Relief Benefit Raises $3800

NEWS RELEASE
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Matt Quinn, 816-729-9102

Area Peace Groups Begin Humanitarian Relief for Palestinians in Gaza

Feburary 1, 2009 – An event to raise funds for humanitarian relief for Palestinians living in Gaza was held Friday, January 30 and hosted by CJME with sponsors MAS-Freedom, Peaceworks/KC, and AFSC-KC. The event raised $3,800. Organizers raised the funds to contribute to food and medical needs of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Over 1300 Palestinians were killed and 5300 injured during twenty-two days of attacks that started December 27, 2008.

One hundred people attended the dinner at Holy Land Café in Overland Park, Kansas. The response to the fundraiser was so large that organizers had to turn people away. The funds raised at the event will be donated directly to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for relief to Palestinians living in Gaza.

The event program brought two speakers to address current conditions in Gaza. Dr. Mubarak Awad, whose family was forced from their home in West Jerusalem in 1948, was personally deported from the West Bank in 1988 for his role in advocating for non-violent resistance to the occupation. Mohammed Atwa, whose Palestinian family became refugees in the 1948 war settling in Gaza.

Mubarak Awad introduced two audience members who lived in UNRWA refugee camps or attended UNRWA schools in their childhood -- Ibtisam Barakat, a resident of Columbia, Missouri and author of the book “Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood” (see http://us.macmillan.com/tastingthesky for details) and Mustafa Hussein, a Kansas City resident. Ibtisam related stories of growing up in a UNRWA refugee camp near Ramallah in the West Bank, and Mustafa shared his experience living in an UNRWA camp in Lebanon.

The main speakers confirmed the courage and compassion of Palestinians. Mubarak said “It’s not a conflict, it’s an occupation, which gives you the right to resist. Palestinians have resisted occupation throughout the decades,” adding “we will never give up as Palestinians.” He emphasized his approach is to “choose non-violence to resist occupation.” Mohammed Atwa spoke for audience members when he shared a message to Palestinians in Gaza: “Yes, your houses were destroyed but we want to show [you] that we care.”

About Citizens for Justice in the Middle East – http://www.cjme.org - Since 2003, Kansas City-based Citizens for Justice in the Middle East has educated the American public about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The group believes U.S. policy should recognize the rights and aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians; only by respecting the need to provide both peoples in the conflict with security and self-determination can a viable and just peace be assured.

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