Breast Cancer Awareness in the Middle East

Saudi Doctor Brings Breast Cancer to Forefront

Breast Cancer Self-Diagnosis Fueled Passion for Helping Others

Dr. Sami Al-Amoudi has dedicated her life to teaching Saudi women about breast cancer. (ABC News)

Saudi Arabian gynecologist Samia Al-Amoudi has dedicated her life to bringing breast cancer to the forefront of her country's national agenda.

But the doctor, whose face has become synonymous with the disease, was shocked when she was self-diagnosed with breast cancer last year. "I was diagnosed in advanced stage — stage three," Al-Amoudi said. "My tumor is the worst kind of tumor."

Even though she was seeing female patients every day and encouraging them to do their own breast exams, Al-Amoudi never bothered to do one on herself.

Now the country's most famous doctor has become its most famous patient.

"I don't want people to suffer the way I did," Al-Amoudi said. "I want everybody to learn from the lesson."

Al-Amoudi was determined to turn her tragedy into a public lesson that might help others. She began writing articles and a book about breast cancer; she appeared on television to spread awareness.

Only 10 days after she discovered she had breast cancer, Al-Amoudi spoke to a support group and admitted her mistake of not getting a mammogram, a typical occurrence in Saudi Arabia.

Al-Amoudi's passionate speaking engagements opened a long locked door of silence about the subject of breast cancer — Saudi Arabian women historically are tight-lipped about the topic and do not discuss it for a variety of reasons.

Some of them [won't talk about it] because they think it's something very private," Al-Amoudi said. "They feel or they think of it as a taboo." Al-Amoudi hopes to change that attitude.

"She is a pioneer in terms of touching on a subject very personal," said Saudi writer and poet Thuraya Arrayed. "For her to come out and say here I am," Arrayed said, "it is wonderful."

"Dr. Samia is an invaluable resource," said Hala Moddelmog, CEO of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure. "She has been willing and able and capable of talking about breast cancer."

In fact, Al-Amoudi has launched the popular American breast cancer symbol of pink ribbons in Saudi Arabia.

Women who had never dared to speak about the subject now come to see her. One veiled woman said Al-Amoudi had given her the strength and the courage to battle her own breast cancer.

"She's a star for the whole country as a lady who has broken the silence," said Dr. Hassan Nasrat, of the King Abdulaziz Hospital in Saudi Arabia.

Al-Amoudi just hopes her activism will help the world find a cure. "I hope we reach a stage where we can live in a world free of cancer," Al-Amoudi said.

Meanwhile she maintains hope that she will be around for her two children.

"I pray to God to live long enough to bring up my children," she said.

Go to the SOURCE to view a video of Dr. Al Amoudi on Good Morning America

More Arab Women Speaking Out About Breast Cancer

Robin Roberts Talks to Two Cancer Survivors and a Doctor About Changes in the Region

An advertisement with two letters of the word breast covered, because it could not be used in public. (ABC News)

Talking about breast cancer is virtually taboo in the Middle East, but some women there are determined to change that.

"Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts talked to three women in the United Arab Emirates committed to bringing breast cancer awareness to their fellow countrywomen -- two are breast cancer survivors, one a leading cancer surgeon.

Fakhria Lufti, a breast cancer survivor, said that the subject is still very hard to talk about in the country.

"There is a lot of women I know, they just don't talk about it, even when they refer to cancer, they just say, 'that disease,'" Lufti said.

Adila Nasser, another survivor, agreed.

"The people around me, my society, don't tell anybody you've got cancer, you mustn't tell people, it's shameful," she said.

Together with Dr. Houriya Kazim, Nasser and Lufti are determined to break the cycle of shame.

Read FURTHER (also with Video)

On a personal note, I lived for five years in Saudi Arabia (1975-1980) and know first hand that talking openly about breast cancer, or any female health problem for that matter, was not done, not then, and even rarely now. I applaud these women, both victims and the doctors who are striding to break this taboo. But I would like to say also, that even here in the United States, many women still do not talk openly about breast cancer, I know this, because it happened in my own family, on my mother's side. They live in the South, where "women's health issues" are still somewhat hush hush in the older generation. My mother had four sisters, three of whom died from breast cancer, one (her younger sister) currently experiencing a recurrence of her own breast cancer, and my mother also a victim and in recovery. My mother doesn't want to talk about it, except in a clinical manner at the most, and she is a retired nurse, her sisters are the same way except for the youngest sister who is very open about it. My only paternal aunt also died of breast cancer, and this deadly combination of every single aunt and my own mother having breast cancer puts me at high risk. A few years ago they found some "abnormalities". At first I had to go a type of biopsy and then three month high intensity mammograms, then after a year, six months, and now I'm down to yearly mammograms. I DREAD them, absolutely dread them. And I will say openly here that I am afraid of breast cancer, very much afraid. Now as each fall rolls around, I know, call the doctor and make your appointment, then wait for the results. But this is PRO-ACTIVE behavior that I cannot avoid even if I wanted to. I saw how my aunts died, in two of them it went to the brain. I see how my one aunt with recurring breast cancer is suffering again with chemo, and I see my mother with her partial mastectomy in one breast. But it has to be done, you HAVE to go to the doctor on a regular basis, because early detection is the KEY to easier treatment-so whether I dread it or not, and believe me I do, I never miss an exam because breast cancer is a HORRIBLE disease to die from.

When a Great Man Speaks, All Should Listen: Desmond Tutu's Hope For The Holy Land

When a great man speaks, all should listen

Realizing God's dream for the Holy Land

By Desmond Tutu | October 26, 2007

WHENEVER I am asked if I am optimistic about an end to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I say that I am not. Optimism requires clear signs that things are changing - meaningful words and unambiguous actions that point to real progress. I do not yet hear enough meaningful words, nor do I yet see enough unambiguous deeds to justify optimism.

However, that does not mean I am without hope. I am a Christian. I am constrained by my faith to hope against hope, placing my trust in things as yet unseen. Hope persists in the face of evidence to the contrary, undeterred by setbacks and disappointment. Hoping against hope, then, I do believe that a resolution will be found. It will not be perfect, but it can be just; and if it is just, it will usher in a future of peace.

My hope for peace is not amorphous. It has a shape. It is not the shape of a particular political solution, although there are some political solutions that I believe to be more just than others.

Neither does my hope take the shape of a particular people, although I have pleaded tirelessly for international attention to be paid to the misery of Palestinians, and I have roundly condemned the injustices of certain Israeli policies that compound that misery. Thus I am often accused of siding with Palestinians against Israeli Jews, naively exonerating the one and unfairly demonizing the other.

Nevertheless, I insist that the hope in which I persist is not reducible to politics or identified with a people. It has a more encompassing shape. I like to call it "God's dream."

God has a dream for all his children. It is about a day when all people enjoy fundamental security and live free of fear. It is about a day when all people have a hospitable land in which to establish a future. More than anything else, God's dream is about a day when all people are accorded equal dignity because they are human beings. In God's beautiful dream, no other reason is required.

God's dream begins when we begin to know each other differently, as bearers of a common humanity, not as statistics to be counted, problems to be solved, enemies to be vanquished or animals to be caged. God's dream begins the moment one adversary looks another in the eye and sees himself reflected there.

All things become possible when hearts fixed in mutual contempt begin to grasp a transforming truth; namely, that this person I fear and despise is not an alien, something less than human. This person is very much like me, and enjoys and suffers, loves and fears, wonders, worries, and hopes. Just as I do, this person longs for well-being in a world of peace.


God's dream begins with this mutual recognition - we are not strangers, we are kin. It culminates in the defeat of oppression perpetrated in the name of security, and of violence inflicted in the name of liberation. God's dream routs the cynicism and despair that once cleared the path for hate to have its corrosive way with us, and for ravenous violence to devour everything in sight.

God's dream comes to flower when everyone who claims to be wholly innocent relinquishes that illusion, when everyone who places absolute blame on another renounces that lie, and when differing stories are told at last as one shared story of human aspiration. God's dream ends in healing and reconciliation. Its finest fruit is human wholeness flourishing in a moral universe.

In the meanwhile, between the root of human solidarity and the fruit of human wholeness, there is the hard work of telling the truth.

From my experience in South Africa I know that truth-telling is hard. It has grave consequences for one's life and reputation. It stretches one's faith, tests one's capacity to love, and pushes hope to the limit. At times, the difficulty of this work can make you wonder if people are right about you, that you are a fool.

No one takes up this work on a do-gooder's whim. It is not a choice. One feels compelled into it. Neither is it work for a little while, but rather for a lifetime - and for more than a lifetime. It is a project bigger than any one life. This long view is a source of encouragement and perseverance. The knowledge that the work preceded us and will go on after us is a fountain of deep gladness that no circumstance can alter.

Nothing, however, diminishes the fear and trembling that accompany speaking the truth to power in love. An acute awareness of fallibility is a constant companion in this task, but because nothing is more important in the current situation than to speak as truthfully as one can, there can be no shrinking from testifying to what one sees and hears.

What do I see and hear in the Holy Land? Some people cannot move freely from one place to another. A wall separates them from their families and from their incomes. They cannot tend to their gardens at home or to their lessons at school. They are arbitrarily demeaned at checkpoints and unnecessarily beleaguered by capricious applications of bureaucratic red tape. I grieve for the damage being done daily to people's souls and bodies. I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the yoke of oppression that was once our burden in South Africa.

I see and hear that ancient olive trees are uprooted. Flocks are cut off from their pastures and shepherds. The homes of some people are bulldozed even as new homes for others are illegally constructed on other people's land. I grieve for the land that suffers such violence, the marring of its beauty, the loss of its comforts, the despoiling of its yield. I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the bitter days of uprooting and despoiling in my own country.

I see and hear that young people believe that it is heroic and pious to kill others by killing themselves. They strap bombs to their torsos to achieve liberation. They do not know that liberation achieved by brutality will defraud in the end. I grieve the waste of their lives and of the lives they take, the loss of personal and communal security they cause, and the lust for revenge that follows their crimes, crowding out all reason and restraint. I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the explosive anger that inflamed South Africa, too.

Some people are enraged by comparisons between the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and what happened in South Africa. There are differences between the two situations, but a comparison need not be exact in every feature to yield clarity about what is going on. Moreover, for those of us who lived through the dehumanizing horrors of the apartheid era, the comparison seems not only apt, it is also necessary. It is necessary if we are to persevere in our hope that things can change.

Indeed, because of what I experienced in South Africa, I harbor a vast, unreasoning hope for Israel and the Palestinian territories. South Africans, after all, had no reason to suppose that the evil system and the cycles of violence that were sapping the soul of our nation would ever change. There was nothing special or different about South Africans to deserve the appearance of the very thing for which we prayed and worked and suffered so long.

Most South Africans did not believe they would live to see a day of liberation. They did not believe that their children's children would see it. They did not believe that such a day even existed, except in fantasy. But we have seen it. We are living now in the day we longed for.

It is not a cloudless day. The divine arc that bends toward a truly just and whole society has not yet stretched fully across my country's sky like a rainbow of peace. It is not finished, it does not always live up to its promise, it is not perfect - but it is new. A brand new thing, like a dream of God, has come about to replace the old story of mutual hatred and oppression.

I have seen it and heard it, and so to this truth, too, I am compelled to testify - if it can happen in South Africa, it can happen with the Israelis and Palestinians. There is not much reason to be optimistic, but there is every reason to hope.

Desmond Tutu is the former archbishop of Cape Town, chairman of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

SOURCE

Connecting the Dots: California Wildfires and the US Empire Building in Iraq (ie Blackwater)

For those reading here, I have received several emails asking if my family is safe from the wildfires. Yes, our nuclear family is safe thus far from the actual fires, but to go outside is to breathe in horribly toxic air. The sun is pink and the moon is orange. Where we live, the fires are to the north and the south and the east, but the smoke is engulfing the entire Southland, and that is NOTHING to complain about in comparison to the horrific losses of others. My sister in law lives in Mission Viejo where the fires in Santiago and Trabuco Canyons were started by arsonists. She had cataract surgery yesterday and it is nearly impossible for her to avoid the smoke to her eyes if she is anywhere in the SoCal. Roughly one million people have had to be evacuated, over 1200 homes burned, businesses burned, and lives destroyed which will have to be rebuilt. (that's the latest-but ever changing news) There is just no describing it, the same thing happened a few years ago but not nearly to this extent. SoCal is a disaster area, a true disaster area, some of us affected MUCH more than others. I ask that you pray for those affected and if you wish, to donate to those affected. It is SoCal's Katrina, except it is by fire, rather than by water. Thank you everyone who has asked how we are, I truly truly appreciate that with all my heart.

To tell you the truth, it is impossible to keep up to date on this situation, because new fires are starting everywhere, but this is the latest off of California Fire News

California Firestorm 2007

San Diego County
Witch Fire – 196,240 acres – 20% contained
Poomacha Fire – 35,000 acres – 10% contained
Rice Fire – 9,000 acres – 20% contained
Harris Fire – 75,000 acres – 10% contained
Horno/Ammo Fire – 10,000 acres – 40-50% contained
Wilcox Fire – 100 acres – 100% contained
Cajon Fire – 250 acres – 100% contained
McCoy Fire – 300 acres – 100% contained
Coronado Hills Fire – 300 acres – 100% contained

Los Angeles County
Ranch Fire – 54,716 acres – 70% contained
Canyon Fire – 4,500 acres – 85% contained
Magic Fire – 2,824 acres – 100% contained
Buckweed Fire – 38,356 acres – 100% contained
Meadowridge Fire – 40 acres - 100% contained

San Bernardino County
Slide Fire – 10,152 acres – 0% contained
Grass Valley Fire - 1,100 acres – 30% contained
Martin Fire – 123 acres – 100% contained
Walker Fire – 160 acres 100% contained

Orange County
Santiago Fire – 22,00 acres – 30% contained

Santa Barbara County
Sedgewick Fire – 710 acres – 100% contained

Riverside County
Rosa Fire – 411 acres – 100% contained
Roca Fire – 270 acres – 100% contained

Ventura County
Nightsky Fire – 35 acres – 100% contained

Source: California Fire News

From an email received, thank you David

2 articles to connect dots: Irony of natural disaster and the US empire made disaster of Iraq ravaging CA in tandem.

First article: state officials complaining about danger of inadequate equipt to deal with fires and other disasters since over one billion doll worth of equipt is gone to Iraq or to battle immigrants at the border. Second article: A support solicitation letter on behalf of residents of Potrero, CA (45 mi east of San Diego) who have been battling to stop Blackwater from building the largest private mercenary training headquarters in north America. They were on the verge of a special recall election to get rid of those on the planning commission who colluded with Blackwater to sell the land, when the fires wiped out the election for now.

State National Guard warns it's stretched to the limit

Mark Martin, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

Friday, May 11, 2007

(05-11) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- As state forestry officials predict an unusually harsh fire season this summer, the California National Guard says equipment shortages could hinder the guard's response to a large-scale disaster.

A dearth of equipment such as trucks and radios -- caused in part by the war in Iraq -- has state military officials worried they would be slow in providing help in the event of a major fire, earthquake or terrorist attack.

The readiness of the Guard has been described as a national problem and has become a political liability for the Bush administration, which came under fire this week when the governor of Kansas complained that the National Guard response to a devastating tornado in her state was inadequate. National Guard readiness has become a growing concern as the Guard has taken on extra responsibilities caused by the Iraq war and the increased threat of terrorism.

In California, half of the equipment the National Guard needs is not in the state, either because it is deployed in Iraq or other parts of the world or because it hasn't been funded, according to Lt. Col. John Siepmann. While the Guard is in good shape to handle small-scale incidents, "our concern is a catastrophic event,'' he said.

"You would see a less effective response (to a major incident),'' he said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also acknowledged the National Guard's equipment woes and attributed them to the war. National Guard policy has required that much of the equipment that goes with units to Iraq stays there.

"A lot of equipment has gone to Iraq, and it doesn't come back when the troops come back,'' Schwarzenegger said Thursday at a news conference in Sacramento, where he was asked about the National Guard. "So this is one thing we have been talking about, how do we get this equipment back as quickly as possible in case we need it, and we also need it for training.''

Schwarzenegger and other state officials say they are confident the Guard could handle most emergencies, however, noting that about 2,500 guard personnel are deployed overseas out of a force of more than 20,000.

"We are ready to respond, and we will respond to anything,'' Siepmann said, noting that problems would arise only in the case of a major problem on par with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or the Los Angeles riots in 1992.

And the National Guard is not the only agency charged with dealing with major emergencies: Bill Maile, a spokesman for the governor, noted the state had a well-choreographed emergency management system tying together local jurisdictions and state agencies like the Office of Emergency Services.

The National Guard performs a wide range of activities during emergencies, such as helping to fight fires, evacuating residents and providing security and supplies.

Siepmann said the Guard's aerial equipment that is used to fight fires, such as C-130 airplanes and CH-47 helicopters, was in good shape. But officials with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection have noted that a dry winter could lead to a particularly bad fire season.

Two fires in Southern California this week have prompted concerns that the season is starting unusually early.

The California National Guard is missing about $1 billion worth of equipment of all types, according to a Guard listing provided to The Chronicle. Much of the equipment would be useful in handling events like electricity blackouts, earthquakes or other emergencies.

For example, guidelines suggest the Guard should have 39 diesel generators on hand, but it has none. Guidelines suggest having 1,410 of a certain type of Global Positioning Satellite device; the Guard has none of those.

Some of the equipment is in Iraq, Afghanistan or other parts of the world -- 209 vehicles, including 110 humvees and 63 military trucks that could be used to transport troops or supplies, are out of the state. The Guard has only 62 percent of the vehicles it believes it needs in California.

Other equipment has not been funded by the federal government, which provides virtually all of the National Guard's budget.

Some equipment and about 1,400 California National Guard personnel are deployed along the Mexican border as part of a directive by President Bush to help bolster border security, but Siepmann said those troops could be quickly redeployed around the state if needed.

Bush was assailed this week by Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, who said the National Guard in her state was limited in its response to a tornado last Friday that flattened the town of Greensburg and killed at least 11 people. Sebelius said the state's military was missing trucks, bulldozers and helicopters that could have helped secure the town and search for survivors.

The White House insisted it had provided Kansas with all of the supplies it requested.

But around the country, concern is growing about the National Guard's ability to handle emergencies.

The head of the National Guard told a congressional committee in March that Army National Guard units have on average just 40 percent of their required equipment on hand and that bolstering supplies to a proper level would require an extra $40 billion. And an independent commission created by Congress to study the National Guard called the equipment shortage unacceptable in a report this year.

The Commission on the National Guard and Reserves noted the new responsibilities imposed on the Guard since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Iraq war have led to a utilization of National Guard personnel and equipment that "is not sustainable over time.''

The overuse of the National Guard overseas and limited federal funding for equipment to be used in the country could lead to a situation in California similar to the one in Kansas, said state Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, who is chairman of a legislative committee on emergency services and homeland security.

"These are policies that are putting California residents in jeopardy,'' said Nava, who is planning hearings on Guard readiness this summer.

---

California National Guard

-- Current strength: 20,059

-- On federal active duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere: 2,500 (approximate)

-- Killed in action: 23 (all in Iraq)

-- Serving on the Mexican border: 1,400

-- Available for state missions: 16,000

E-mail Mark Martin at markmartin@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/11/MNGRIPPB2D1.DTL

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STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLE OF POTRERO, CA AGAINST BLACKWATER

Dear Tom,

As I write this, massive fires are raging across Southern California. While it is quiet and normal at my house in Los Angeles, I can see smoke in the distance and smell it in the air. And I keep thinking about the good people of Potrero -- a serene small community in East San Diego County -- that I met just a few weeks ago as we rallied together to block Blackwater from building a base in their tiny, beautiful town.
These concerned community members have been working for months to stop Blackwater from building a mercenary training facility on 824 acres, consisting of 11 firing ranges, a helipad, and an emergency vehicle operator's course covering the equivalent of 10 football fields. As we watch the fire burn across the area today, one can only imagine what might have happened if an armory full of ammunition and explosives were located inside this box canyon.
I was inspired and proud to march with the good folks of Potrero, people who are not usually political, but who know that if they do not stand up against Blackwater in their own community, then no one will.We need to show our support for the people of San Diego County at this difficult time. Click here to send a brief message to Potrero residents expressing your support and then consider sending a donation to the San Diego Foundation's "After the Fires Fund":

http://www.couragecampaign.org/Potrero Beyond the damage and destruction to life and property, the timing of this wildfire could not be much worse. This fire exploded just as the people of Potrero were preparing for a recall election on December 11 to kick out the planning group members who approved Blackwater's base. With ballots scheduled to be mailed in early November to less than 600 registered voters in this historic vote-by-mail recall, Potrero residents were preparing for an intense campaign over the next six weeks.
But the actual landscape -- and the political landscape -- of Potrero have been transformed over the last 48 hours.
There's no time to waste. On Sunday, if the situation permits, I will travel down to Potrero with my Courage Campaign colleagues Eden James and Julia Rosen. If we are able, we will hand-deliver your notes of support to the people of Potrero, survey the damage and determine how we can help them move forward.

Please click here to watch a brief YouTube preview of a documentary film being made about the battle over Blackwater and the people of Potrero. Then consider sending a donation, and let them know that you are behind them:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/Potrero

Jan Hedlun and Carl Meyer are two Potrero residents featured in the documentary film produced by Alternate Focus that you can watch at the link above. Although she is not identified, Jan is the first woman appearing on-screen, describing how the Potrero residents "first heard of Blackwater."

Just last Sunday, as we were about to talk with both Jan and Carl by conference call about how to help them block Blackwater's base, news broke of a huge fire moving towards Potrero. We spoke with Jan again that evening but, despite many repeated attempts, we have not heard back from either Jan or Carl since Sunday night. While we assume they are OK, reports from East San Diego County have been unclear and we remain deeply concerned.

Obviously, the last thing Jan, Carl and their fellow concerned citizens can think about right now is Blackwater and the recall election. But I can guarantee you that Blackwater is thinking about nothing BUT that recall election. From what we understand, Blackwater is already crafting arguments to defend their proposed base and play on people's emotions during this crisis. Blackwater will likely argue that their base will not increase fire danger in San Diego County even as they plan to build it in a brushy, dry box canyon with only one way in and one way out.

We need to be there for Jan and Carl and everyone in Potrero. After watching the YouTube video, will you consider sending a donation to the "After the Fires Fund" or a note showing your support for the people of Potrero? On Sunday, we'll hand-deliver the note for you:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/Potrero

While the good people of Potrero are focused on recovering from this disaster, we will continue to keep you updated on the other disaster threatening their community -- Blackwater's plans to build a mercenary base on their pristine land, just a few miles from the California border.

Thank you again for everything you are doing to support the people of Potrero.

Rick Jacobs
Chair

P.S. Three weeks ago, we asked you to sign your name to a letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator Barbara Boxer about Blackwater's base, including a warning about Potrero's "fire-prone landscape":

"Not only will Blackwater's proposed California paramilitary base disrupt the lives of its residents, but it will also threaten the pristine natural habitat of the Round Potrero Valley, which includes part of Cleveland National Forest and is adjacent to the proposed Hauser Wilderness preserve. The regular detonation of firearms would be a risk both to the fire-prone landscape as well as to the wildlife that currently calls that area home, including the golden eagle and the California condor."

Despite this ominous warning, Senator Feinstein and Senator Boxer have failed to respond. The residents of Potrero and San Diego County can't wait for politicians to act to reduce the fire danger posed by Blackwater. That's why the Courage Campaign is getting involved now.

To show your support in their time of need, please consider sending a donation to the "After the Fires Fund" and a note of support to the people of Potrero:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/Potrero

Queen Rania Visits Los Angeles

Jordan's queen talks of women and education in L.A. visit

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Queen Rania seeks to dispel stereotyped images of Muslim women

By Carla Hall, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 25, 2007

Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan listened Wednesday morning to students at Taft High School in Woodland Hills chronicle their attempts at bridging multicultural gaps in their diverse student body. They talked of their organizations, their successes, their personal stories.

Then, microphone in hand, she sat on stage and, without so much as a note card, praised their various programs by name. The strife-torn Middle East could use a few of them, she mused.

"In my opinion, people who don't see eye to eye are standing with their backs to each other," Rania said.

"Ooohh," murmured the crowd.

"So you have to start with turning them around to face each other."

In the modern-day annals of royalty, women tend to fall into the category of the stately, matriarchal Queen Elizabeth or the paparazzi-hounded Diana, Princess of Wales.

Now Rania, the well-educated, multilingual wife of King Abdullah II of Jordan, is crafting a new sort of image. At 37, Rania chairs a variety of non-government organizations working on education and women's issues, as well as a micro-lending initiative, and has a website detailing it all.

She travels Jordan and the rest of the world speaking on issues that concern women, education and international relations. It's not unusual for royals to have portfolios thick with nonprofit deeds. And, to be sure, Rania owes something to her predecessor, Queen Noor al Hussein, the widow of the late King Hussein, Abdullah's father. Noor, too, is beautiful and versed in foreign policy. (The two women keep in touch by e-mail.)

But Noor is an American. Rania, born in Kuwait of a Palestinian father, is an Arab woman, a practicing Muslim on a mission to show the rest of the world that Arabs, particularly women -- "Muslim women are the biggest victims of stereotypes," she says -- are not the oppressed, terrorist-supporting, American haters that some people think they are.

In a day and a half of visits in Los Angeles, she moved with ease from the California Governor and First Lady's Conference on Women on Tuesday afternoon to a Q&A with Arianna Huffington that evening before an audience at Creative Artists Agency, and on to the Wednesday meeting with Taft students.

Although her messages were always about dispelling stereotypes and promoting multiculturalism, she subtly shifted argot for each appearance. She got a laugh when she said to a crowd of 14,000 gathered at the Long Beach Convention Center for the women's conference: "To hear some in the West, all Arab women are backward and oppressed -- while some Arabs assume all American women are desperate housewives seeking sex in the city."

At Taft, the Jordanian queen invoked Facebook and YouTube and lamented: "We have all this technology, but understand each other less."

At CAA's glistening marble and glass building in Century City, startlingly beautiful and dressed in Alberta Ferretti, she didn't flinch from foreign policy questions, whether they came from Huffington or a member of the audience, a well-heeled crowd that included the talent agency's staffers, invited guests and a sprinkling of celebrities -- producer Quincy Jones and director Taylor Hackford among them.

On honor killings of women, she said, "In Jordan, we have about 20 cases a year. For me, one is too many. This has nothing to do with Islam. . . . It's a misguided cultural undertaking."

Ever the diplomat from a country that prides itself on being modern and nonaggressive, Rania spoke of how Jordan -- a country of modest means at best -- takes care of its citizens and scrambles to cope with the 700,000 refugees of the Iraq War. "Jordan doesn't have any oil unfortunately -- or fortunately," she said at CAA. "It's made us focus on our human resources."

Everywhere she goes, she talks about her decision not to wear the hijab, the veil that Muslim women often wear. (In Jordan it is not mandatory.)

"I always say it's more important to judge a woman by what's in her head, not on her head," she told the Taft students, repeating a line she uses often.

Asked why she made the choice not to wear it, she said: "For the same reason that any woman decides how she wants to wear her hair or how she wants to dress. It's a personal choice.

She also thinks people in the West "attach some political implications to this item of clothing. To many people's minds, it represents oppression of women and powerlessness of Arab women and backwardness. . . . That's a misperception and something that needs to be corrected."

Rania was in the midst of a fledgling banking career in Amman when she met then-Prince Abdullah at a dinner party. She married him in 1993. Both she and her husband were caught by surprise when the dying Hussein decreed that Abdullah (and not Hussein's brother) would ascend to the throne of the constitutional monarchy.

Now she has her work -- she's fond of saying that being queen is a job -- and she watches over her four children, rationing their television and Internet time. "I think all parents have a responsibility to really know what their children are up to when they re on the Internet. . . . It's a dangerous place," she said. "It's a great medium, but like everything else you have to understand the pitfalls."

She has a nanny and a tutor to help her with Prince Hussein, 13; Princess Iman, 11; Princess Salma, 7; and Prince Hashem, 2. And when she's out of town, her mom stops by to check on the kids.

When she's not traveling, she and the king relax with their "House" and "Grey's Anatomy" DVDs or go to their beach house in Aqaba in south Jordan. She admits she enjoys shopping. "It's about self-expression," she said.

Some in Jordan think she should be more traditional. "Some people would like to see me be in a more conservative situation, where I'm not playing such a public role," she said. "But the point is representing my country is part of my job. . . . That means I have to go out and tell Jordan's story."
Source

Queen Rania's Website

Video: Queen Rania; growing rift between East & West


Video: Defining Global Citizenship: From Philantropy To Activism: (Queen Rania is the moderator of this forum) World Economic Forum On The Middle East
Defining Global Citizenship: From Philanthropy to Activism
Contributing to the common good takes many forms, from individual acts of philanthropy to ongoing pa... (1hr15 minutes)

Queen Rania was born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents from Tulkarm. She truly is not only brilliant but lovely, truly truly a roll model for all women

Breaking the Siege on Gaza: A United Front for Peace

By National Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza

We, the (Israel-based) National Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza (hereafter the National Committee), have adopted the initiative of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program to launch an international campaign for breaking the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip since June 2007.

The aim of this humanitarian, non-political campaign is to put pressure on the Israeli government in order to lift the siege imposed on the population of Gaza. By raising the awareness of the international community on the deteriorating life conditions resulting from the siege, we aim at other governments to stop the boycott of Gaza. We are pleased to note here that the European Parliament has recently adopted a resolution calling on the Israeli government to end the siege.

It is important to declare that this campaign is not affiliated or endorsed by any political party. The National Committee is composed of representatives of the civil society, business community, intellectuals and advocates for human rights and peace from the West Bank and Gaza. We are all guided by our commitment to peace and our respect to human dignity.

We believe that it is a moral and ethical duty to rescue the lives of human souls living under bitter circumstances that sabotage their right to exist. People in Gaza are deprived of the simplest requirements for a decent life. We are determined to move hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder with all people who believe in freedom, human dignity and peace.

We, the (Israel-based) National Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza (hereafter the National Committee), have adopted the initiative of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program to launch an international campaign for breaking the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip since June 2007.

The aim of this humanitarian, non-political campaign is to put pressure on the Israeli government in order to lift the siege imposed on the population of Gaza. By raising the awareness of the international community on the deteriorating life conditions resulting from the siege, we aim at other governments to stop the boycott of Gaza. We are pleased to note here that the European Parliament has recently adopted a resolution calling on the Israeli government to end the siege.

It is important to declare that this campaign is not affiliated or endorsed by any political party. The National Committee is composed of representatives of the civil society, business community, intellectuals and advocates for human rights and peace from the West Bank and Gaza. We are all guided by our commitment to peace and our respect to human dignity.

We believe that it is a moral and ethical duty to rescue the lives of human souls living under bitter circumstances that sabotage their right to exist. People in Gaza are deprived of the simplest requirements for a decent life. We are determined to move hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder with all people who believe in freedom, human dignity and peace.

As part of the campaign, solidarity meetings, cultural activities, and discussion will take place.

Internationally, we seek to mobilize people for the campaign in all parts of the world, particularly in the US, Europe and Israel using printed and media materials documenting the effects of the siege.

The campaign will be concluded in May by a major event, which is the arrival of 120 human rights activists including Noble Prize winners to Gaza via sea coming from Cyprus. This event will be titled “Free Gaza Movement Day” and is planned by a solidarity group in USA.

The campaign will have special posters as well as a website where all relevant materials will be published. The site will give special opportunities for people to exchange information, ask questions, and have their comments on the planned activities.

Throughout the campaign, close contact with the media will be maintained with regular feeding of information and news and updates.

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Protest Ann Coulter/"Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." at USC Wed. Oct 24

Join students from USC and others to protest the message of hate that Ann Coulter is presenting Wednesday October 24 at USC as part of the David Horowitz Center's "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." (for more info, read this article http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-2/649/649_12_Crusade.shtml)

Whipping up racism against Muslims is a key to selling the "war on terror" to the American people. Challenging this racism is an important component in stopping the US war on Iraq, and Afghanistan, and preventing further US attacks.

Join USC students at 5:30pm outside the Annenberg Auditorium at USC. Students are planning for a peaceful protest.

-Cindy Kaffen, ISO

Address

Annenberg Auditorium, USC
3502 Watt Way
Los Angeles, California 90089-0281

Suggested Parking
Vermont Street Parking Plaza (PSA)
Enter at the Vermont Avenue Entrance at 36th Place (#6)
Open Monday – Friday, 6 a.m. – 10 p.m.
For all other times, including weekends, enter at the Jefferson Boulevard Entrance at McClintock Avenue (#5), open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. From this entrance drive down McClintock. The parking plaza is on southwest corner of McClintock and Downey Way.

Getting from Parking to the Venue
Exit the northeast corner of the parking plaza. Take McClintock Avenue heading north. Take a right on Childs Way. Walk past Cromwell Track Field on the left. Turn left on Watt Way and pass the Physical Education building on the right. Take a right on Hellman Way. The Annenberg School for Communication building is on the left. The entrance to the Auditorium is located in the East Lobby of the School.

Disability Access
Pass Hellman Way and the front of the Annenberg School for Communication, then take a right and proceed to the East Lobby.

University Park Campus Map & Driving Directions

Twenty Years After: The Whittier Earthquake, Living in SoCal

(Woops, I knew there was something wrong, the Whittier earthquake hit October 1, 1987 and then another strong aftershock on the fourth-found the article when looking for the fires and the date was todays' date, but it was a 23 day old article, oh well, you get the drift, living in LA certainly has it's moments)

Well, was it really 20 years ago? It started like a freight train noise. My oldest daughter (my only daughter at the time-now I have three) was in her bathroom brushing her teeth. The house began to shake, and as I looked at the corner of the room, the house was actually twisting.
I met her in the doorway and we held on to each other for dear life, not knowing when it would stop, or if it was going to get worse.

We had house guests at the time, and the husband was in the shower. He came running out stark strip naked and paniced. His wife was uptown Whittier getting out of her car as the buildings started collapsing. It was SO frightening, there are just no words for it.

But here is something REALLY weird. My mom had called me a few minutes before telling me she had a dead battery and was waiting for the auto club. They had told her they would be a little late because they had DOZENS of calls about dead batteries in that neighborhood. As it happens, the Whittier fault line ran just a block from her apartment. In her apartment alone there were seven dead batteries that morning. Is that a coincidence? I don't think so.

After the quake hit, the phones went out due to the tremendous amount of traffic. My dad was in school at the time several miles away. He showed up about an hour and a half after the quake hit at my house on his way home. They had canceled the classes at Citrus College and he couldn't understand why, the quake he said didn't feel THAT bad. I told him that they were saying Whittier was the epicenter and he didn't believe me. So I followed him home, and the closer to Uptown Whittier you got, the more damage there was, whole buildings collapsed. Then we got to their apartment and walked in. There was my mother sitting stupefied. Everything in her kitchen cabinets and refrigerator was a broken mess in the floor. Her china cabinet fallen with almost everything broken, and the floor buckled, but the building still standing. The auto club had not gotten there yet with all the turmoil.

Now twenty years later, Uptown Whittier has pretty much gotten back on it's feet, but alot has changed. So many businesses closed down, for one, my favorite Italian restaurant where you ordered ala carte-choice of pasta-choice of sauce and side dishes. Cheap and DELICIOUS. We used to go there often, but the quake was the end of that. So much has changed, and here we are, twenty years later, remembering the day our earth shook us like nothing I have ever felt before or since.

Now the Southland is being devastated by fires. Living in SoCal has it's pluses and minuses, twenty years ago today, was a minus, as is today. Please keep all those suffering and who have lost their homes in your prayers. READ>>>>>>>>

"It was nuclear winter. It was like Armageddon. It looked like the end of the world," Mitch Mendler, a San Diego firefighter, said as he and his crew stopped at a shopping center parking lot to refill their water truck from a hydrant near a restaurant.

At least 14 fires were burning in Southern California. From San Diego to Malibu, more than 150 miles up the Pacific coast, authorities said that at least 655 homes and 168 businesses or other structures had been destroyed.

"We have literally the perfect firestorm going on," said San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts. "We're a long ways from containment if there is such a thing given these winds."

More than 265,000 people in numerous communities were warned to leave their homes, at least 250,000 residents in San Diego County alone. "It's probably closer to 300,000," Roberts said. More 200,000 reverse 9-1-1 calls - calls from county officials to residents - were made, alerting people to evacuate, he said.

Whittier's Big One: 2 decades later

Earthquake killed 8, displaced thousands

By Sandra T. Molina Staff Writer

WHITTIER - Twenty years ago today, the city and surrounding communities woke up at the same time: 7:42 a.m.

What was first reported as a magnitude-6.1 earthquake was later downgraded to 5.9, but for many the Whittier Narrows Earthquake was the Big One and still is.

The temblor, which lasted about 20 seconds and killed eight people, occurred on a previously unknown, concealed thrust fault, according to the Southern California Earthquake Data Center.

One of the deaths, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, was a Southern California Edison worker who was buried by a landslide in the Muir Park area of the San Gabriel Mountains while working with a crew installing footings for a high-tension power tower north of Pasadena.

It was the strongest earthquake to hit the Los Angeles area since the 6.6 Sylmar quake of 1971 that killed 64 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Whittier Fault runs from Chino Hills to Whittier to Yorba Linda and has a slip rate of between 2.5 and 3 millimeters annually.

It is part of the bigger Puente Hills Fault, which stretches from west of downtown Los Angeles to the Puente Hills area.

The Southern California Earthquake Data Center has estimated the Whittier Fault could generate up to a magnitude-7.2 quake.

A magnitude-5.3 aftershock occurred three days after the 1987 Whittier Narrows quake.

Damage to businesses, homes, roads and utilities in 1987 was estimated at $358 million.

In Whittier alone, the Oct. 1 temblor caused $100 million in destruction.

Despite the widespread devastation, experts say the quake, which was felt in Las Vegas, offered just a taste of the power building up below the ground near Whittier.

A Harvard geologist said in 2004 that the Whittier Narrows Earthquake ruptured only about 10 percent of the fault.

The damage spurred the City Council to establish a 521-acre earthquake recovery redevelopment project area to help the city's recovery a month after the event.

The project area enabled the city to capture property taxes that would have normally gone to counties and schools.

The city will be able to collect property tax from the project until 2037.

Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital received 170 patients in the quake's aftermath, according to hospital officials.

City Hall was not damaged, according to Whittier officials, and was used as housing for essential employees in the immediate days after the temblor.

Other cities sent aid.

The city of Santa Fe Springs donated money, and the city of Los Angeles sent badly needed signs warning residents that buildings were not safe to enter.

Whittier building officials received hundreds of inspection requests per day during the first few days after the quake.

About 100 chimneys tumbled at homes in the city's historic district, and 17 homes were destroyed.

The inspections continued for a year.

Some 1,000 people were evacuated from a square-mile area of Whittier and police stood guard to prevent looting.

Most of the schools in Whittier were open to students except for the older, multi-story Whittier High School.

It suffered $1 million in structural damage and did not reopen until five days later.

Displaced people were evacuated to Red Cross shelters at the Whittier Community Center, 7630 S. Washington Ave., and at California High School, 9800 S. Mills Ave.

A total of 9,000 people were displaced in and around Whittier, and about 10,000 structures were damaged and destroyed.

Source

Occupation 101: Showing in Pasadena, CA Nov. 10th

The Peace Center @ CAL Presents

Occupation 101

Voices of the Silenced Majority

This award-winning film reveals the

brutal occupation of the

Palestinian territories,

the suffering of the Palestinian people

and the role of the U.S. tax payer.

See a preview at www.occupation101.com

Saturday, November 10 at 10:30 a.m.

Laemmle Theater
One Colorado
in Old Pasadena

Admission: $5.00

Q&A after the movie

Israel, A State Based On The Mother of All Pretexts

Stop and read carefully, take it in, then read again. In order to create the state of Israel, another people had to be expelled, and yet when they fight back, they are called terrorists.

OPINION: The mother of all pretexts —Uri Avnery

The struggle between Israel and the Palestinians is no longer a conflict between the Zionist movement, which came to settle in this country, and the Palestinian people, which inhabited it. No, it has been from the very beginning a part of a worldwide struggle which does not stem from our aspirations and actions

When I hear mention of Civilisations” I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

To laugh, because it is such a silly notion.

To cry, because it is liable to cause untold disasters.

To cry even more, because our leaders are exploiting this slogan as a pretext for sabotaging any possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. It is just one more in a long line of pretexts.

Why was the Zionist movement in need of excuses to justify the way it treated the Palestinian people?

At its birth, it was an idealistic movement. It laid great weight on its moral basis. Not just in order to convince the world, but above all in order to set its own conscience at rest.

From early childhood we learned about the pioneers, many of them sons and daughters of well-to-do and well-educated families, who left behind a comfortable life in Europe in order to start a new life in a far-away and — by the standards of the time — primitive country. Here, in a savage climate they were not used to, often hungry and sick, they performed bone-breaking physical labour under a brutal sun.

For that, they needed an absolute belief in the rightness of their cause. Not only did they believe in the need to save the Jews of Europe from persecution and pogroms, but also in the creation of a society so just as never seen before, an egalitarian society that would be a model for the entire world. Leo Tolstoy was no less important for them than Theodor Herzl. The kibbutz and the moshav were symbols of the whole enterprise.

But this idealistic movement aimed at settling in a country inhabited by another people. How to bridge this contradiction between its sublime ideals and the fact that their realisation necessitated the expulsion of the people of the land?

The easiest way was to repress the problem altogether, ignoring its very existence: the land, we told ourselves, was empty, there was no people living here at all. That was the justification that served as a bridge over the moral abyss.

Only one of the Founding Fathers of the Zionist movement was courageous enough to call a spade a spade. Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote as early as 80 years ago that it was impossible to deceive the Palestinian people (whose existence he recognised) and to buy their consent to the Zionist aspirations. We are white settlers colonising the land of the native people, he said, and there is no chance whatsoever that the natives will resign themselves to this voluntarily. They will resist violently, like all the native peoples in the European colonies. Therefore we need an “Iron Wall” to protect the Zionist enterprise.

When Jabotinsky was told that his approach was immoral, he replied that the Jews were trying to save themselves from the disaster threatening them in Europe, and, therefore, their morality trumped the morality of the Arabs in Palestine.

Most Zionists were not prepared to accept this force-oriented approach. They searched fervently for a moral justification they could live with.

Thus started the long quest for justifications — with each pretext supplanting the previous one, according to the changing spiritual fashions in the world.

The first justification was precisely the one mocked by Jabotinsky: we were actually coming to benefit the Arabs. We shall redeem them from their primitive living conditions, from ignorance and disease. We shall teach them modern methods of agriculture and bring them advanced medicine. Everything — except employment, because we needed every job for the Jews we were bringing here, which we were transforming from ghetto-Jews into a people of workers and tillers of the soil.

The rise of the Nazis in Europe brought masses of Jews to the country. The Arab public saw how the land was being withdrawn from under their feet, and started a rebellion against the British and the Jews in 1936. Why, the Arabs asked, should they pay for the persecution of the Jews by the Europeans? But the Arab Revolt gave us a new justification: the Arabs support the Nazis. And indeed, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, was photographed sitting next to Hitler. Some people “discovered” that the Mufti was the real instigator of the Holocaust. (Years later it was revealed that Hitler had detested the Mufti, who had no influence whatsoever over the Nazis.)

Then came the Cold War. We were, of course, on the side of the “Free World”, while the great Arab leader, Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, got his weapons from the Soviet bloc. (True, in the 1948 war the Soviet arms flowed to us, but that’s not important.) It was quite clear: No use talking with the Arabs, because they support Communist tyranny.

But the Soviet bloc collapsed. “The terrorist organisation called PLO”, as Menachem Begin used to call it, recognised Israel and signed the Oslo agreement. A new justification had to be found for our unwillingness to give back the occupied territories to the Palestinian people.

The salvation came from America: a professor named Samuel Huntington wrote a book about the “Clash of Civilisations”. And so we found the mother of all pretexts.

The arch-enemy, according to this theory, is Islam. Western Civilisation, Judeo-Christian, liberal, democratic, tolerant, is under attack from the Islamic monster, fanatical, terrorist, murderous.

Islam is murderous by nature. Actually, “Muslim” and “terrorist” are synonymous. Every Muslim is a terrorist, every terrorist a Muslim.

A sceptic might ask: How did it happen that the wonderful Western culture gave birth to the Inquisition, the pogroms, the burning of witches, the annihilation of the Native Americans, the Holocaust, the ethnic cleansings and other atrocities without number — but that was in the past. Now Western culture is the embodiment of freedom and progress.

When the Communist empire collapsed, America was suddenly left without a worldwide enemy. This vacuum has now been filled by the Muslims-Terrorists. Not only Osama bin Laden, but also the Chechnyan freedom fighters, the angry North-African youth of the Paris banlieus, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the insurgents in the Philippines.

This way, a huge part of the world, composed of manifold and very different countries, and a great religion, with many different and even opposing tendencies (like Christianity, like Judaism), which has given the world unmatched scientific and cultural treasures, is thrown into one and the same pot.

This worldview is tailored for us. Indeed, the world of the clashing civilisations is, for us, the best of all possible worlds.

The struggle between Israel and the Palestinians is no longer a conflict between the Zionist movement, which came to settle in this country, and the Palestinian people, which inhabited it. No, it has been from the very beginning a part of a worldwide struggle which does not stem from our aspirations and actions. The assault of terrorist Islam on the Western world did not start because of us. Our conscience can be entirely clean — we are among the good guys of this world.

This is now the line of argument of official Israel: the Palestinians elected Hamas, a murderous Islamic movement. (If it didn’t exist, it would have to be invented — and indeed, some people assert it was created from the start by our secret service.) Hamas is terroristic, and so is Hizbullah. Perhaps Mahmoud Abbas is not a terrorist himself, but he is weak and Hamas is about to take sole control over all Palestinian territories. So we cannot talk with them. We have no partner. Actually, we cannot possibly have a partner, because we belong to Western Civilisation, which Islam wants to eradicate.

In his book “Der Judenstaat”, Theodor Herzl, the official Israeli “Prophet of the State”, prophesied this development, too.

This is what he wrote in 1896: “For Europe we shall constitute (in Palestine) a part of the wall against Asia, we shall serve as a vanguard of culture against barbarism.”

Herzl was thinking of a metaphoric wall, but in the meantime we have put up a very real one. For many, this is not just a Separation Wall between Israel and Palestine. It is a part of the worldwide wall between the West and Islam, the front-line of the Clash of Civilisations. Beyond the wall there are not men, women and children, not a conquered and oppressed Palestinian population, not choked towns and villages like Abu-Dis, a-Ram, Bil’in and Qalqilia. No, beyond the wall there are a billion terrorists, multitudes of bloodthirsty Muslims, who have only one desire in life: to throw us into the sea, simply because we are Jews, part of Judeo-Christian Civilisation.

With an official position like that — who is there to talk to? What is there to talk about? What is the point of meeting in Annapolis or anywhere else?

And what is left to us to do — to cry or to laugh?

Uri Avnery is an Israeli peace activist who has advocated the setting up of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. He served three terms in the Israeli parliament (Knesset), and is the founder of Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc)

Source

Campaign to Stop the Demolition of a Palestinian Primary School in Fesayil

I ask you, if a building permit were unobtainable to build a school for your children, what would you do? What would you do if your children had no school to go to, if no new school had been built in 40 years? What would you do?

Would you sit back and do nothing? Or would you build your child a school?

This report is just beyond words. As we here in the US are glue to the story of Ellen de Generes and her dog, Palestinian children half a world away are about to lose their school. People, get a grip on your humanitarian priorities here and write letters to your congressmen and senators about this, the same people who continually vote to support Israel no matter what they do.


Palestinian Primary School in Fasayil to be demolished on the 29th of November!
Latest News, Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, October 19th, 2007

Above: The children of Fasayil looking at the demolition order of their school

On the Thursday, the 17th of October the Israeli Occupation Forces issued a demolition order for Fasayil’s primary school and yet another Palestinian family’s home in the village. Construction work requires a permit from the Occupation authorities but since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967 not one has been granted. The systematic ban on destruction is clearly aiming at driving out Palestinians of the Jordan Valley.

According to the demolition order issued against the primary school the community has to dismantle the school within 40 days or to face the arrival of the Occupation’s bulldozer and a heavy fine for not respecting the construction ban.

This summer, the Popular Committee of Fasayil together with the Palestinian Save the Jordan Valley Initiative of the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign and the Brighton Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group, started to build the first and only primary school in Fasayil in the heart of the Jordan Valley. The grassroots project is part of the twinning between community groups in Brighton and in Palestine.(To Read More about the school project, press here.)

In defiance of the Israeli Occupation’s complete ban on house construction, the shell of the new school has been completed in September. The school was built with ancient building techniques out of traditional mud bricks and will provide a resource for more than 115 children. It aims at resolving the grave educational crisis that is affecting Fasayil and many other communities in the Jordan Valley caused by military restrictions imposed by the occupation forces.

Villagers and local activists are defiant:
“They can knock our school down as often as they want. We cannot stop them from doing so. We will build the school again and again and again. They cannot destroy our determination to give proper education to our children.
"Our children’s education is our future! They will not succeed in their attempts to drive us from our land.”

Education is a crucial tool for empowering Palestinian children to confront the harsh life under occupation, opening a perspective that goes beyond a future as slave labourers in the Occupation’s settlement plantations.

We are calling on all people around the world, the media and the international community to get active to prevent the Occupation from destroying Fasayil’s primary school, to defend the children’s right to education and to protect the Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley!

Above: A picture for Fasayil school, staff and students. The first school to be built since 40 years of the Jordan Valley occupation, will be bulldozed after 40 days.

EXPLORE THE ISSUE
Search for more about Fasayil on this site.
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