The DC-based political advocacy approach requires one to play by specific rules, and they include constraints and considerations that people doing grassroots advocacy don’t have to bother with (maintaining relationships with various governments and government officials and using language and talking points that are suitable for that sphere). Whatever you think of the Washington game, it is what it is. Our political opponents who are so effective in Washington also play the game, and exceptionally well. If you don’t like the game, then find ways to limit the time you devote to it, or don’t play it at all. But don’t waste valuable energy denouncing those who choose to play it because they see the value in giving our community a voice in Washington." Omar Baddar
Monday, May 23, 2011
Omar Baddar: Confronting the Needless Hostility Within
ATFP Urges Support for President Obama [& A TWO STATE SOLUTION to STOP THE ISRAEL/PALESTINE CONFLICT]
http://www.americantaskforce.org/in_media/pr/2011/05/23/1306123200The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) Urges Support for President Obama
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Information: Ghaith al-Omari
May 23, 2011 - 12:00am
ATFP expresses its support for President Obama’s call for the establishment of two states, Palestine and Israel with borders based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed upon swaps. ATFP has always advocated a negotiated two-state solution as an American national interest.
ATFP urges Members of Congress and all Americans to work intensively with the President to achieve this goal. ATFP also calls upon the Palestinians and Israelis to engage with the President in reaching peace for the benefit of their peoples and the region.
TAGS: Peace Based on Two States
Israel must recognize Palestinian refugees right to return - Abbas
| Politics 5/22/2011 9:43:00 PM |
| AMMAN, May 22 (KUNA) -- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stressed Sunday that Israel must accept Palestinian refugees' right to return and get compensation for their displacement. In a press conference following a meeting with Jordanian Prime Minister Marouf Al-Bakhit, Abbas added that Israel should recognize East Jerusalem as a part of the Arab occupied territories. The Palestinian leader also noted that Hamas is part of the Palestinian people and practicing opposition according to the democratic rules. Abbas, however, said peace negotiations would be handled to the new unity government. The Palestinian President also expressed gratitude for Jordanian King Abdullah II for his support to Palestinians and their cause. For his part, Jordanian Premier underscored that the refugees' right to return and the recognition of East Jerusalem as a capital for the future Palestinian state are the most important issues that have to be included in any peace deal. |
UC Debates Free Speech Vs. Federal Protection... Meanwhile, the “hostile environment” question may be cutting in two directions.
No State... a poem by Anne Selden Annab
No Stateand extreme "right" one-staters
usurp the Palestinian refugees very real
right of return to turn it into
the complete destruction
of Palestine
bit by bit
day by day year by year
unresolved
the Israel/Palestine conflict plays out
Extreme "left"
and extreme "right" one-staters
colonize the conversation
Recruiting radicals
and religious idiots
the Israel/Palestine conflict rages on and on
until no one reasonable
and no one wise
and no one kind
no one sane
is willing to
bother... Outsiders take over
and insiders are exiled
alienated- disenfranchised
or disappeared
and destroyed ... silenced
so that the Israel/Palestine conflict can continue
raging on until Palestine isn't.
Obama's 'Jewish state' reference jars Palestinians
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians either fled or were expelled during the war surrounding Israel's creation in 1948. Today, the surviving refugees, with their descendants, number several million people.
The Palestinians claim they have the right to return to their family's lost properties. Israel rejects the principle, saying it would mean the end of the country as a Jewish democracy. Israeli leaders say the refugees should be entitled to compensation and resettled in a future Palestine to be established next to Israel, or absorbed where they now live.
In his speech last Thursday, Obama did not explicitly mention the refugees. But by saying a final peace deal must recognize "Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people," he appeared to back the Israeli position.
The issue is so central to Palestinian policy and society that no Palestinian leader can be seen as abandoning the rights of the refugees, particularly at a time when peace efforts are at a standstill and so many other difficult issues, such as borders and the final status of Jerusalem, remain unresolved.
Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian official, said recognition of Israel as a Jewish state would sell out not only the refugees, but potentially open the door to Israel expelling its roughly 1.5 million Arab citizens as well. This idea has never been seriously raised in Israel.
He said the Palestinian recognition of Israel's right to exist, without any reference to national character, should be sufficient.
"We recognize Israel as a state," he said. "It's a recognition of a state to a state."
Obama's 'Jewish state' reference jars Palestinians
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators, holding painted panels, protest outside of the Washington Convention Center in Washington, where the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is having its annual meeting Sunday, May 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Civic Education
Civic Education
Civic education, whenever and however undertaken, prepares people of a country, especially the young, to carry out their roles as citizens. Civic education is, therefore, political education or, as Amy Gutmann describes it, “the cultivation of the virtues, knowledge, and skills necessary for political participation” (1987, 287). Of course, in some regimes political participation and therefore civic education can be limited or even negligible. Though commonly associated with schooling, civic education is not the exclusive domain of schools....READ MOREOther Internet Resources
- Center for Civic Education, home of the educational programs “We the People” and “Project Citizen.”
- Center for Democracy and Citizenship, affiliated with the University of Minnesota and engaged in activist democracy through projects involving public work.
- CIRCLE or the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and based in Tufts University's Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, this center promotes research and projects on civic and political engagement of the young.
- Civic Mission of Schools, dedicated to reviving and enhancing civic education in the public schools.
- Close Up Foundation, which runs a Washington DC experiential learning program for middle-school and high-school students.
- Constitutional Rights Foundation, which focuses on educating America's youth about the importance of democratic participation.
- National Alliance for Civic Education, an alliance of over 200 groups and individuals committed to advancing civic knowledge and engagement and to helping citizens better understand the role and value of civic education.
- Public Achievement, a civic engagement initiative that seeks to involve the young in learning lessons of democracy by doing public work.
Arab-American News: Toward a "Palestinian Spring"
A Palestinian refugee plays in front of homes rebuilt by UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, which were destroyed in fighting in 2007, in Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, northern Lebanon, in this April 19, 2011 file photo. The border protests on May 15, 2011, in which Israeli gunfire killed at least 13 people, were a reminder that the plight of 4.5 million Palestinian refugees, often ignored in interim peace deals, lies at the core of an Arab conflict with Israel that has reverberated across the Middle East and beyond for decades. REUTERS/Omar Ibrahimhttp://www.arabamericannews.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=Palestine&article=4226
Ibtisam Barakat: Singing in Key
May 21, 2011 -- Ibtisam Barakat with the Blind Boone Historic Piano at the event "Piano Originals". I dedicated this performance on the piano and spoken word to the Right of Return.. There are 88 keys on the piano and I suggested an 89th key for my work: The Key of Return: This is from the poem SINGING IN KEY.