Dear friend-
I hope you are well and enjoying the equinox? Here at Just World Ed we're hard at work organizing the "Palestine in Crisis" speaking tour we're organizing with the great Gaza-Palestinian rights activist Yousef Aljamal.
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We will share more details about Yousef's tour, later. But planning is well advanced for him to speak-- hopefully live!-- at events in the NYC/Tristate area, Washington DC, Williamsburg and Richmond VA, Atlanta GA, Madison and Milwaukee WI, Portland OR, and Honolulu.
Do contact us if you'd like to help out at any of these events-- or if you're a media person from those areas or anywhere else in the United States who'd like to book Yousef for your show!
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Quick click-thru to info on:
** The new book of testimonies of Palestinian child detainees
** My 5K run for Gaza, and how you can support it
** Recent writings from JWE board members
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Yousef, who's currently completing his PhD studies in Turkey, is a great communicator and a smart analyst who will be available to speak on three different aspects of the current Palestinian crisis:
- He can speak on Gaza, the region in which he grew up as a refugee (from 1948 Israel) and where, for several years prior to his departure to Turkey, he was a go-to person at the Center for Political and Development Studies.
 He can speak about Palestinian child detainees. He translated into English the recent book Dreaming of Freedom: Palestinian Child Prisoners Speak (which is now available in North America as a paperback: 174 pages, $9.99.) As a member of the DoF team, Yousef worked closely with the colleagues who had gathered those testimonies in the West Bank-- an area with which he also has close family ties.- He can speak eloquently to the whole issue of settler colonialism in Palestine.
I am particularly happy to be bringing Yousef back to audiences in the United States. Back in 2014, my company Just World Books worked with the American Friends Service Committee to organize a nationwide speaking for three young writers from Gaza, of whom Yousef was one. You can read some accounts of that tour on this little blog we set up at the time.
I saw firsthand the deep transformations that can take place in the thinking of American people who previously had never knowingly met a person from Gaza, when they first meet and listen to one! Americans are subjected to such a high degree of demonizing propaganda about the Palestinians in general, and Gaza Palestinians in particular...
Talking of which, I hope you've seen the 4-page factsheet we produced recently: "Understanding Gaza and Hamas"? If not, you can download it here. It's a PDF that occupies 294 KB.
I should tell you that Yousef is still awaiting his U.S. visa. Of course, we're strongly hoping it will come through in time for him to make all his gigs. If by chance it does not, then the plan is to have him "appear" at the events organized by our partners and friends all around the country via video link. Stay tuned.
... Also, friends, as I'm sure you understand, all our programs take resources to accomplish well. If you are moved to make a donation to help support Yousef's tour and our other programs, that would be very much appreciated!
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 And now, before I get back into some other "serious" Just World Ed business, I wanted to tell you that I am currently in training for the Gaza 5K race that will be held next Saturday here in DC. UNRWA-USA organizes this fine effort every year. This year, they (we) are raising funds to support sorely needed community mental-health programs for Gaza's continuously traumatized people.
I very warmly invite you to head over to my fundraising page for this effort, read all about it... and dig as deep as you can to support it!
Great, of course, if you can support both UNRWA-USA and Just World Ed! I think we do different, very complementary things. UNRWA-USA provides actual help to Palestinians in chronic, deep distress in Gaza. JWE seeks to educate people, especially in the United States, about the systems and policies that have kept them in that distress for the past 71 years...
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And now, a quick survey of some of the fine writing that's been produced by JWE board members in recent weeks:
 At Richard Falk's blog, you can find the following pieces:
** Banning U.S. Congresspersons from Israel (Aug. 18)
** Burning Amazonia, Denying Climate Change, Devastating Syria, Starving Yemen, Ignoring Kashmir (Sept. 5)
** Chained to its past: A German formula for injustice toward the people of Palestine (Sept. 20; co-authored with Hans von Sponeck)
 Alice Rothchild, MD had a great op-ed in the Seattle Times on August 9:
** I can't support an ideology grounded in Jewish privilege and persecution of Palestinians.
She also had these powerful pieces on Mondoweiss and AFSC's blog, respectively:
** Anti-Semitism and white supremacy (Aug. 25)
** Preparing for 2020: Advocating for justice for Palestine and beyond (Sept. 13)
And I've been writing at Lobelog and Medium on a variety of Middle east-related topics, most recently these three pieces:
** Hizbullah reminds Israel of its power (Sept. 5)
** The emperor's new/old nuclear clothes (Sept. 18)
** WaPo's Ignatius gets 'mugged by reality' on Iran (Sept. 20)
By the way, if you want to follow my writings as they come out, you can follow me on Medium, where I'm trying to post/crosspost everything I write. Or, for periodic updates on what I've been writing, you can send in this little form.
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Please feel free to share all this information among your friends and networks. You can use the links below my sign-off to do so.
And thanks for everything you do to help build a better future for all of humanity!
Helena.
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