands of Sonora and Arizona, home to the Tohono O’odham Nation. Elbit, in November 2016, offered a system of wide-area persistent surveillance sensors to police monitoring Dakota Access pipeline opponents.

Through all of this pain, but with resilience, sumud (Arabic – steadfastness), and celebration, these indigenous peoples come together to share their culture, their art, and their stories. Join us for this special occasion.

Contact: Susan Bramhall, newhaven@jvp.org, jvpnh.org, www.southernct.edu/academics/womens-studies-program/ programs

Interfaith Peace Waged in New Haven

Volunteers from multiple interfaith organizations painted a new billboard Thursday that will tower over I-95 right northbound before Exit 45 .

The 50-foot billboard was one of numerous projects completed by over 100 volunteers from across the world who gathered for New Haven Interfaith Service Day.

The effort was led by Rev. Nicholas Porter from Jerusalem Peacebuilders and Bruce Barrett from IWagePeace.org with local clergy members Rabbi Brian Immerman (Congregation Mishkan Israel), Imam Omer Bajwa (Yale Chaplin), Father Stephen Holton (Christ Episcopal Church), and Rev. Bonita Grubbs (Christian Community Action).

Source: Interfaith Peace Waged | New Haven Independent

Is Your PAR Subscription About to Run Out?

by PAR Planning Committee

The Progressive Action Roundtable newsletter publishes from September through June. Subscriptions from many of our readers will expire with the June issue.

We hope you enjoy your subscription and value the PAR newsletter as a community resource. To see if your subscription is due for renewal, please look at your address label. If “201906” is printed on the label to the right of your name, your subscription ends next month. Please send in $13 for 10 issues (Sept. 2019-June 2020) so that you can continue to read about what local organizations are doing and you can submit articles about your own organization.

The Progressive Action Roundtable was started in January 1993. After several months, this community Newsletter became the main activity of PAR, giving New Haven area organizations an opportunity for networking and for advertising their activities.

We hope to hear from you.

Needed: A Congressional Investigation of Saudi Arabia

by Stanley Heller, Middle East Crisis Committee

In view of the collaboration of the Trump Administration with every crime of the Saudi regime there needs to be a formal Congressional investigation launched by a House Committee. This article is written a day after the news broke that the regime has executed 37 people in one day, mostly Shia. Amnesty International said, “The majority of those executed were Shi’a men who were convicted after sham trials that violated international fair trial standards which relied on confessions extracted through torture.” More about the Saudi killing spree at www.saudius.org.

Some topics for the House committee to investigate:

a) Spying on Saudi students in U.S. universities as reported by NPR (National Public Radio);
b) What U.S. institutions are helping the criminal monarchy; c) possible bribery of U.S. foundations by Saudi gifts;
d) Uncovering those helping the Saudis in their war of aggression against Yemen;
e) Unanswered questions raised by the official U.S. report on the 9/11 massacres about possible collaboration by government-connected Saudis;
f) What U.S. companies are preparing to sell shares in the Saudi corporation Aramco, which has been an immense contributor to world fossil fuel emissions.

Democracy Died in December

Yann van Heurck, Guilford Peace Alliance, JVP

In December the Israeli Knesset voted against equality for all its people in violation of Israel’s own Declaration of Independence. Christians, Druze and Muslims officially don’t have equal rights to Jews. Plans are underway to expel 36,000 Palestinians from the Negev and formally annex the West Bank.

In September the Israeli government, in an official letter to the Supreme Court, said that Israel could ignore international law anywhere in the world, violate the sovereignty of foreign countries, and disregard international law in any field it desires. Israel forcibly seized nearly 80% of Palestine in 1948 after being given 55% in the 1947 UN partition, and in 1967 took the whole country and started settling colonists there in violation of the Geneva Conventions. The myth of Israeli democracy is dead.

Many PAR readers attended last October’s Tree of Life program at Shoreline Unitarian church in Madison highlighting HR 4391, the US bill to stop US funding for Israel’s illegal detention and torture of Palestinian children (over 500 of whom died in last summer’s Israeli attacks on Gaza). Tree of Life and Jewish Voice for Peace ask people to sign ToL’s petition to support this bill in the new Congress at tolef.org. The bill does not affect US military aid to Israel.

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