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May 15 -- PEACE IS POSSIBLE SPEAKING TOUR |
SUPPORT REBUILDING HOMES |
MORE ON SPEAKERS | Report on Event
 Is
Peace Possible between Israelis and Palestinians? Bringing Palestinians and
Israelis to the United States to speak about their lives is one of the most
effective ways for Kansas City area residents to learn about the current
situation.
CJME is planning its most ambitious event to date by bringing a Palestinian
and Israeli to Kansas City as part of a “Peace is Possible” speaking tour.
Salim Shawamreh and Jeff Halper will be in Kansas City
to inform Americans about the problems encountered by Palestinians
attempting to live in areas under Israeli occupation. Salim
Shawamreh is a native of Old Jerusalem who has had his home in the West
Bank demolished four times by the Israeli government. Jeff
Halper is Coordinator of the
Israel Committee Against
House Demolitions and a Professor of Anthropology at Ben Gurion
University.
> Where:
ROYALL HALL Room 111 (Stack Auditorium), University of Missouri-Kansas
City, 5200 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, Missouri
> When: Saturday, May 15, 2004, 7:00 pm - open to the public
> Sponsors: Citizens for Justice in the Middle East
> More information: email - info@cjme.org;
phone - 816-524-3905; web -
http://www.cjme.org/peaceispossible.htm
> Download & Distribute event fliers:
- Full-page event flier
(Adobe PDF format, 142 kb size)
- Half-page event flier
(Adobe PDF format, 96 kb size)
> Directions / Map:
>
Fundraising for
Rebuilding Homes:
▪ The two
speakers will
be in the Kansas City area on the weekend of May 15 to discuss the
Rebuilding Homes program.
Rebuilding Homes, a U.S. nonprofit organization, raises awareness
and funds to rebuild Palestinian homes and Middle East peace through
strategic Palestinian and Israeli cooperation. Rebuilding Homes supports
Israeli and Palestinian non-governmental organizations that work
together to rebuild demolished homes and schools in East Jerusalem,
Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel.
▪ Make a tax-deductible
contribution of $25, $50 or $100 to Rebuilding Homes. Make your check out to
AFSC/Rebuilding Homes and send to 6100 W. 52nd, Mission, KS 66202. Please
reply by May 10. CJME's goal is to raise $1000. 
More on SPEAKERS...
>
Salim Shawamreh
 Salim Hassan Shawamreh
was born in the Old City of Jerusalem, but he
and his family became refugees following the Israeli invasion and occupation of
the city in 1967. They were moved to the Shu’afat refugee camp to the north.
In 1982 he married Arabia, but by 1991 they and their growing family found their
quarters in the camp increasingly intolerable. They bought a plot of land at
the edge of the village of Anata, a village that had been incorporated into
Jerusalem. Salim's land, however, was located just outside the municipal
boundaries in the Occupied West Bank. Salim applied for a building permit,
which was refused by Israel’s military government in the Occupied Territories.
He continued to apply, each time being turned down for a different reason.
Finally in 1994, the extremely overcrowded conditions in Shu’afat forced Salim
to build "illegally" on his land. A demolition order was issued soon
thereafter, leaving the Shawamrehs in daily fear that their house could be
destroyed at any time. That moment came suddenly in July 1998, as the family
was sitting down for lunch. Salim, Arabia and their six children were violently
removed by the Israeli army amidst gunfire, tear gas and percussion grenades.
ICAHD volunteers and others rebuilt the house -
which was promptly demolished a second time. Undeterred, the family, with ICAHD,
built the house for a third time. In July 1999, hundreds of Palestinians and
Israelis came together to dedicate the house. The house was demolished again.
It is now being rebuilt and called “Beit Arabia”. It has become a place where
Israelis and Palestinians meet to talk about strategies for joint work for peace
between them. Salim, Arabia, and their family currently live in an apartment
waiting for the house to be finished so they can move into the top floor. The
rest of the house will be used as a meeting place for NGOs.
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On May 3, 2004 the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
reported 15 Palestinian homes were demolished by Israeli forces south of "Kissufim"
settler road in Gaza, in addition to vacating 11 other homes. This action left
100 people homeless. PCHR appealed to the Israel court to stop the demolitions
and called upon the international community to intervene to stop these attacks
against Palestinian civilians. |
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Salim Shawamreh described the impact of having his house
demolished: “You are basically sitting in your home with your family, not
really living because you're always in fear of the Israeli soldiers
surrounding your house and giving you 15 minutes to carry whatever possible of
your belongings out to the street before they begin to bulldoze your home. Any
resistance is met with beating, kicking, shooting, and arrest.”
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>
Jeff Halper
 Jeff Halper
is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and a
Professor of Anthropology at Ben Gurion University. Jeff grew up in Hibbing,
Minnesota, attended Macalester College and received his Ph.D. from the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, before moving to Israel in 1973. For ten
years Jeff directed the Middle East Center of Friends World College, eventually
heading its entire worldwide campus. Currently he is a Principal in Cultural
Gateways International, a firm that develops cultural parks in different areas
of the world. Jeff has researched and written extensively on Israeli society
and is the author of the book “Between Redemption and revival: The Jewish Yishuv
in Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century”, Westview, 1991. Jeff founded and
directed Israel’s Committee to Save the Ethiopian Jews.
He has been active in the Israeli peace movement
for many years. As the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions (ICAHD), he has forged an entirely new mode of Israeli peace
activity, one that is based on non-violent direct action based on civil
disobedience to the Israeli Occupation authorities and close cooperation with
Palestinian organizations. He is currently working with grassroots Palestinian
and Israeli peace-makers to define a "viable and just peace" and turn it into an
effective political movement. Jeff is married to Shoshana, a teacher and
advisor in Israel's Open University, and has three children.
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May 10, 2004: In one of the most intense periods of destruction
since the start of the intifada, the Israeli military has demolished, or
damaged beyond repair, 131 residential buildings in the Gaza Strip in the last
ten days. The demolitions have made 1,100 people newly homeless, according to
figures released today by UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees. Peter Hansen, UNRWA's Commissioner-General said: "UNRWA condemns
without reservation the May 2 killings [of an Israeli mother and her four
children], as it does the killing of innocent Palestinians and their children,
but international law simply forbids collective punishment. The overwhelming
majority of the more than 17,000 Palestinians who have lost their homes in
Gaza since the start of the intifada have been guilty of nothing more than
living in the wrong place at the wrong time." |
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Jeff Halper raises questions about prospects for peace in
the region: “Will the Palestinians in the end have a state that has potential
for economic development, that has real political sovereignty, that has
control of its borders, that has control of its resources, like water? Will
Palestinians have a state that is a coherent territory that people can move
freely within?” |
NEWS REPORT ON EVENT...
> 5/15/04 - KANSAS CITY, MO. Jeff Halper, Coordinator of
the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), and Salim Shawamreh,
a Palestinian whose house has been demolished four times spoke to 70 people
in Kansas City. The two addressed the current situation in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories and prospects for peace. Jeff presented an
analysis and history of the occupation. Salim gave a personal account of his
attempts to legally obtain the right to build a home on property in the West
Bank. An appeal to support the work of ICAHD raised $400. A lively
discussion following the presentation.
 >
5/7/04 - KC Jewish Chronicle - JERUSALEM - Many things have changed
since Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions founder and executive
coordinator Jeff Halper made aliyah nearly 30 years ago: LPs and Betamax
became CDs and VCRs, only to become MP3 players and DVDs. However, unlike
the immense technological change, one aspect of Minnesota-born Jeff Halper's
life has remained a constant: his view toward Israel. <
read full news article >
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