Connie Kurtz died on Sunday, May 27, 2018. Ruthie Berman, her partner of 44 years, and Connie sued the New York City Board of Education for domestic partner benefits in 1988, eventually winning in 1994 for all NY City employees.
Connie on the right in photo below by Toni Armstrong, Jr.
When I received a note from JEB that Connie had passed I began to remember. Connie and Ruth not only feminist icons but for me powerful examples of how love and self-acceptance bring out the courage to survive and speak truth to power. Connie and Ruthie were powerful role models that taught how self-acceptance fuels the spark to speak truth to power. Seeing them age in a partnership was also important to me. I realize that we don't need just to fade away or accept erasure that ageism in our own community and in the larger culture that dominates does and sends a strong message to all of us.
They were also a lot of fun the few times i was able to share some time with them. I will always remember how they broke the stereotype of the lonely old lesbian, Love concurs all when all else fails. Thank you, Connie, we are all here for Ruthie .. see you soon..
"Ruthie and Connie: Every Room in the House" is the film about them by Deborah Dickson. Ruth Berman and Connie Kurtz Papers, 1956-2006 are housed in the Sophia Smith Collection., The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College is an internationally recognized repository of manuscripts, archives, photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women's history. It was founded in 1942 to be the library's distinctive contribution to the college's mission of educating women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Smith_Collection I know Barbara Love (lifelong lesbian-feminist, author with former partner Sidney Abbott of SAPPHO WAS A RIGHT ON WOMAN has left her papers here
At the TOMORROW IS A LONG TIME: Songs From Bob Dylan's 1963 Town Hall Concert.at Town Hall, Bob Neuwirth came back on stage and brought the voice of Bob Dylan back into Town Hall celebrating Dylan's birthday and the songs from his 1963 Town Hall Concert. Dylan stood alone that night in 1963 with a guitar in his hands.. It was right for Hal to ask Bob Neuwirth, the musician and artist and a personal friend of Dylan from the 60's to read a poem that Dylan had just written for the 1863 concert that honored his hero Woody Guthrie. Dylan wrote it after visiting a dying Woodie ina Brooklyn hospital ..
Listen...listen closely to the words,
Words matter!
Bravo Neuwirth!
A perfect closing to an unforgettable night at Town Hall
Please sit down ..An amazing story is about to unfold. Meet Naia Izumi the winner of NPR's 2018 Tiny Desk Contest. the Judges made their choice based on the merits of his video submission, He was chosen out of over 5000 submissions. The Judges had no idea of his backstory. I think that was perfect. Talent, originality, and performance were the only criteria. Judge for yourself ..... and when finished watch his self-posted video chat where he talks about .......well just listen
SET LIST"Soft Spoken""As It Comes""Soul Gaze
What is equally amazing in his backstory, In this video chat self- posted last year before he entered the contest. I can't tell you how unexpected his story was and how in this day of political correctness on gender issues his story like others has been left out .. I am aware of others who have taken this journey to self-discovery and made brave choices on exploring their true identity
Naia is a gifted artist and a very brave individual and with the courage to speak his own truth and to share with others his personal journey to wholeness. I want to embrace him as my child across all the differences that society places on each of us.I also think his exploration of masculinity is so needed in this "me too" period for all men regardless of their gender expression or sexual orientation or race or class. What some would call woman's feelings actually are as Jung and Reich have taught me the feminine side of a man so often suppressed regardless of sexual orientation
Here is what the Bob Boilan Host of the Tiny Desk Concerts wrote about Nian
May 14, 2018 | Bob Boilen -- I am so proud of our 2018 Tiny Desk Contest winner, Naia Izumi. The band he brought and the songs they played for this winning Tiny Desk Concert made us all even prouder.
Naia was chosen after we reviewed nearly 5,000 video entries. And the talent that came to us through all those submissions was astonishing. Naia Izumi won us over with his mind-boggling and unique style of guitar playing — a combination of tapping on the fingerboards and soul-filled whammy bar-note bending. And his multi-octave singing range blended so eloquently with his guitar stylings.
"Soft Spoken," the song he submitted, felt singular and unparalleled to our panel of judges which included past Tiny Desk contest winner Tarriona "Tank" Ball, Tiny Desk alum Sylvan Esso and Gaby Moreno, along with NPR family members Talia Schlanger (WXPN), Russ Borris (WFUV), Toki Wright (The Current) and the All Songs Considered team of Robin Hilton and myself. It's a song, as I hear it, that speaks to the power inherent in the gentle and quieter voices that are often drowned out by the outspoken and boisterous ones. Its title was originally "Soft Spoken Woman" and, as we later learned, Naia had identified as a woman for nearly seven years. More recently, as he said in an interview with Washingtonian Magazine, "I'm not into that anymore because I just want to relax with biology and be comfortable with what I have."
Naia is often a one-man band playing on the streets with a drum machine. But for his Tiny Desk Concert, he brought bassist Adam Matijasevic and drummer Kynwyn Sterling. He'd met Kynwyn after submitting one of his songs to a math rock Facebook group. And that's the thing: Naia's music draws from so many spheres of sound. There's that punctual, rhythmic, mathematical pulse to what he does, but there's also a fluid, almost African Kalimba sound in there as well. They're two sounds I wouldn't often think of as coexisting.
We're about to go out on the road with Naia Izumi to 10 cities. We'll be joined by some of the other Contest entrants that captured our attention and they'll share the bill alongside Naia. And though there is only one Contest winner, we discovered so many other great talents that we hope to feature in the future.
Remember that the spirit of the Contest is intended to bring out the best in you, to gather with friends and to create. Thank you for being a part of something so filled with magic. It was an honor to watch what you created. Personal Note: When I was booking the live music for HURRAH, I recived a demo cassette (remember them?) from a namd called TINY DESK UNIT, The band was from Washington DC. I impressed and booked them. Bob and I have been friends ever since,
Recently on Facebook, someone posted a comment thanking me for all the great bands I had booked at HURRAH, He mentioned Joy Division, Od course Joy Division never made it to the US, Their lead singer Ian committed suicide the day before they were to depart for the US tour,
Joly MeFee, himself a downtown Brit ex-pat and a truly deserving legend himself commented in reply: "you mean Ruth Polsky ... Joy Division? "
let me share with you my response as it spreads light on what club life was like in the early '80's in NYC and what happened in the "backrooms" of clubland that most people never knew or quite frankly wanted to know
I posted:
Joly, let's be clear here. Ruth Polsky was my assistant at Hurrah. I had chosen to train a woman in a job that was held mostly by men. I choose to hire her because she was a smart music journalist and we shared the same music taste. When I departed HURRAH because the “front” owners were under pressure from the backroom boys who were demanding I pay less money to the artists. I refused as the club under my management and booking and staffing policy had become a huge success. Backstory; Arthur Weinstein, a street promoter had been hired by Robert Boykin His job was to hand out free admission cards and drink tickets to “the right people” in order to bring in fresh blood for the old hurrah members to ..well you put in the correct word! FYI: Despite various rumors, Weinstein, who was quite a personable character, was NOT an owner of HURRAH. Barbara Lackey and Robert Boykin were the front “owners”, Arthur stole and sold the Hurrah membership list to guys opening a new club on 54th street. I liked Arthur and we remained friends until he died of natural causes He had a colorful and charmed life. Both Arthur and his design gifted wife Colleen were the kind of New York nightlifers you would want to have as part of your club friends. I did.
Hurrah had been the beautiful people's club of choice until Studio opened. Under my formatting of the space It went from dead to being the place to be again, But this time by a new downtown looking, arts and fashion driven crowd Jane Friedman (now of HOWL fame) and Henry Schissler (rip) had tried to reinvent Hurrah as a “rock disco” bring in Meg Griffin of WNEW (she was a great radio jock) to spin later in the night .with “camp” theater performed in the beginning of the night but people would come to see Divine and then leave for Studio 54.)
As to your post, Joly, re Ruth and Joy Division: when I forced out of HURRAH I had booked the club six months in advance. I took with me my Rolodex, the contracts, and the calendar as a way to get paid the money I was owed. Ruth was aware of who I was booking but did not have the contracts or dates. Tony Wilson of Factory , home of Joy Division, was a personal friend. We had a professional relationship that included he gave me first look access to all bands he believed in. Tony had released Joy Division. We had begun talking about bringing them here, I had spoken to the bookers at the other 6-8 clubs across the US about joining me in booking a tour for Joy Division .,, NOTE this was before Ian Copelan started his US talent booking agency, FBI (Frontier Booking International) representing many of the emerging NME bands, His brother Miles Coprlan’s owned the UK labelm, IRS, whose artist roster included the Police. Ian used the routing we as club bookers haa established prior to his involvement and used it as his the original backbone of FBI touring routes.
I had introduced Tony Wilson to Ruth on several occasions. They liked each other,. When I left the club that I had made successful, I did not ask the employees to follow me as I knew (a) all of then needed jobs and (b) I had created a template that was culturally and commercially successful and I believed need my skills to work. . (Note about 5 months after I left under pressure to open the original Danceteria many of the Hurrah employees moved to Danceteria,, Not Ruth. She stayed at HURRAH until it closed.
Tony Wilson, when he heard I was no longer at HURRAH called me and asked what I wanted him to do, He told me Ruth was in contact with him about Joy Division. I told him I had not found a new place yet and the bands should not suffer. I reminded him that I had mentored Ruth, She was well trained and very motivated,, She helped him put together a short US tour that never happened, Ian, the lead singer, committed suicide the day before Joy Division was to come to America, I remember Ruth calling me devastated. She loved Joy Division and all the bands we booked, While she was hired by different clubs after Hurrah c to compete with me and my clubs including Danceteria, Pep etc, we remain personal friends up until her untimely death when she was hit by a taxi in front of the Limelight on a very rainy night, I never blamed her for the machinations of the backroom boys and the “fronts” that represented them. We shared a common love for the new music emerging here in the US and from England, I was one of the few club people who attended her burial in Toms River N.J. Unfortunately, people like Bill Bahlman, a DJ at the time, have constructed a false history to promote themselves. He may have been around but I never hired him at any club I had when i was in charge. I think he did DJ at Hurrah when my DJ’s Mark Kamins and Sean Cassette left to join me at Danceteria.
I almost threw a shoe at my tv screen when the Texas Govenor Greg Abbott, an NRA puppet, and his insensitive Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. on FACE THE NATION defended gun ownership uncritically and blames the wrong people for using guns ..he also said the words God and prayer too many times Please Join Me in Shouting; GUNS KILL PEOPLE GUNS KILL PEOPLE GUNS KILL PEOPLE GUNS KILL PEOPLE
GUNS KILL PEOPLE GUNS KILL PEOPLE
GUNS KILL PEOPLE GUNS KILL PEOPLE
There is an action you can take individually today .write the CEO of FED EX and tell him that he is the only major corporation who has refused to answer the demand of the Parkland Student survivors to break his relationship with the NRA. Tell him you will no longer use FED EX until FED ESX stops endorsing th NRA by giving NRA members a 26% discount. Contact Information for CEO Fred Smith email: FWSmith@fedex.com Fax Number for Fred Smith 901-818-7570 Physical Address to Send Mail Directly to Fred Smith FedEx Corporation, 942 South Shady Grove Road, Memphis, TN 38120 Contact the Executive Assistant to Fred Smith
Carmine Echols: Phone 901-369-3600 or email executiveservices@fedex.com PLEASE JOIN ME IS SHOUTING
GUNS KILL PEOPLE GUNS KILL PEOPLE GUNS KILL PEOPLE
PLEASE JOIN ME IN SHOUTING
GUNS KILL PEOPLE GUNS KILL PEOPLE GUNS KILL PEOPLE
GUNS KILL PEOPLE GUNS KILL PEOPLE GUNS KILL PEOPLE
East of the town of Khuza'ah, southern Gaza Strip. (Photo by Muhammad Sabah, 6th April 2018)
For over a decade, the Gaza Strip has been subjected to a brutal, medieval-style siege. Imposed by Israel after the election of the Hamas government in 2006, the stated objective of the siege was "economic warfare": to block all economic activity in Gaza and thereby turn the civilian population against its leadership.
To this end, imports were restricted to what Israeli bureaucrats deemed a humanitarian necessity, while exports were almost completely prohibited. At the same time, the number of exit permits issued to Gazans was sharply reduced. As their economy suffocated and living standards plunged, the people of Gaza, hemmed in from the land, air and sea, were unable even to flee. In effect, Gaza was transformed – in the words of former UK Prime Minister David Cameron – into a "prison camp".
As for the inmates of this prison camp, Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, with approximately 2 million people crammed into a narrow strip along the Mediterranean coast. More than 70 percent of Gaza’s population are refugees – people who, in 1948, were forcibly evicted from their homes, along with their descendants. This Tuesday, the 15th May, marks the 70th anniversary of their existential loss and ongoing torment. More than half of Gaza’s population are children under the age of 18. These human realities must be confronted honestly, rather than being disguised behind comforting abstractions. Whatever miseries Israel and its accomplices are visiting upon the people of Gaza, they are visiting primarily upon children.
In 2015, the poverty rate in Gaza hit 39 percent, despite 80 percent of the population receiving humanitarian assistance, while unemployment had reached 43 percent – probably the world's highest. Youth unemployment, at a staggering 60 percent, is the highest in the region. In 2008-9 and 2014, large-scale military assaults by Israel left more than 2,500 people dead – overwhelmingly civilians, including 900 children – and some 24,000 homes destroyed. More fundamentally, the very capacity of the territory to support large-scale human inhabitation has been eroded. Ninety-six percent of the tap water in Gaza is now unfit for human consumption, and Gaza’s only freshwater aquifer is on the threshold of irreversible contamination. The United Nations warned in 2015 that Gaza might be rendered physically "unliveable" by 2020. The head of Israel’s military intelligence concurred with this assessment, while a July 2017 UN update found that projection to be overly optimistic.
Over the past seven weeks, the people of Gaza have mobilised in their tens of thousands to protest the fate to which humanity has, knowingly and in full view, consigned them. As the UN assessments make clear, Palestinians in Gaza are struggling not just for their rights, but to pre-empt their collective expiration. The Great Return March, as it is known, has been overwhelmingly nonviolent, comprising peaceful marches, gatherings and sit-ins. In the face of extreme provocations from Israel, not one rocket has been fired into Israel by Hamas or other Palestinian factions; indeed, notwithstanding increasingly desperate attempts by the Israeli government and its propagandists to depict the protests as a military threat, Israel has suffered not a single casualty.
East of the al-Bureij refugee camp, the centre of the Gaza Strip. Photo by Khaled al-'Azayzeh, on the 13th of April, 2018.
It cannot be said that Israel has responded in kind. In the course of what Amnesty International describes as a "murderous assault" against "demonstrators who pose no imminent threat", Israeli forces had, as of the 10th of May, killed 40 Palestinians, including five children, and injured 6,800, including some 2,000 from live ammunition. In most of the fatality cases examined by Amnesty, victims had been shot in the upper body, including the head and chest, while some had been targeted from behind. On Monday, at the time of writing, a further 38 (and rising) Palestinians have been killed and 900 injured – 450 of them by live bullets – while protesting the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem. The demonstrators' continued commitment to nonviolence in the midst of this onslaught represents a truly humbling display of courage and collective resolve.
Israel's killing spree was neither accidental nor the result of individual initiative on the part of Israeli soldiers. When, as the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem found, "soldiers – including snipers – fired for hours on end at protesters", they were faithfully implementing official policy. On the eve of the first demonstration, the Israeli military’s chief of staff announced that 100 snipers would be deployed along the border. "The orders are to use a lot of force," he warned. Israel’s Defence Minister declared that "anyone who approaches the fence is putting his life in jeopardy" and elsewhere proclaimed that "there are no innocents in Gaza". "Israeli soldiers were not merely using excessive force," Human Rights Watch concluded, "but were apparently acting on orders that all but ensured a bloody military response to the Palestinian demonstrations."
Reciting from the standard authoritarian PR manual, Israel has justified its lethal policy in Gaza on the grounds of self-defence. But under international law, Israel has no right to deploy violence in order to maintain an illegal occupation or a criminal siege. International human rights organisations have unanimously condemned the siege of Gaza as a "collective punishment" (International Committee of the Red Cross) imposed "in flagrant violation of international law" (Amnesty International). A UN Human Rights Council inquiry, authored by a New York state judge, called for the Gaza blockade to be lifted "immediately and unconditionally", a demand that was in April of 2018 reiterated by the overwhelming majority of the European parliament.
Concrete policy alternatives in line with international law are available. At the narrowest level, the alternative to shooting children was suggested by the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process: "Stop shooting at children". More broadly, Hamas has for years communicated to Israel its desire for a long-term, reciprocal ceasefire that provides an end to the illegal siege. "These demands and conditions have never been discussed," an Israeli military correspondent reports, "as Israel refuses to talk to Hamas." More generally still, Israel might end its consistent repudiation of the international consensus of a two-state solution and thereby make possible a peaceful resolution of the conflict. So long as it refuses to take these steps, Israel cannot characterise its violence in Gaza, or indeed in the West Bank, as defensive in character. Rather, the carnage in Gaza is being perpetrated for the sake of maintaining an illegal regime.
The Great Return March is scheduled to culminate in a mass jailbreak on Nakba Day, this Tuesday the 15th of May. As many as 100,000 people will gather and march unarmed upon the perimeter fence. A large number might attempt to break through, so that they might, if only for a moment, and even at the expense of their lives, breathe again. The Israeli military is preparing to deploy 11 battalions along the fence. If the events of previous Fridays are repeated, thousands more unarmed demonstrators will be shot, injured and killed. If international attention is directed elsewhere – distracted by the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, for example – Gaza may be witness to a bloodbath.
Palestinians are often lectured from abroad on the merits of Gandhi. The current effort in Gaza will inevitably be viewed as a test case of the efficacy of a nonviolent approach; its success or failure will help determine the character of future efforts to bring the occupation to an end. But as a Guardian headline succinctly put it, "Palestinian non-violence requires global non-silence". The people of Gaza are depending on us to make a nonviolent strategy viable in this, their hour of need. If the demonstrations in Gaza are met with mass displays of solidarity abroad, Israel might be induced to change its approach toward Gaza and a brighter future for the region may yet be within reach. Precisely how much pressure is required in order to force Israel to budge is difficult to predict. One thing, however, is certain: as Gazans attempt to break free of their prison camp, their only protection, their only armour, their only defence against the wall of Israeli snipers, is us.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has called an Emergency Demonstration in solidarity with the people of Gaza tomorrow, 15 May, at 5.30PM outside Downing Street.
Muhammad Shehada is a writer and civil society activist from the Gaza Strip. He is a student of Development Studies at Lund University, Sweden, and was a Field Researcher and Public Relations Officer for the Gaza office of the Euro-Med Monitor for Human Rights.
East of the town of Khuza'ah, southern Gaza Strip. (Photo by Muhammad Sabah, 6th April 2018)
For over a decade, the Gaza Strip has been subjected to a brutal, medieval-style siege. Imposed by Israel after the election of the Hamas government in 2006, the stated objective of the siege was "economic warfare": to block all economic activity in Gaza and thereby turn the civilian population against its leadership.
To this end, imports were restricted to what Israeli bureaucrats deemed a humanitarian necessity, while exports were almost completely prohibited. At the same time, the number of exit permits issued to Gazans was sharply reduced. As their economy suffocated and living standards plunged, the people of Gaza, hemmed in from the land, air and sea, were unable even to flee. In effect, Gaza was transformed – in the words of former UK Prime Minister David Cameron – into a "prison camp".
As for the inmates of this prison camp, Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, with approximately 2 million people crammed into a narrow strip along the Mediterranean coast. More than 70 percent of Gaza’s population are refugees – people who, in 1948, were forcibly evicted from their homes, along with their descendants. This Tuesday, the 15th May, marks the 70th anniversary of their existential loss and ongoing torment. More than half of Gaza’s population are children under the age of 18. These human realities must be confronted honestly, rather than being disguised behind comforting abstractions. Whatever miseries Israel and its accomplices are visiting upon the people of Gaza, they are visiting primarily upon children.
In 2015, the poverty rate in Gaza hit 39 percent, despite 80 percent of the population receiving humanitarian assistance, while unemployment had reached 43 percent – probably the world's highest. Youth unemployment, at a staggering 60 percent, is the highest in the region. In 2008-9 and 2014, large-scale military assaults by Israel left more than 2,500 people dead – overwhelmingly civilians, including 900 children – and some 24,000 homes destroyed. More fundamentally, the very capacity of the territory to support large-scale human inhabitation has been eroded. Ninety-six percent of the tap water in Gaza is now unfit for human consumption, and Gaza’s only freshwater aquifer is on the threshold of irreversible contamination. The United Nations warned in 2015 that Gaza might be rendered physically "unliveable" by 2020. The head of Israel’s military intelligence concurred with this assessment, while a July 2017 UN update found that projection to be overly optimistic.
Over the past seven weeks, the people of Gaza have mobilised in their tens of thousands to protest the fate to which humanity has, knowingly and in full view, consigned them. As the UN assessments make clear, Palestinians in Gaza are struggling not just for their rights, but to pre-empt their collective expiration. The Great Return March, as it is known, has been overwhelmingly nonviolent, comprising peaceful marches, gatherings and sit-ins. In the face of extreme provocations from Israel, not one rocket has been fired into Israel by Hamas or other Palestinian factions; indeed, notwithstanding increasingly desperate attempts by the Israeli government and its propagandists to depict the protests as a military threat, Israel has suffered not a single casualty.
East of the al-Bureij refugee camp, the centre of the Gaza Strip. Photo by Khaled al-'Azayzeh, on the 13th of April, 2018.
It cannot be said that Israel has responded in kind. In the course of what Amnesty International describes as a "murderous assault" against "demonstrators who pose no imminent threat", Israeli forces had, as of the 10th of May, killed 40 Palestinians, including five children, and injured 6,800, including some 2,000 from live ammunition. In most of the fatality cases examined by Amnesty, victims had been shot in the upper body, including the head and chest, while some had been targeted from behind. On Monday, at the time of writing, a further 38 (and rising) Palestinians have been killed and 900 injured – 450 of them by live bullets – while protesting the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem. The demonstrators' continued commitment to nonviolence in the midst of this onslaught represents a truly humbling display of courage and collective resolve.
Israel's killing spree was neither accidental nor the result of individual initiative on the part of Israeli soldiers. When, as the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem found, "soldiers – including snipers – fired for hours on end at protesters", they were faithfully implementing official policy. On the eve of the first demonstration, the Israeli military’s chief of staff announced that 100 snipers would be deployed along the border. "The orders are to use a lot of force," he warned. Israel’s Defence Minister declared that "anyone who approaches the fence is putting his life in jeopardy" and elsewhere proclaimed that "there are no innocents in Gaza". "Israeli soldiers were not merely using excessive force," Human Rights Watch concluded, "but were apparently acting on orders that all but ensured a bloody military response to the Palestinian demonstrations."
Reciting from the standard authoritarian PR manual, Israel has justified its lethal policy in Gaza on the grounds of self-defence. But under international law, Israel has no right to deploy violence in order to maintain an illegal occupation or a criminal siege. International human rights organisations have unanimously condemned the siege of Gaza as a "collective punishment" (International Committee of the Red Cross) imposed "in flagrant violation of international law" (Amnesty International). A UN Human Rights Council inquiry, authored by a New York state judge, called for the Gaza blockade to be lifted "immediately and unconditionally", a demand that was in April of 2018 reiterated by the overwhelming majority of the European parliament.
Concrete policy alternatives in line with international law are available. At the narrowest level, the alternative to shooting children was suggested by the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process: "Stop shooting at children". More broadly, Hamas has for years communicated to Israel its desire for a long-term, reciprocal ceasefire that provides an end to the illegal siege. "These demands and conditions have never been discussed," an Israeli military correspondent reports, "as Israel refuses to talk to Hamas." More generally still, Israel might end its consistent repudiation of the international consensus of a two-state solution and thereby make possible a peaceful resolution of the conflict. So long as it refuses to take these steps, Israel cannot characterise its violence in Gaza, or indeed in the West Bank, as defensive in character. Rather, the carnage in Gaza is being perpetrated for the sake of maintaining an illegal regime.
The Great Return March is scheduled to culminate in a mass jailbreak on Nakba Day, this Tuesday the 15th of May. As many as 100,000 people will gather and march unarmed upon the perimeter fence. A large number might attempt to break through, so that they might, if only for a moment, and even at the expense of their lives, breathe again. The Israeli military is preparing to deploy 11 battalions along the fence. If the events of previous Fridays are repeated, thousands more unarmed demonstrators will be shot, injured and killed. If international attention is directed elsewhere – distracted by the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, for example – Gaza may be witness to a bloodbath.
Palestinians are often lectured from abroad on the merits of Gandhi. The current effort in Gaza will inevitably be viewed as a test case of the efficacy of a nonviolent approach; its success or failure will help determine the character of future efforts to bring the occupation to an end. But as a Guardian headline succinctly put it, "Palestinian non-violence requires global non-silence". The people of Gaza are depending on us to make a nonviolent strategy viable in this, their hour of need. If the demonstrations in Gaza are met with mass displays of solidarity abroad, Israel might be induced to change its approach toward Gaza and a brighter future for the region may yet be within reach. Precisely how much pressure is required in order to force Israel to budge is difficult to predict. One thing, however, is certain: as Gazans attempt to break free of their prison camp, their only protection, their only armour, their only defence against the wall of Israeli snipers, is us.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has called an Emergency Demonstration in solidarity with the people of Gaza tomorrow, 15 May, at 5.30PM outside Downing Street.
Muhammad Shehada is a writer and civil society activist from the Gaza Strip. He is a student of Development Studies at Lund University, Sweden, and was a Field Researcher and Public Relations Officer for the Gaza office of the Euro-Med Monitor for Human Rights.
