Volume [7]
No. [2]
Dec 2010
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Volume [7]
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No. [2]
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Dec 2010
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December 2010 |
Previous Editions |
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Why Should You Be a Volunteer in Palestine?
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The moral reason to go to Palestine cannot be disputed. Pal- estinians are currently in their seventh decade of military occupation and are subject to the most brutal immiseration and politicide. Only the most jaded conscience can fail to be moved at the sight of the horrors perpetrated. Furthermore, the Occu- pation is personal to Americans. The F-16s that rain death over the Gaza Strip come with “Made in USA” labels  A demonstration in Bil'in |
However, if compassion drives us, emotions alone cannot be
the reason
to go. One argument of IDF intellectual hitmen has been “but why do you
unfairly target Israel when there are so many other tragic situations
in the world?”. They have a perverse point. Unmanned drones wreak havoc
in Pakistan, and ethnic cleansing plagues the Congo. If we are,
however, to avoid comparing victims to see who is “more oppressed,”
then we have to consider the strategic dimension. |
A Kind of Schizophrenia
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It’s easy to be on the side of peace and justice when a cause is popular, when the people we defend are admired, and when the sacrifice is not too great. But how many of us are willing to extend our principles to a cause that is unpopular, for people who are despised, at the risk of our livelihood, our family relations and our personal safety. Of course, honest people disagree about what constitutes justice. There was a time in the history of the U.S. when slavery was commonly accepted. Later, it became our most controversial issue – the only one over which we fought a civil war. And yet today it is not controversial at all; indeed, it’s a mystery how anyone could have condoned it, much less argued in its favor. |
Here’s another uncomfortable fact. The United States – the
beacon of
freedom and human rights – is a product of one of the greatest and most
successful ethnic cleansing campaigns the world has ever known. But how did it come to be this way? Were the people and the societies and the governments who committed these crimes so different from our own? Let us please not be so arrogant as to think so. We have only to look at how easily our society can be terrified and manipulated by the threat of communism or Islam, or how we can be led to believe that marginal powers like North Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq or Iran might seek to attack most powerful nation on earth. |
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A Call For Volunteers |
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| The presence of activists reduces
the risk of violence by extremist settlers and the Israeli army, and
supports Palestinians’ right to protest the occupation, the apartheid
wall, and illegal settlements. International solidarity activists
engage in non-violent intervention and documentation, which is
support that enables villages and individual activists to maintain
their continued resistance. For this year's olive harvest we had a third of the volunteers that we had last year: no more than 20 at one time. This made it impossible to support the families in Nablus with their harvest to the extent we had promised.  |
Now that the harvest is over, our
numbers have decreased significantly
to an average of 10 total, with only 5 long term residents. It is so
difficult with these numbers to maintain a basic presence in key the
areas al-Khalil, Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah, and Jiftlik in the Jordan
Valley, that it is an incredible strain to expend anyone for special
projects, such as to live with families in need of a continuous
international presence. |
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405 Vista Heights Rd. El Cerrito, CA 94530 510.236.4250 www.norcalism.org |
