Weekend Roundup

by Charles Lenchner · 2009-01-17 08:34:00 UTC
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A Jewish Parliamentarian from the UK has compared Israeli actions in Gaza to the Holocaust. Sir Gerald Kaufman: "My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza."

OneWorld has a page up with Gaza alerts. The value added is first hand testimony from aid workers and civilians in Gaza. This quote from a youth sums up the experience of many civilians trapped there:

Hothayfa: "There is no safe place in Gaza; we moved in with my grandparents thinking that their neighborhood is safer, but last night we were watching a movie on my laptop and all of a sudden an adjacent building was bombarded, luckily no one had a major injury because we were sitting right under the window, but the broken glass was all over and some of us had minor injuries, and we could probably sleep for an hour or so. This is an incident that I will never forget.

Some excellent commentary from Uri Avnery about the 'boss going mad'

In this war, politicians and generals have repeatedly quoted the words: “The boss has gone mad!” originally shouted by vegetable vendors in the market, in the sense of “The boss has gone crazy and is selling the tomatoes at a loss!” But in the course of time the jest has turned into a deadly doctrine that often appears in Israeli public discourse: in order to deter our enemies, we must behave like madmen, go on the rampage, kill and destroy mercilessly.

There is an excellent roster of speakers at the upcoming Interfaith PeaceBuilders conference in Washington DC. this February 1-2. I will be speaking about online organizing, allowing me to gracefully avoid stating opinions on the conflict, but rather only on the best ways to be influential as a citizen-activist.

Last week, activists locked down the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco. Interesting.

In other news, I'm in DC for the inauguration. Anyone want to join me at an interfaith peace event on Monday?

Charles Lenchner
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