Monday, July 28, 2008

Pictures from Summer Camp on the West Bank


Israeli settlers invading At Tuwani village. A CPTer (beside soldier) is videotaping & getting in way (Photo: CPT)

Children at the Wrong End of Weapons

By KATHY KELLY
(co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She has refused to pay all forms of federal income tax since 1980. She is the author of Other Lands Have Dreams, published by AK / CounterPunch Press.)
CounterPunch

"At 6:45 a.m. yesterday morning, our friend, Joel Gulledge, called from At-Tuwani, a village in the West Bank where he and another Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) member were escorting Palestinian children to a local summer daycamp, protecting them from hostile Israeli settlers. A masked settler, carrying a slingshot, was threatening the children. While Jan Benvie, the other CPT team member, raced the children to safety, Joel paused to film what was happening. The masked settler caught up with Joel and attacked him. "He smashed my head again and again," said Joel, "with my video camera, and punched me in the face, repeatedly, with his other hand." Joel managed to remain standing. He didn't fight back, but he screamed for help. The attacker broke Joel's glasses, and Joel was bleeding from a gash over his eyes. When he called, he was waiting for an ambulance to arrive.....

I feel such a concern for my friend and co-worker Joel as he and his fellow CPT team members try to protect endangered Palestinians and their children in the West Bank. The example they set, in their dedication to nonviolence and their refusal to carry weapons, can help all of us gain independence from the cycle of threat and violence which the U.S. has driven in its support for and arming of the Israeli occupation of Palestine."

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