NEWS RELEASE
Citizens For Justice In The Middle East
6100 W. 52nd Street,
Kansas City, Missouri
816-524-3905
Kansas City Contact: Matt Quinn - 816-524-3905
National Contacts: John Reese or Erica Kay -
206-650-0834
For: Immediate Release
Kansas City, MO – On Friday, July 9, the World Court ruled that the Wall built well inside Palestinian Territories must come down. The Wall that Israel is building looms 26 feet high in places and already snakes close to 100 miles through villages and farmlands of the West Bank. This Saturday, July 17, 12 noon at JC Nichols Fountain, 47th & Main Streets, the national Stop the Wall Campaign with local peace group Citizens for Justice in the Middle East will display several scale models of this concrete structure to provide people a chance to see for themselves what it looks like. Saturday evening at 7:00 pm, at UMKC, Royall Hall, Room 111 (5200 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, Missouri) human rights and peace activist John Reese will present images and describe the range of impacts of the Wall on the environment, on Israelis and Palestinians and on the peace process.
July 2004 marks the start of the 3rd year of construction on this complex series of electronic fences and concrete walls which is ripping its way through Palestinian lands at an ever-increasing pace. Beginning in the northern part of the West Bank, the first phase of the project is complete and 200,000 people living in the area have been directly affected by the Wall, with 3,670 acres of land razed for the Wall's footprint. Within this first phase, 16 villages and 30,000 acres west of the Wall have been de facto annexed to Israel and some 50 villages are separated from their lands. Israel has confiscated 36 groundwater wells in this area well know for its agricultural value and has uprooted some 102,000 trees. The first phase also saw massive demolitions; for example, over 200 shops in the northwest village of Nazlet Issa were destroyed in a single afternoon. Now, a 26 foot high concrete Wall runs through the land where the market once stood.
The Stop the Wall Tour begins a four month trek around the United States to educate US taxpayers both about the Wall itself and about how US tax dollars are being used to build it. According to Erica Kay, a co-coordinator for the Stop the Wall Campaign, “What Israel is doing is undermining chances for peace. When people see The Wall trailer display we’re driving around and look at the path it’s taking through Palestinian land, they are shocked and frequently ask us ‘how can this possibly make things better?’ and ‘why are they building it on Palestinian land?” Our tour across the US will cover close to 15,000 miles making stops in communities small and large to encourage people to ask such questions.”
Reese, a hydrogeologist as well, spent 7 months in 2002 in the West Bank and Gaza and saw the first stages of the Wall’s construction. While there, he worked with several Palestinian environmental NGOs to map the path of the wall and document the path of destruction to the environment and affected communities. “The first time I gazed up at that three-story high concrete mass in Qalqilya, I knew I had to tell others in the United States how our tax dollars were being used to destroy lives, livelihoods and hope. I saw my tax dollars destroying the chance for peace. I struggled to understand how this could make Israelis more secure and learned from Israelis I spoke to that many agree it does exactly the opposite.”
Digital photos of the Wall Trailer display and other Wall models are available upon request.
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