Save the Date: 13 September 3PM ET

VFHL Online Film Salon   “Roadmap to Apartheid”

Hosted by Voices From the Holy Land and EPF-PIN 

The film “Roadmap to Apartheid” graphically asserts that the Israeli system of total military, economic and social control over the lives of Palestinians constitutes Apartheid. Historical footage and the compelling testimony of South Africans take us back to see and understand the system of White Supremacy that gave its name to a UN-banned crime against humanity.

Side-by-side with what happened in South Africa, the highly acclaimed film takes us to Palestine-Israel, where we see the same kind of rules and the same brutality inflicted on Palestinians. South Africans make the connection and say: “This is another Apartheid.” Palestinians and Israelis detail how Israeli Apartheid operates and how it is being resisted.

Is it really Apartheid? Many in Israel and the U.S. deny it. … 

On September 13, please join us in a 90-minute interactive discussion of the film, which will be made freely available to view in advance at your convenience. Guest experts will update us on subsequent developments that are making the Israeli-Apartheid reality ever more evident and ever harsher.

In a time of crisis, when Americans and the whole world are waking up to the profound harm of racism – and insisting that things must change – the issue of Israeli-Apartheid demands our urgent attention and response. Please mark your calendars for Sept. 13 and be on the lookout in the coming weeks for registration details and instructions for accessing the film.

This fall, Palestine advocates in Rochester, NY, will host the eighth annual Witness Palestine Film Festival.  From October 14 – November 9, the festival will present five films and will end with a Celebrate Palestine event.  The first of the films will be shown at St John Fisher College.  The other four will be screened at The Little Theatre, Rochester’s finest and best-known independent film venue.

The festival was born in 2012 as a project of Rochester’s ecumenical group, Christians Witnessing for Palestine.  The festival planning committee is open to members of our local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, the Muslim community, and secular activists.  Committee members contribute as they are able to a wide range of tasks, including evaluation of possible films for the following year, securing licensing agreements, recruiting panelists (whenever possible, a person associated with the creation of the film), fundraising, publicity, coordination with the venues, and logistics at the showings.  It’s a significant effort spanning many months that is made manageable by a dedicated mix of experienced and more recent volunteers.  The festival is the largest advocacy effort of Christians Witnessing for Palestine.

At the festival’s website, we have descriptions of this year’s films along with the dates, times, and location of the screenings.  The archive section lists films shown each year since the festival’s inception in 2012.  Where do we find the films?  In a variety of places!  Festivals in larger cities such as Boston and Toronto are often helpful resources.  One of the films we’ll show this year was mentioned in a footnote of a book that one of us was reading.  When one starts to look, ideas emerge!  And, now that we’re somewhat established, film makers and distributors reach out to us suggesting that we consider a new film of theirs.  Once we’ve identified a number of possibilities, we contact the distributors and request “screeners”, which provide us with links and passwords enabling committee members to view the films privately for evaluation.  When we’ve made our selections, we then proceed to work out a licensing agreement to show the films publicly and charge for admission.

Celebrate Palestine this year is an example of a special event we attempt to include each year.  It will feature an afternoon workshop on storytelling, led by Boston-based, Palestinian American Nadia Abuelezam, creator and host of Palestinians Podcast.  Our hope is that the workshop will offer members of Rochester’s Palestinian community an opportunity to tell and share their stories.  That evening, we’ll host a dinner open to the public where Nadia will speak.  In recent years, the special events of our festival have featured Palestinian human rights attorney, author, and activist Noura Erakat and author Susan Abulhawa.

And the costs?  Our 2019 festival budget is about $7,300.  The budget includes expenses associated with using The Little Theatre, honoraria to our panelists and guest speaker, advertising, printing, and film licensing.  Most of our revenue comes from two sources – donations and the sale of ads in our Program Booklet, which is distributed to those attending the films.  Ticket sales are another source of festival income.

During its first seven years, the Witness Palestine Film Festival has attracted an audience of over 3,200.  It is perhaps the most visible form of Palestine advocacy in the Rochester area.  We have no paid staff, no endowment, nor do we receive any grant funding.  We have made it work.  And we would welcome the chance to share our experience and resources with you.

EPF PIN member Steve France reports on one of many Nakba Day actions around the country.  He begins by summing up the purpose of these public witnesses: 

On Nakba Day  (May 15) in the Nation’s Capital, about 30 interfaith clergy and leaders of the DC-area Palestinian solidarity movement gathered at the Embassy of the State of Israel to deliver a KAIROS Global Justice petition expressing the suffering and injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian People since 1948 at the hands of the State of Israel — and demanding that the government of Israel respect Palestinians’ basic human rights and their established rights under International Law. 

There were Christian clergy of many denominations, a Muslim imam, and representatives of the Orthodox Neturei Karta International.

Rev. Graylan Hagler (UCC) and the other clergy prayed aloud and spoke movingly of the 71-year Palestinian quest for justice and placed their struggle squarely within the larger global struggle against “White Supremacy.” He led other African-American clergy, as well as Baptist, Episcopal and Presbyterian clergy — and the group as a whole — to the guarded gate of the embassy to deliver the petition. But Embassy personnel hastily slammed the door shut. So, EPF PIN member Steve France read out in a loud voice the words of the petition and left it at the gate.

EPF PIN member Priscilla Read continues with an account of the public witness in New York City:

At 10 a.m. on Nakba Day, May 15, a group assembled in Manhattan at Second Avenue and 42nd Street aiming to deliver the petition based on the Kairos Call to officials at the Israeli Consulate. Our plan was for three Presbyterian clergy to try to enter the building while the rest of us stood in quiet vigil across the street, holding signs and distributing flyers to passers-by to explain our presence.

Upon entry, the three pastors were immediately accosted by a consular security officer. They stated their mission; he asked them to step aside while he found a staff person to meet them. Shortly an employee from the mail room appeared and indicated that the envelope would have to be x-rayed before delivery. As one member of our delegation handed over the petition, another quickly snapped a photo for documentation, whereupon the employee became agitated, asserted “You can’t take my picture,” and insisted that she hand over her phone so he could delete the image. She refused, citing her right to privacy, and the three said they were leaving. At that point, the Israeli security guard loomed back into view and demanded the phone. Apparently expecting support, the guard consulted the New York police officer posted outside the building, who instead confirmed the privacy argument and told the three they could exit. As they walked away, the security guard followed them down Second Avenue muttering, “We’re won’t be so polite next time.”

Meanwhile the gathering across the street had grown to some thirty people, including members of Adalah-NY, Blauvelt Dominican Sisters, Catholic Workers, Episcopal Peace Fellowship-Palestine Israel Network, Jewish Voice for Peace-Westchester, Maryknoll Sisters of Ossining, rabbis from Naturei Karta (Jews United Against Zionism), Pax Christi Metro NY, and Presbyterian Peace Fellowship. Our EPF-PIN representative made a short statement about the purpose of the petition. Then one of the Presbyterian clergy read a prayer, and an Episcopal priest read a poem he had written. To be heard over the loud provocation of two people brandishing an Israeli flag and wielding a video-camera as they hurled insults, we repeated the prayer and poem line by line in unison. Many passers-by and the police officers standing watch were sympathetic. Ultimately, our steadfast refusal to engage with the disrupters defeated their purpose, and they desisted. A journalist from a Turkish news agency interviewed several of us. Before we disbanded at 11 o’clock, our Adalah- NY participant led us in song.

Thanks to EPF PIN member Harry Gunkel for this update.

The Episcopal Peace Fellowship’s Palestine Israel Network (EPF PIN) recently gathered in retreat to chart its course for the remainder of the 2018-2021 triennium. For three days, approximately 30 PIN members worked together to determine organization goals and how best to operate to achieve them, while remaining responsive to events on the ground in Palestine and Israel and honoring members’ own obligations to their baptismal covenants.

The PIN retreat was the organization’s first gathering since the Episcopal General Convention in July 2018. The General Convention was a momentous one for PIN, as the Church’s House of Bishops and House of Deputies concurred on six resolutions to address the ongoing tragic violence and injustices taking place in Palestine and Israel. The six resolutions, which built on actions by previous Conventions, addressed Episcopal Church policy regarding aid to Palestinian refugees, safeguarding the rights of Palestinian children, the status of Jerusalem, the right of both Palestinians and Israelis to self-determination and sovereignty, violence and abuse of human rights in Gaza, and developing an investment screen for Palestine/Israel based on human rights.

Monitoring the progress of implementing these resolutions, as well as educating members of the Church about the resolutions and more broadly about the situation in Palestine and Israel will form the major part of PIN’s work during the current triennium. Efforts will be made to establish dialogue with deputies, bishops, and church leaders, as well as to build grass roots presence in parishes and dioceses for education and advocacy around these topics. Simultaneously, PIN will seek new relationships and strengthen existing ones with organizations of allied interests both within and outside the Church. 

PIN’s work during this triennium carries a sense of new urgency, as the situation on the ground in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza deteriorates rapidly, while national leadership in the US disregards Palestinian interests in favor of Israel. Both federal and state legislatures are moving to criminalize forms of opposition to Israel’s long-running military occupation and mischaracterize its criticism as antisemitism.

PIN has reorganized in order to be more responsive and effective in this work. At the core of PIN’s structure is a Steering Committee who will determine the organization’s goals and objectives and have ultimate decision-making authority. They will be guided by an Advisory Council, a diverse ecumenical group whose members have experience in Episcopal Church governance and policy, as well as extensive knowledge and experience in Palestine and Israel. PIN’s day to day operation will be centered in Working Groups, focusing on Communications, Local Organizing, Education, and Budget and Membership. 

PIN will be led by Convener, Dr. Linda Gaither. Linda  is a retired Religion Studies professor living near Ithaca  in the Episcopal Diocese of Central NY.  She served for 10 years on the National Executive Council of EPF, acting as Chair (2009 – 2013). She served with PIN Core Leadership in the previous triennium.  Serving with her in leadership is Dr. Harry Gunkel, PIN’s Coordinator of Communications.  Harry was the PIN convener during the 2015 – 18 triennium.  

We have just returned from a short and unusual trip to Palestine, not leading a large group as in the past but traveling with our son and 3 grandchildren.  Our oldest grandson is now working for the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund in Ramallah, so this was opportunity to share his and our experiences of Palestine.

In our short week, we visited Jerusalem, northern and southern West Bank and Gaza.  As all readers will know, conditions have deteriorated dramatically everywhere in Palestine, most notably in Gaza.  As I write this, President Trump, having shifted terminology from “Israeli occupation” to “Israeli control” of the West Bank and Gaza, has just declared Israeli sovereignty over the Golan.  One fears Trump’s next declaration of Israel’s supremacy.

These are, indeed, precarious days for our beloved Palestinian friends and their communities, and everyone we met stressed the deterioration of the situation.  But what was most striking to us were the amazing initiatives that we saw in the face of such oppression, when it would be easy to simply give up in despair.

Gaza starkly embodies the contrast:  conditions could not be worse, with 2 million people blockaded into an area 1/12 the size of Rhode Island, lacking adequate electricity, water, food, shelter.   Unemployment is rampant, the streets teeming with the 75% of the population under 25. The casualties from Israeli snipers at the Great March of Return continue to grow, with more than 250 dead and about 29,000 wounded, most maimed for life.  And yet, life goes on.   Rebuilding from the 2014 assault continues slowly with people using home-size cement mixers to try to construct multi-floor buildings.  

We continue to be amazed and inspired by the work at Al Ahli Arab Hospital (Episcopal), where we spent 2 days.  Ahli is not a first line hospital for emergencies, but it serves as a specialty hospital caring for cases that the overwhelmed state hospitals cannot serve.  We visited the orthopedics department that provides care for the maimed, the women’s center with its extensive breast cancer program, the nutrition department that is fighting epidemic child malnutrition, the psycho-social program serving the vast number of children with PTSD.  And we happened into the opening day of a workshop in the use of laparoscopic surgery taught by doctors from Scotland and their Jerusalem counterparts.  

Given the dramatic funding cuts from UNRWA and USAID, one might think the hospital would retreat into survival mode, but each time we visit, there is a new initiative underway that serves the greater Gaza community.  Suhaila Tarazi, the Director of Ahli, summed up the philosophy of the hospital, “We don’t know the word impossible.”  

That was the theme in all our other visits:  Mazin and Jessie Qumsiyeh continue their remarkable work at the Palestinian Museum of Natural History, preserving the flora and fauna of Palestine and developing new methods of agriculture for even the smallest plots of land.  The fight to preserve the Bedouin communities from forced removal continues among the Jahalin, whom we visited at Al Khan al Amar, where the school is made of tires and mud because the Israelis prohibit permanent structures.  Sabeel has dramatically extended its local programming to empower the youth of the West Bank and Jerusalem with liberation theology.  The Episcopal Vocational and Technological Center has created a guesthouse where we stayed in Ramallah, part of an extensive computer and hospitality program that gives non-academic young people job skills.  And Palestinians continue to preserve their cultural heritage as we experienced at a sold-out dabke dance and music festival.

Each time we go to Palestine, we wonder if it would be better to contribute the money spent on travel to these and similar projects, but the warm welcome we received everywhere reminded us that there is a ministry of presence, a time to simply be with those who are suffering so deeply but are constantly working to insure there will always be a Palestine.  Our long-time friend and staff member at Ahli Hospital shared a story that sticks with us.  He has 5 children and is in debt because he has built a home and is educating his children for the future.  His oldest child has finished university and cannot find a job in Gaza; his second child, a daughter, is studying accounting, and feels the fees are too high when job prospects are low.  But our friend is emphatic that she continue her course because if there is no work now, “someday there will be.”  

It is this amazing sumud, this steadfastness in the face of such adversity that inspires us.  Surely, we cannot give way to despair when those whose lives are so deeply impacted continue not only to survive but to innovate.  They are doing their work there.  We must do our work here, telling their stories and supporting them however we can.

At really successful art openings the crush of excited people makes it hard to check out the art. Similarly, the annual “Israel Lobby and American Policy” conference in DC was so jammed with fascinating people from all over who are working to break Israel’s death grip on Palestine and on U.S. policy that it was easy to miss the actual program! Luckily, it’s easy to catch videos of the presentations on a free “playlist”. You won’t get the networking and positive energy of having been physically at the National Press Club on 22 March, but you can see and hear the powerful speakers buoyed up by a rapt audience of hundreds of activists and experts. 

Most awesome, perhaps, was the keynote address by Susan Abulhawa. A trained scientist with great literary gifts, she led us on an eye-opening tour of Israel “Beyond Apartheid,” asking us temporarily to look away from the system of Apartheid that has blighted Palestinians’ existence for the last 70 years. Instead, she tallied some of Israel’s other sinister accomplishments in the areas of ecological destruction, the development and global spread of “death, surveillance and suppression tech and tactics,” support of anti-democratic forces worldwide, and destruction of the ancient histories and cultures of Palestine and of its non-Jewish religious heritage: You’ve heard of Israel, the “environmental wonder-worker” who made the desert bloom? Well, Palestine wasn’t a desert to start with, she noted. As for making it bloom, check out the Jordan River, or what’s left of it, the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee; or the dumping of toxic waste on Palestinian villages; the destruction of olive orchards and the planting of fire-prone European trees; the draining of precious wetlands, etc.

Is Israeli innovation celebrated? It’s all about military and police weaponry and tactics to control unhappy populations. Abulhawa ran the numbers to show Israel is second only to Saudi Arabia in military spending per capita and way ahead of the world in military/police exports per capita. Their success is due to Israel’s ability to test its lethal products on live Palestinians.

Abulhawa surveyed a long list of genocidal, pariah regimes that Israel has supplied with weaponry and training, often covertly and often by breaking UN arms embargoes. Passionate support for Apartheid South Africa set the standard early on. Along with selling weapons, Israel’s alliances have given moral support and cover to thuggish–and even overtly anti-Semitic– regimes from Southeast Asia to Europe to Central and South America – and above all in Africa.

She outlined decades of destruction and vandalization of mosques, churches and cemeteries, along with the destruction of archeological sites and artifacts from non-Jewish cultures in Palestine’s uniquely significant territory.  She warned that Israel is “moving forcefully against al Aqsa, perhaps the last frontier.”

Abulhawa argued that Israel is bad news for many more people than just Palestinians, calling it “a global force for violence, suppression, plunder, paranoia, greed, war, ecological destruction, erasure of history and culture, and supremacism.” The good news, she said, is that Palestinians are “on a time-tested trajectory to liberation,” however “difficult and bloody” it may be.

Earlier, Grant Smith of the Institute for Research on Middle East Policy (IRmep), which co-sponsored the conference with the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, had focused on the many tentacles of subversion and perversion of U.S. laws and government agencies, from the White House on down, brought about by the Israel Lobby. Detailing three prolonged campaigns by IRmep to win court orders to get access to information on what our government has been doing, Smith showed how the Lobby “supplants, silences and exploits” the functions of U.S. and state governments.

Good news was shared by Martin McMahon, the attorney who is litigating a potentially game-changing lawsuit against Sheldon Adelson, Eliot Abrams and some 40 individuals, non-profit foundations and banks which have enabled the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza. He spoke in the wake of a federal appeals court’s resounding vindication of the legitimacy of the lawsuit, which invokes jurisdiction under the Alien Tort Statute and alleges the aiding and abetting of genocide against the Palestinians. Al Tamimi, et. al. v. Adelson (No. 17-5207, D.C. Cir., decision Feb. 19, 2019).

The three-judge court unanimously reversed the trial judge’s dismissal of the suit, which she had ruled presents a “political question” reserved to the Congress and the President. The appellate panel ruled that claims of genocide against violent Israeli settlers could be proved at trial, if the plaintiffs, Palestinians and Palestinian Americans, submit solid evidence.

“This ruling provides an unprecedented opportunity in the U.S. for the Palestinian victims of

Israeli aggression and ethnic cleansing to fairly prove their claims in a court of law,” McMahon said in a statement. He made clear, however, that his team is in need of a lot of aid and support from supporters of Palestinian rights as the defendants have the toughest lawyers money can buy, as well as all the other political and media assets of the Israel Lobby. 

Other fascinating and important speeches were given, including by Ali Abunimah, the founder of the Electronic Intifada, who discussed an extraordinary undercover investigative report on the Israel Lobby that Al Jazeera was afraid to air. A leaked copy of the video is available on the EI website. It details the techniques and names the organizations that are behind the smears and deceptions perpetrated by the Lobby. 

James North of Mondoweiss served up a biting analysis of the many ways “The New York Times Rigs News on Israel-Palestine” to hide the misdeeds or soften the image of Israel. 

Brad Parker of Defense for Children International-Palestine explained how best to reach members of Congress and other political figures with tightly targeted human rights issues, such as Israeli child-detention practices. 

Three local activists from Virginia described how they have created remarkably successful groups and campaigns to counter increasing efforts by the Lobby to influence state and local policies, from opposing anti-BDS legislation and policies, and pro-Israel economic “advisory” groups to fighting Lobby moves to politicize K-12 textbooks.

All of the program offerings are well worth viewing online. But when the Israel Lobby conference meets in Spring 2020 at the Press Club, dedicated activists really should try to be there.