NEWS RELEASE
Citizens for Justice in the Middle East
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Andrea Whitmore (CJME), (913) 236-9825 or info@cjme.org
Sunday, September 9, 2007, Kansas City, MO — “"I am trying to inform Americans about the violations of human rights and international laws that are being carried out with our tax dollars," Anna Baltzer said about the impact of the Israeli occupation on the lives of Palestinians during a presentation at the University of Texas in San Antonio.
Anna Baltzer, a Jewish-American woman, will be in the Kansas City area September 21-24 to present "Life in Occupied Palestine: Eyewitness Stories & Photos" at the following times:
· Friday, September 21 at 7 p.m., Broadway United Methodist Church (Fellowship Hall) 406 West 74th Street, Kansas City, Missouri. Co-hosts are Broadway’s and St. James’ United Methodist Women
· Sunday, September 23, 9:15 a.m., First United Methodist Church of Blue Springs, 301 SW Woods Chapel Road, Blue Springs, Missouri. The event will be held in the Friendship Class, Room 112. Ask a door greeter for directions to the event room.
· Sunday, September 23, 2:00 p.m., New Song Disciples Faith Community, 409 Camelot Drive, Liberty, Missouri. This event will be held at a residence but open to the public.
· Sunday, September 23, 7:00 p.m., Solidarity Center, 1109 Massachusetts Street, Lawrence, Kansas
Anna Baltzer is a granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, Columbia University graduate, Fulbright scholar and volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service. She is touring the United States to report on Israeli human rights abuses in the West Bank and Palestinian nonviolent resistance to the occupation.
She traveled to the West Bank earlier this year and her public presentation covers checkpoints, settlements, demonstrations, Israeli activism and the Separation Wall. Providing photographic documentation and critical information often misrepresented or ignored in the U.S. media, her presentation encourages dialogue towards taking informed action. Anna will also be selling and signing copies of her book: Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in Occupied Palestine (Paradigm Publishers, 2007; 320 pages, second edition). She has spoken to groups in 30 states and spoke to a group of 300 people in Prairie Village, Kansas in October 2006.
Anna Baltzer recently wrote that “the biggest surprise about the Occupation for me was the nature of Israel’s military checkpoints. Of all the institutions of the Occupation, checkpoints had always seemed to me the most benign. I quickly realized that the hundreds of checkpoints and other road obstructions in the West Bank were not on its border with Israel, but concentrated on Palestinian roads between Palestinian towns and villages.”
Amnesty International's June 2007 report “Enduring occupation: Palestinians under siege in the West Bank” documented many Palestinian civilian deaths, such as six-month old Khaled Daud Faqih, who was prevented from receiving emergency medical care. This death was also reported by Anna Baltzer during her travels in the West Bank in March 2007.
Despite difficult circumstances for Palestinians, Anna Baltzer discovered that “nonviolent resistance is everywhere in Palestine: Children wait for hours at checkpoints on the way to and from school every day because they are determined to get an education despite the obstacles. A movement leader returns from prison after 13 and a half years and goes back to the nonviolent resistance for which he was arrested. An old woman, armed with only her voice and determination, confronts a bulldozer uprooting her trees and the fourth strongest military in the world protecting it. Palestinians are not strangers to nonviolent resistance; they are champions of it.”
The talks are arranged by Kansas City-based Citizens for Justice in the Middle East - http://www.cjme.org, which educates the American public about the issues involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Citizens for Justice in the Middle East believes U.S. policy should recognize the rights and aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians. Only by respecting the need to provide both parties in the conflict with security and self-determination can a viable and just peace be assured.
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