Contact: Emiliano Huet-Vaughn, (913) 205-5272 or Matt Quinn, (816) 729-9102
Citizens For Justice In The Middle East, 6100 W. 52nd Street, Mission, Kansas 66202

Israeli Uri Davis, director of Mosaic Communities, an organization that works to integrate Jewish and Arab neighborhoods in Israel, will speak at Broadway United Methodist Church on Tuesday, May 1, at 7:00 p.m. in Fellowship Hall, 406 W. 74th, Kansas City, Missouri. Dr. Davis will address the question of apartheid raised by Jimmy Carter and others. His talk is titled "Israel's Occupation of Palestine: Is It Apartheid?"

Broadway United Methodist Church is on the corner of 74th and Washington, one block west of Wornall Road. The event is open to the public and hosted by Citizens for Justice in the Middle East.

Dr. Davis is the author of several books that compare Israel's policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories with South Africa's apartheid policy. His latest book is titled "Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within." He is also a founding member of the Movement Against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine (MAIAP) and of AL-BEIT: Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Israel.

A book written by former president Jimmy Carter in 2006, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" has been discussed on major US media networks and in the halls of the US Congress. These books present historical facts and outline steps to resolve the decades-old conflict between Palestinians and Israel. While Jimmy Carter's book focuses on Israel's occupation of Palestinian West Bank, Uri Davis books and work also focus on the treatment of Arabs and Muslims within the state of Israel.

Uri Davis' work with Mosaic Communities is based in Ramle, Israel, a city that Kansas City established as a sister city relationship in 1998. In late 2006 the Yaol Levi, the Ramle mayor, was quoted in the Israeli press making virulently racist remarks about the Arab population of his city. The KC Jewish Chronicle reported that Lavi's hate speech came in response to a request that some streets in Ramle with Hebrew names be given Arabic names. Both languages are official languages in Israel, and Ramle has a large Arabic-speaking population with an ancient Arab history. Uri Davis will discuss this case and current conditions within Israel, as well as discuss the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

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