Dove's Eye View

Museum On The Seam

Go visit the Museum On The Seam to find out about their exhibit on Coexistence. Thanks to Muslim Wake Up! for the link.

Muslim WakeUp!

Muslim WakeUp! features Israelis, Palestinian Americans, other Muslim Americans. The latest issue is full of searing articles, including one by an Israeli who burned his military deferral papers in front of the Israeli embassy. Go read.

Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Speaks Out

The Dove never knew much about Mordechai Vanunu. Seems that 1982 was a turning point for him, too. Read his latest statement here: Yahoo! News - Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Speaks Out

Micro-credit brings macro-benefits

The Grameen Bank, which lends tiny amounts of money to people in Third World countries to start small businesses, is touted here: Micro-credit brings macro-benefits

Yunus has a compelling vision. He calls on us all to bring opportunity and technology to the destitute so we can "put poverty in the museum where it belongs." It is hard to conceive of a worthier goal or a more important one for the future of us all.

Keeping the Faith

Muslims, Jews and Christians meet in San Francisco, pray together, talk. This article in the San Francisco Chronicle is another sign of tectonic shifts.

Don't Mourn, Organize

Several messages have arrived in the Dove's inbox urging: don't mourn, organize!

Here are some things you can do and organizations to join, in no particular order:

The Rebuilding Alliance (formerly Rebuilding Homes) will host a benefit to rebuild in Gaza on June 10, 2004, in Oakland, California. "An evening of magical storytelling, inspired improv performances and visionary poetry celebrating the possibility and beauty of home." The goal is to raise $10,000 for The Rachel Corrie Rebuilding Project in Gaza.

Jewish Voice for Peace posts petitions and one-click e-mail letters for you to sign or revise and send. The site also contains news stories about Palestine, interviews with activists and other information not found in the mainstream press.

The Tikkun Community sponsors teach-ins to Congress, letter-writing and phone call campaigns to politicians and the media, and other educational and organizational activities. Check their site for updates and how you can join.

The Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) has been fighting for food and justice for Arab children for years. I just received an e-mail from them asking for donations for Gaza relief. 100% of the funds you donate will go to Gaza for food and medical assistance.

MECA accepts "snail mail" donations here: MECA, 901 Parker Street, Berkeley, CA 94710.

Brit Tzedek V'Shalom (Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace) is based in Chicago but was founded by the Bay Area's own Marcia Freedman. They describe themselves as "a national organization of American Jews deeply committed to Israel's well-being through the achievement of a negotiated settlement to the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict." Go to their site to learn more about what to do.

The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee home page includes action alerts - who to call about what issues.

Visit the Gush Shalom site. This Israeli group is in the forefront of protest against Sharon's policies. They need financial support! You will also find reports from Palestine and Israel that you won't see elsewhere.

Call your congressional representatives whenever you think of it. Hard-liners call and write every day, reminding our leaders that they don't want any compromise or negotiation, even if it means endless bloodshed. Those of us who know there is a better way don't have the same fanatical desire to badger our representatives, it seems. Congresspersons have told peace activists that they understand the issues in Israel/Palestine but they don't see the constituency for change. Yet. Your voice matters!

Global Heroes Magazine - Middle East Heroes

Just received a link via e-mail to Global Heroes Magazine - Middle East Heroes. This page describes two young women friends, one Israeli Jewish, one Palestinian Muslim, who grew up together in Neve Shalom, a model community for coexistence. Neve Shalom translates to "Oasis of Peace."

(thanks to Len Traubman)

Israeli Cabinet Member on Rafah: Holocaust Memories

The only change will have to come from inside Israel, from world Jewry. The Dove reports on signs of a shift:

Yahoo! News - Israeli Leader's WWII Analogy Draws Fire

"During a Cabinet discussion Sunday, Lapid, leader of the centrist Shinui Party, called for a halt in the demolitions, saying the practice was cruel and hurting Israel's image around the world.
"The 71-year-old justice minister said TV images from Rafah reminded him of the suffering of his own family.
"I am talking about an old woman on all fours looking for her medicine in the rubble of her home, and I thought about my grandmother," he told Israel Army Radio.
"A native of the former Yugoslavia, Lapid spent part of World War II in the Budapest ghetto and lost many relatives, including one grandmother and his father, in the Holocaust. He immigrated to Israel in 1948 when he was 17. "

Jewish Voice for Peace

Visit the Jewish Voice for Peace page to read updates and take quick e-mail actions.

JVP is doing great work protesting Caterpillar tractors, which are tools in the ongoing destruction of Palestinian homes.

Peace Marches in Israel/Palestine

Hundreds Marching Toward the Kissufim Crossing to Protest Rafah Operation
By Nir Hasson. Lili Galili, Yuval Yoaz and Tsahar Rotem, Haaretz Correspondents, and Itim

Hundreds of people were marching toward the Kissufim crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel on Friday to protest the Israel Defense Forces operation in Rafah, in which 40 Palestinians have been killed as the army works to flush out militants and drug smugglers in the south Gaza refugee camp.

The demonstration was supposed to take place at the Sufa crossing, which is closer to Rafah, but the protesters decided on Kissufim instead after being threatened by police at the Sufa crossing, protest organizers said.

The peace bloc issued a statement Friday saying, "None of us can sit at home at a time like this. None of us can say, 'We didn't know!'"

On Thursday, about 500 people demonstrated for the second consecutive day in front of the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. The demonstration was organized by Peace Now and attended by members of refusnik organizations, the Yahad Knesset faction, the Yahad youth movement, and leftist student groups.

Yahad chairman Yossi Beilin called for an immediate evacuation of the Gaza Strip, saying Prime Minister Sharon's plan to evacuate the Strip in stages would mean getting stuck there. An unusually large police contingent was present but unlike the previous day's demonstration, it passed without disruption.

At a hearing on a police request to release with limitations two minors arrested during Wednesday's demonstration, Youth Court judge Ruth Ben-Hanoch said: "The court must warn against using court procedures to silence protesters or limit their rights to express their opinions." Judge Ben-Hanoch had harsh words for the behavior of the police in holding the minors overnight at Abu Kabir lockup.

Attorney Gabi Laski will submit a complaint to the police investigations unit in the Justice Ministry with regard to one minor who needed medical care after an injury by police during the demonstration. In an unusual move, all attorneys for the eight people arrested during Wednesday's demonstration were denied access to their clients at the Yarkon region police station, although ambulances had to be summoned for three who were injured.

Among the six adults arrested in Wednesday's demonstration were David Zonshein of Courage to Refuse, and Yonatan Pollack of the anarchists' movement, who were released yesterday. The Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court refused a police request to limit their approach to within a one-kilometer radius of the demonstration area, and all six returned to demonstrate yesterday.

Yonatan Shapira, among the signatories to the pilots' refusnik letter, and his brother Zohar, who signed the Sayeret Matkal refusniks' letter, said that police officers threatened to kill them if they did not let go of the four-meter-long black flag they held during the demonstration.

Zami Ben-Horin, of Kibbutz Ga'ash on the coastal plain, started a protest march Thursday from Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Ben-Horin, who is calling for an Israeli evacuation from the Gaza Strip, is accompanied by his wife Sigal, his son Gal, age 14, and his daughter Orian, age 12. Ben-Horin, who described himself as "not one who demonstrates in the squares" said the deaths of the 12 soldiers in the Gaza Strip last week brought him out of his apathy.

Yoel Marchuk of the Kibbutz Movement, who provided logistical support for the march of social activist Vicki Knafo, is also assisting Ben-Horin, who said that he didn't believe that the failure of Knafo's march meant that his would also fail.

"Everyone marches in his own niche," he said. Marchuk said he doubted Ben-Horin's march would become a mass movement. "When the soldiers are fighting, it's hard to get people out for a struggle like this," he explained.