Israel / Palestine Film / Lecture Series: September and October

ISRAEL-PALESTINE FILM & LECTURE SERIES

September/October 2007

The Committee for Peace in Israel/Palestine and East End Women in Black are pleased to present a unique Israeli view of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Films and an important talk by Jeff Halper, Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions will be presented at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House in Bridgehampton over the next month.

Dr. Jeff Halper will present his talk "Peace or Apartheid, Indeed" on Thursday, October 4 at 7pm.

He will outline the nature of the present occupation which Israel intends to be permanent, explaining how a "Matrix of Control" is used to isolate Palestinians from their land, from each other and from Israelis. Halper promises also to talk "about where we are at this moment, teetering on the edge of apartheid" and why he believes "that a two-state solution permitting a truly sovereign and VIABLE Palestinian state has been eliminated by Israel's settlement enterprise" He will put forward a positive solution and invite discussion from the audience.

The films are:
Monday, Sept 24, 7pm – Arna's Children.
Juliano Mer Khamis' documentary on his mother, Arna, an activist against the Israeli occupation who founded an alternative education system for Palestinian children, The film is set in the Jenin Refugee Camp on the occupied West Bank. Kathy Engel of East End Women in Black will lead a discussion following the film.

Monday October 8, 7pm - "Knowledge is the Beginning" a film with musician Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian-American academic and writer Edward Said. The film focuses on the commitment to peace and harmony by the world-renowned conductor and pianist, Daniel Barenboim. Mr. Barenboim regularly speaks out for peace and against the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian lands.

Monday October 15, 7pm "Wall" by Simone Bitton (France)
Wall (Mur) is a cinematic meditation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which the filmmaker blurs the lines of hatred by asserting her double identity as Jew and Arab. In an original documentary approach, the film follows the separation fence that is destroying one of the most historically significant landscapes in the world, while imprisoning one people and enclosing the other.

Special Presentations:

Monday October 29, 7pm : Two Presentations on Israel-Palestine

Multi-media presentation: Facing the Wall by artist and psychologist Hazel Kahan, Ph.D. Dr. Kahan will explore how art is used as a form of resistance to the occupation of Palestine on the separation barrier, Israel's illegal 400-mile structure that includes a 25-foot-high wall in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Max Surjadinata, an Indonesian-American retired pastor and international activist will talk about his participation in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel of the World Council of Churches. He was stationed in Ramallah where he worked with Palestinian Christian communities.

Sponsored by the Committee for Peace in Israel-Palestine and East End Women in Black.

at the Unitarian Universalist South Fork Meetinghouse

977 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, Bridgehampton, just south of Scuttlehole Rd.

East End Women in Black Observe 5th Anniversary of Vigil

On Sunday, August 19 at 5pm at the Sag Harbor Wharf, East End Women in Black started the sixth year of a vigil for peace in the middle east and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the US occupation of Iraq.

Women in Black was founded by Israeli and Palestinian women during the first Intifada, as a partnership transcending enforced allegiances and violent militarism within their 2 societies. They stood silently in weekly vigil together, seeking rational, justice based solutions. East End Women in Black was formed in solidarity with them, under the initiative of Kathy Engel, by 5 women during the summer of 2002.

Weekly vigils shortly followed at the flagpole in Sag Harbor, one of its portals of entry. Each Sunday at 5pm, both men and women gathered for one hour of silent presence supporting universal human rights and against both the Israeli Occupation and the American Occupation of Iraq. For 5 years, the vigil has been continuous, now twice monthly in Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor.

We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon

Kathy Engel, Kathryn Levy, Naomi Lazard and Margaret Gibson will read from We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon at Canios Books, 290 Main St. Sag Harbor on Friday June 15 starting at 6pm.

We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon, edited by Kamal Boullata and East End Women in Black co-founder Kathy Engel was published on March 31, 2007 by Interlink Press