Facebook contest!!! HELP SUPPORT OUR KIDS!!!!!, Uri Avnery: "Good for Peace"

Hi, All.   Jazmine Williams and Briauna Taylor are two shining lights of the Get Lit Players.

Many of you have seen these extraordinary young women as poets and performers in

Ash Grove performances, over the past two years.   Both shone at our fall tribute honoring

Guy Carawan, the arranger and Johnny Appleseed of ‘We Shall Overcome’, performing

Langston Hughes’ “Let America be America, again”, and then individually, with their own

poetry, in response.   I last saw them at Tim Robbins’ Actors Gang theater, less than a

month ago, where they and the other wonderful teens of the Players were being taped by

PBS for a Get Lit Special, to be aired in this Fall season.  Jazmine was recently highlighted at

a huge rally at Hamilton High, where the nationally acclaimed arts program is being defunded

and dismantled, along with similar programs throughout LAUSD.

 

This contest will bring them and the players to a national audience, advancing their careers,

as well as their effect on teens throughout the system.  These two young women are special,

with great, artful insight directed not only inward, but amazingly, in understanding of our

changing world.  I join Diane Lane’s appeal to you to vote, TODAY, for Jazmine and Briauna.

 

Jazmine and Briauna will appear with the Get Lit Players at the opening of the Ash Grove’s

Summer Season, Sunday afternoon, June 19^th, on the beautiful patio of Tropico de Nopal,

1665 Beverly Blvd., East of Alvarado.  They also appear in a debut performance at Beyond

Baroque - also in June.  I’ll send you timely information on both appearances.

 

Vote Today!

Ed

 

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From: Diane Lane [mailto:diane@getlit.org]
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2011 9:40 AM
To: Bob Zaugh; Ed Pearl
Cc: Jazmine Williams; Briauna Taylor
Subject: Facebook contest!!! HELP SUPPORT OUR KIDS!!!!!

 

Hi Ed and Bob! Please pass this along!!!

URGENT!!

Can you do me a HUGE FAVOR???

BRIAUNA AND JAZMINE are up to win a contest THAT ENDS TODAY!!!

If they win, Ralph Lauren will make a COMMERCIAL from their poems.

TOP FIVE WIN!!

Jazmine is in top 5 right now and BRIAUNA IS CLOSE!!! Briauna is #7 and needs 400 votes to catch up BUT SHE CAN DO IT!!!!!

If you FORWARD THIS TO ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS & THEY POST IT ON THEIR WALL – I bet they will win!!!
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY!!!

HERE ARE THE LINKS... CLICK ONCE FOR JAZMINE & ONCE FOR BRIAUNA!!!! THEY CAN BOTH WIN!!!!

JAZMINE
http://apps.facebook.com/rugby_poets_club/poems/view/512

BRIAUNA
http://apps.facebook.com/rugby_poets_club/poems/view/139


PLEASE HELP! LET’S DO THIS! YOU WILL WATCH THEM ON TV & KNOW IT’S BECAUSE OF YOU!!   IT IS 1 CLICK!!

Thank you!
Diane

From: Romi Elnagar

‘Hamas & Fatah Reconciliation: Good for Peace’

 

by Uri Avnery

April 29, 2011

 

      Note from Rabbi Michael Lerner: We at Tikkun hate

violence from whatever source, so naturally we’ve been extremely

critical of Hamas through the years both for its violence and its

glorification of violent acts of terror against Israeli civilians. We’ve

similarly been critical of Israeli violence which is built into the

very structure of the Occupation. And we’ve similarly been critical of

the U.S. , Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia,

Sudan, and the list goes on and on. But we also critiqued the Israeli

government and the US for demanding that Palestinians become more

democratic, then after Hamas won a popular election in 2006, rejecting

any negotiations with a government that had Hamas as part, a decision

which helped precipitate the split between Hamas and the Palestinian

Authority. Just as I supported negotiations with the Vietcong and North

Vietnam to end the War in Vietnam, so I believe it is appropriate to

negotiate with your enemies (not just the ones you approve of) if you

really want to end a war and end violence. A peace with the Palestinian

Authority but without Hamas as part would be a meaningless peace. So the

words of Uri Avnery below deserve serious consideration. Avnery is the

leader of Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace movement based in Tel Aviv.

 

http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/hamas-fatah-reconciliation-good-for-peace-by-uri-avnery

 

By Uri Avnery:

 

In one word: Bravo!

 

The news about the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas

is good for peace. If the final difficulties are ironed out and a full

agreement is signed by the two leaders, it will be a huge step forward

for the Palestinians – and for us.

 

There is no sense in making peace with half a people. Making peace

with the entire Palestinian people may be more difficult, but will be

infinitely more fruitful.

 

Therefore: Bravo!

 

Binyamin Netanyahu also says Bravo. Since the government of Israel

has declared Hamas a terrorist organization with whom there will be no

dealings whatsoever, Netanyahu can now put an end to any talk about

peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. What, peace with a

Palestinian government that includes terrorists? Never! End of 

discussion.

 

Two bravos, but such a difference.

 

The Israeli debate about Arab unity goes back a long way. It already

started in the early fifties, when the idea of pan-Arab unity raised its

 head. Gamal Abd-al-Nasser hoisted this banner in Egypt, and the

pan-Arab Baath movement became a force in several countries (long before

 it degenerated into local Mafias in Iraq and Syria).

 

Nahum Goldman, President of the World Zionist Organization, argued

that pan-Arab unity was good for Israel. He believed that peace was

necessary for the existence of Israel, and that it would take all the

Arab countries together to have the courage to make it.

 

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s Prime Minister, thought that peace was bad

 for Israel, at least until Zionism had achieved all its (publicly

undefined) goals. In a state of war, unity among Arabs was a danger that

 had to be prevented at all costs.

 

Goldman, the most brilliant coward I ever knew, did not have the

courage of his convictions. Ben-Gurion was far less brilliant, but much

more determined.

 

He won.

 

Now we have the same problem all over again.

 

Netanyahu and his band of peace saboteurs want to prevent Palestinian

unity at all costs. They do not want peace, because peace would prevent

Israel from achieving the Zionist goals, as they conceive them: a

Jewish state in all of historical Palestine, from the sea to the Jordan

River (at least). The conflict is going to last for a long, long time to

come, and the more divided the enemy, the better.

 

As a matter of fact, the very emergence of Hamas was influenced by

this calculation. The Israeli occupation authorities deliberately

encouraged the Islamic movement, which later became Hamas, as a

counterweight to the secular nationalist Fatah, which was then conceived

as the main enemy.

 

Later, the Israeli government deliberately fostered the division

between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by violating the Oslo agreement

and refusing to open the four “safe passages” between the two

territories provided for in the agreement. Not one was open for a single

day. The geographical separation brought about the political one.

 

When Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian elections, surprising

everybody including itself, the Israeli government declared that it

would have no dealings with any Palestinian government in which Hamas

was represented. It ordered – there is no other word – the US and EU

governments to follow suit. Thus the Palestinian Unity Government was

brought down.

 

The next step was an Israeli-American effort to install a strongman

of their choosing as dictator of the Gaza Strip, the bulwark of Hamas.

The chosen hero was Muhammad Dahlan, a local chieftain. It was not a

very good choice – the Israeli security chief recently disclosed that

Dahlan had collapsed sobbing into his arms. After a short battle, Hamas

took direct control of the Gaza Strip.

 

A fratricidal split in a liberation movement is not an exception. It is almost the rule.

 

The Irish revolutionary movement was an outstanding example. In this

country we had the fight between the Hagana and the Irgun, which at

times became violent and very ugly. It was Menachem Begin, then the

Irgun commander, who prevented a full-fledged civil war.

 

The Palestinian people, with all the odds against them, can hardly

afford such a disaster.

 

The split has generated intense mutual hatred

between comrades who spent time in Israeli prison together. Hamas

accused the Palestinian Authority – with some justification – of

cooperating with the Israeli government against them, urging the

Israelis and the Egyptians to tighten the brutal blockade against the

Gaza Strip, even preventing a deal for the release of the Israeli

prisoner-of-war, Gilad Shalit, in order to block the release of Hamas

activists and their return to the West Bank. Many Hamas activists suffer

in Palestinian prisons, and the lot of Fatah activists in the Gaza

Strip is no more joyous.

 

Yet both Fatah and Hamas are minorities in Palestine. The great mass

of the Palestinian people desperately want unity and a joint struggle to

end the occupation. If the final reconciliation agreement is signed by

Mahmoud Abbas and Khalid Meshaal, Palestinians everywhere will be

jubilant.

 

Binyamin Netanyahu is jubilant already. The ink was not yet dry on

the preliminary agreement initialed in Cairo, when Netanyahu made a

solemn speech on TV, something like an address to the nation after an

historic event.

 

“You have to choose between us and Hamas,” he told the Palestinian

Authority. That would not be too difficult – one the one side a brutal

occupation regime, on the other Palestinian brothers with a different

ideology.

 

But this stupid threat was not the main point of the statement. What

Netanyahu told us was that there would be no dealings with a Palestinian

Authority connected in any way with the “terrorist Hamas”.

 

The whole thing is a huge relief for Netanyahu. He has been invited

by the new Republican masters to address the US Congress next month and

had nothing to say. Nor had he anything to offer the UN, which is about

to recognize the State of Palestine this coming September. Now he has:

peace is impossible, all Palestinians are terrorists who want to throw

us into the sea. Ergo: no peace, no negotiations, no nothing.

 

IF ONE really wants peace, the message should of course be quite different.

 

Hamas is a part of Palestinian reality. Sure, it is extremist, but as

the British have taught us many times, it is better to make peace with

extremists than with moderates. Make peace with the moderates, and you

must still deal with the extremists. Make peace with the extremists, and

the business is finished.

 

Actually, Hamas is not quite as extreme as it likes to present

itself. It has declared many times that it will accept a peace agreement

based on the 1967 lines and signed by Mahmoud Abbas if it is ratified

by the people in a referendum or a vote in parliament.

 

Accepting the

Palestinian Authority means accepting the Oslo agreement, on which the

PA is based – including the mutual recognition of Israel and the

Palestine Liberation Organization. In Islam, as in all other religions,

God’s word is definitely final, but it can be “interpreted” any way

needed. Don’t we Jews know.

 

What made both sides more flexible? Both have lost their patrons –

Fatah its Egyptian protector, Hosny Mubarak, and Hamas its Syrian

protector, Bashar al-Assad, who cannot be relied upon anymore. That has

brought both sides to face reality: Palestinians stand alone, so they

had better unite.

 

For peace-oriented Israelis, it will be a great relief to deal with a

united Palestinian people and with a united Palestinian territory.

Israel can do a lot to help this along: open at long last an

exterritorial free passage between the West Bank and Gaza, put an end to

the stupid and cruel blockade of the Gaza Strip (which has become even

more idiotic with the elimination of the Egyptian collaborator), let the

Gazans open their port, airport and borders. Israel must accept the

fact that religious elements are now a part of the political scene all

over the Arab world. They will become institutionalized and, probably,

far more “moderate”. That is part of the new reality in the Arab world.

 

The emergence of Palestinian unity should be welcomed by Israel, as

well as by the European nations and the United States. They should get

ready to recognize the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders. They

should encourage the holding of free and democratic Palestinian

elections and accept their results, whatever they may be.

The wind of the Arab Spring is blowing in Palestine too. Bravo!

 

Uri Avnery is chair of Gush Shalom, the pre-eminent peace activist organization in Israel.

 

_______________________________________________

Rad-Green mailing list

Rad-Green@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu

 

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