This week, Lebanese, Palestinian and international activists here in Beirut have been meeting and planning a response to Israel’s aggression against Lebanon. Not that we have military technology, or a huge force field to repel the missiles, at our disposal. What we who are unarmed, who believe in strategic nonviolence as a strategy to overcome brute military force, have at our disposal is determination, moral ground to stand on, and a fundamental belief that our human and political rights must be claimed and asserted. This is particularly so in the face of an aggressive force that destroys life and limb and shows no mercy for human rights, human dignity and the ability of people to live on their land. Read more about What will Israel do?
Ayed Morar, or Abu Ahmed as he is known to all, sits in jail tonight and I wonder if he is thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. Unlike Dr. King, Abu Ahmed will not be leaving jail anytime soon, and is he unable to protest his imprisonment by exemplifying the moral injustice done to him and his people, for the world’s powers have maintained a deaf ear to the plight of the Palestinian people. Like Dr. King, however, Abu Ahmed is in jail for organizing and participating in nonviolent direct action against unjust, discriminatory and violent policies targeting his people on the basis of their ethnicity. Adam Shapiro writes. Read more about Unbound Spirit: Ayed Morar and Martin Luther King
Amman, Jordan, 17 July 2003 — The International Solidarity Movement’s second Freedom Summer has begun, and much has changed since our last: the war on Iraq, which focused all eyes on the region; the much-hyped road map; full-blown construction on what Palestinians have come to call the Apartheid Wall. Sadly, though, much remains the same: the continuing deterioration of the lives of Palestinians, with poverty and health crises in a crescendo. Adam Shapiro, an organizer with the International Solidarity Movement, writes in The Nation.Read more about Freedom Summer
On March 30, the Washington Post published the last e-mails of Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer driver, on 16 March 2003 in Gaza. On April 19, the Post published a letter by CAMERA director Eric Rozenman, entitled “Last E-Mails of an Indoctrinated Activist”, attacking Corrie. Adam Shapiro, organizer of the International Solidarity Movement that Corrie worked with in Gaza, responded with this letter to the Post, published on April 25th. Read more about ISM's Adam Shapiro responds to CAMERA's distortions in the Washington Post
The streets of Ramallah are completely still, the bright sun reflecting off the pavement and the stone of the buildings forcing the viewer to squint and ultimately turn away. Read more about The Planes Still Fly Overhead