CfP Newsletter October 2020

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Subject: CfP Newsletter October 2020

Dear Friends

This week in Israel we spelled it out to the country and to our leaders "Democracy or Occupation" we can not have one with the other. As protests continue across Israel, Combatants for Peace activists have been out in force on the streets of every city, demanding an end to occupation and reminding the public and our politicians - corruption doesn’t end with a change in leadership, it begins with the end of occupation.

In Sawiya, south of Nablus in Palestine, 20 Israeli activists joined around 20 Palestinians to harvest olives from the ripe trees, in what is one of the most symbolic acts of anti-occupation solidarity we still use today. But it goes way beyond symbolism, as Israeli soldiers closed the area of the orchard declaring it a “closed military zone” and dispersed the Israeli activists. Still - we will be back, and we will stand with families and communities in the pursuit of justice.

Please support our work on the ground to keep our movement strong and make peace a reality.

In Peace & Solidarity from Israel/Palestine

Sulaiman Khatib

Palestinian Co-Director

Yonatan Gher

Israeli Co-Director

Support our activism

US tax-deductible donations

Upcoming events

The State of Democracy:
The intersections between the Balfour Demonstrations in Israel, Palestinian voting rights and Voter Suppression in the USA

Thursday, October 22
1pm ET, 10 am PT, 8pm Jerusalem time

with CfP Avner Wishnitzer and Kochav Shachar, and Palestinian activist, entrepreneur and first-ever Palestinian to run for Mayor of Jerusalem, Aziz Abu Sarah

Overcoming Boundaries – Links between the work of Combatants for Peace in Palestine/Israel and antiracist work in Berlin

Wednesday, October 28

1pm ET, 10 am PT, 7pm Berlin time, 8pm Jerusalem time

with CfP Rafa Mismar and Kochav Shachar, and philosopher Dr. Sabrina Dittus

Event co-organized with the Political Education Center of the State of Berlin. Registration is in German only, but the talk will be

translated to English.

Crossborder activism

In a context where any public gathering is considered with suspicion, nothing is a given. Many of our initiatives have been cancelled in the last minute during the last months. We were therefore even more proud to have been able to organize a joint olive picking operation in Sawiya, south of Nablus, last Friday October 16.

Democracy or Occupation!

Despite the restrictions imposed on demonstrators during the recent lockdown we did not give up the battle. In small groups we regularly joined the thousands of Israelis expressing their anger at the current political situation in all corners of the country. And last Saturday, we again converged with an impressive wave of protesters in the streets neighbouring the official residence of B. Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

To make our message even more clear a small group of anti-occupation activists, among them one of our movement leaders, Kochav, transformed the central Rabin Square in Tel Aviv in a huge political placard in the early morning of October 15. The inscription was swept away in a few hours, but the performance will stay in our memories.

We open the doors of our Palestinian office.

On October 1st, a long-awaited project became reality. Thanks to the hard work of our staff, including Jamil, Ahmed, Ghassan and Sulaiman among others, our Palestinian office could open its doors in the town of Beit Jala. A large apartment offers three office rooms and a comfortable “diwan” conference room. The office has quickly become a popular local meeting place. It will help build a more professional Palestinian structure interacting on a daily basis with the Israeli side of our movement.

On October 17, more than 40 activists and office staff of the Palestinian team met in Jericho for a teambuilding seminar. We welcomed new faces to the CfP family, and are pleased to report our ratio of women to men is 50:50 - a number we will strive to maintain as we grow.

Online events

On September 30, a Learning Peace event gathered the journalist Ariana Melamed, our activist Kochav Shachar and Ariel Bernstein from the organization Breaking the Silence for a talk on the connection between the Balfour protests and the struggle to end the occupation. The video recording (available in Hebrew only) is available here.

On October 12, our activist Galia Golan joined Nizar Farsakh for a conversation on the Israel-UAE-Bahrain Deal. Watch the recording here.

On October 17, our activists Chen Alon and Sulaiman Khatib featured in the “NVC Rising Global Festival”.

On October 18, human rights defender and lawyer Itay Mack partnered with our activists Kochav Shachar and Osama Iliwat to discuss the situation in the Jordan Valley. The video recording (available in Hebrew only) is available here.

Support our activism

US tax-deductible donations

Visit our website: https://cfpeace.org/

Find us on our Facebook pages: English, Arabic, Hebrew

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Subject: CfP Newsletter October 2020