The Madison-Rafah Sister City Project (MRSCP)
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Apr 1, 2025
❝Random Quotes❞
We cannot call ourselves Progressive and remain silent on Palestine. ― Jewish Voice for Peace
[pdf-embedder url=”http://madisonrafah.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/barghouthi.pdf”] Please mark your calendars for April 25-27, when Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, human rights activist, former Palestinian presidential candidate and representative of one of the Independent groups which won parliamentary seats, will be visiting Madison. The following events are scheduled: “Peace and Democracy: The Reality of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict” Tuesday, April 25, 7:00 pm,…
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, London Review of Books, 23 March 2006 For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region…
1.5 million Arabs under Israeli siege Amira Hass, Haaretz, Mar 22, 2006 In the elections, Israelis will not be voting just for themselves. Not only will they choose parties that affect their own lives for four years, but also those of 3.5 million occupied Palestinians – as they have done for 39 years now. The…
Humanities Building, Room 1111 455 N. Park St UW-Madison Thursday, 7:00 pm Al-Awda, the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, the Havens Center and The Social Justice Films Series present: DISCORDIA: When Netanyahu Came to Town What happens when Middle East politics touch down on campus? Discordia examines the September 2002 riot that prevented former Israeli prime…
The Madison-Rafah Sister City Project (MRSCP) is partnering with the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) in Rafah to send powdered milk to the people of Rafah. In January 2005 MRSCP sent a delegation to Rafah to meet with governmental and non-governmental community leaders. Although the humanitarian needs of the people of Rafah are many,…
[pdf-embedder url=”http://madisonrafah.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/georgeshrub.pdf”] Dave Lippman is widely known on many coasts for his sharp send-ups of topics ranging from weapons of mass distraction to SUVs and the wars to defend them. He has joined the “Wheels of Justice” tours against the occupations of Iraq and Palestine, and the “Collateral Damage” tour with a Mexican Maquila organizer.…
JESSE McKINLEY, New York Times, February 28, 2006 Potential Off Broadway production of play My Name is Rachel Corrie is delayed because of concerns about show’s political content; play follows story of Rachel Corrie, idealistic American demonstrator and Palestinian rights activist who was crushed to death by Israeli bulldozer while trying to stop destruction of…
NEELA BANERJEE, New York Times, February 9, 2006 WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 – The governing body of the Church of England voted Monday evening to divest from any corporations that it contends support Israel’s activities in Gaza and the West Bank, a move sharply criticized by Jewish groups in Britain and the United States. The resolution…
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GEORGE ARIDA, Madison.com, Dec 9, 2005 Despite appearances to the contrary, Ariel Sharon is one of the true constants of Israeli politics. Although he remains uncompromising in his ideology and consistent in his methods, he periodically redefines his political identity to serve his underlying agenda. This week the mainstream Western media carried characteristically misleading headlines…
Kathy Walsh, Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, December 5, 2005 Regarding Robert Ablove’s letter about the Isthmus article on Camp Shalom (“Ain’t Gonna Study War No More,” 9/2/05): My daughter and I visited Israel/Palestine last winter. While we were there, there were no suicide/homicide bombings by Palestinians. But while we were there a 10 year…
19-Nov-05 Playground for Rafah Campaign Give Children a Chance to Be Children Help Rebuild a Playground in Rafah, Palestine The Madison-Rafah Sister City Project (MRSCP) is partnering with Playgrounds for Palestine (PfP) to rebuild a playground in the Tal al Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, Palestine that was destroyed in January 2004. MRSCP and PfP…
Aaron Nathans,The Capital Times, November 11, 2005 Protesters packed a hearing Thursday on the University of Wisconsin’s investment portfolio, encouraging the Board of Regents to divest from Israel. Many held Palestinian flags, as speaker after speaker called for the university to divest from companies that do business with the Israeli military. They argued, for example,…
Kathy Walsh, Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, November 11, 2005 In the Capital Times article on the divestment debate at UW you quote Professor Ken Goldstein: “When a Palestinian woman loves her child, and does not encourage 14-, 15-, and 16-year olds to strap bombs onto their body and blow up Israeli 3-, 4- and 5-,…
IBDAA! We are excited to announce that on Thursday November 3 the world-renowned Ibdaa Children’s Dance Troupe will perform for the first time in Madison at 7:30 pm in the UW Union Theater. This group of 10 boys and 10 girls between the ages of 10 and 13 is touring major cities in the U.S.…
Samara Kalk Derby, The Capital Times, October 10, 2005 To get to work each day, Tawfiq Nasser needs a green card, known as a “dirty ID.” He also needs what is called a magnetic card to show that he is not a terrorist or security threat. On top of that, he must carry two permits,…
A View From Jerusalem – Challenges for Palestinian Health Care Dr. Tawfiq Nasser, CEO of Augusta Victoria Hospital, Jerusalem St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church 5700 Pheasant Hill Rd., Monona Dr. Nasser will preach at 8:00 & 10:00 Worship and make a presentation beginning at 9:10 Memorial United Church of Christ 5705 Lacey Rd., Fitchburg Dr. Nasser…
A Community Film Series September 22 – Uncovered: The War on Iraq October 20 – Rana’s Wedding November 10 – Hidden in Plain Sight December 1 – Until When . . . Edgewood College, Predolin Humanities Center, Anderson Auditorium 7:00 pm for all showings “The Arts Go to War”, an Edgewood human issues class; the…
Bill Lueders, Isthmus, September 1, 2005 Camp Shalom had children pretend to be Israeli soldiers It was the face paint that tipped Tsele Barr off. Early this summer, she was picking up her two sons from Camp Shalom, a day camp run by the Madison Jewish Community Council, and noticed that some of the children…
Al Jazeera, August 26, 2005 The Palestinian economy has deteriorated sharply since the start of the uprising in 2000, and Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank will depress it further, a United Nations agency said. The economy shrank 1% in 2004, one in three Palestinian workers was jobless at the end of last year…
Mehammed Mack, L.A. Weekly, August 25, 2005 A somber note for many Gazans witnessing the Israeli pullout was the prospect of losing jobs. Al-Jazeera profiled the closure of one of the last remaining monuments of Oslo-era cooperation, the Erez industrial park, a multidisciplinary Gaza manufacturing facility that had employed more than 4,000 Arab workers. One…
Disengagement or Tactical Military Redeployment? SHAMAI K. LEIBOWITZ and KATERINA HELLER, CounterPunch, August 24, 2005 The imminent handover of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority and the evacuation of a small portion of the West Bank from Israeli settlers has been billed by the international media as a turning point in the violent history of…
For the sake of about half a percent of the population of the Gaza Strip, a Jewish half-percent, the lives of the remaining 99.5 percent were totally disrupted and destroyed – worthy of wonderment indeed. Amira Hass, Haaretz, Aug 24, 2005 “I want to ask you as a Jew to a Jewess,” the young man…
Reflections on the Disengagement from Gaza Sara Roy, MIFTAH, August 20, 2005 Israel’s disengagement plan is widely hailed by the international community, led by the United States, as a first step toward the final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. This essay is a refutation of that view.…
There was no ‘sensitivity training’ when bulldozers went into Rafah Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, August 19, 2005 Contrast the world’s overwhelming coverage, especially on television, of the departure of Israeli settlers from Gaza with the minimal reporting of larger and more brutal evictions in previous months. There was no “sensitivity training” for Israeli troops, no…
The Shame of it All Jennifer Loewenstein, ZNet, August 19, 2005 A great charade is taking place in front of the world media in the Gaza Strip. It is the staged evacuation of 8000 Jewish settlers from their illegal settlement homes, and it has been carefully designed to create imagery to support Israel’s US-backed takeover…
Jennifer Loewenstein, CounterPunch, August 17, 2005 A great charade is taking place in front of the world media in the Gaza Strip. It is the staged evacuation of 8000 Jewish settlers from their illegal settlement homes, and it has been carefully designed to create imagery to support Israel’s US-backed takeover of the West Bank and…
Amira Hass, Haaretz, 14 Aug 2005 Today is Omar’s last day of work for his employer in one of the religious settlements of Gush Katif. He will finish what he began a week ago: packing up the contents of the house and dismantling whatever can be dismantled. “I asked my boss if he would give…
to the International Conference of Parlimentarians Cairo, February 1970 The New York Times, February 23, 1970 “The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was ‘given’ by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were…
But it is still Israel that can do most to improve the economic lot of the Palestinians: not only in Gaza, where it will continue to control the flow of people and goods across the border, but also in the West Bank, which despite the ceasefire remains under a harsh regime of closures and roadblocks.…
Hind Khoury, The International Herald Tribune, AUGUST 11, 2005 JERUSALEM — After more than 38 years of its oppressive military occupation of the Gaza Strip, Israel will soon begin evacuating the few thousand settlers who have been denying freedom to more than a million Palestinians there. Israel has marketed the Gaza withdrawal as yet another…
Despite his innocent appearance, Avi Shlaim knows that he is a sort of enemy of the people, and even enjoys it with refined British enjoyment. And now he has come to Israel, armed with his book, “The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World.” Meron Rapoport, Haaretz, Aug 11, 2005 After reading the 573 pages…
August “Washington Wednesday” Action Alert Start Date: August 10, 2005 End Date: To be determined BACKGROUND Israel is scheduled to begin in mid-August a unilateral “disengagement” from the Palestinian Gaza Strip by evacuating its illegal settlements and military bases there. Israeli officials announced in July that they will ask the United States to pay $2.2 billion…
It’s a dispute that involves just about every emotive issue you can think of – Israel, Palestine, human rights, freedom of speech. Gary Younge dissects the academic battle that has gripped America Gary Younge, The Guardian, 10 August 2005 In his landmark book, Democracy in America, the 19th-century French intellectual Alexis de Tocqueville commented on…
Robert Dreyfuss, MIFTAH, August 09, 2005 Important new details of the U.S.-Israeli espionage case involving Larry Franklin, the alleged Pentagon spy, two officials of the American- Israel Public Affairs Committee, and an intelligence official at the Embassy of Israel emerged last week. Two AIPAC officials-who have left the organization-were indicted along with Franklin on charges…
Will Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza free it from the burden of the occupation? The answer is yes and no. Aluf Benn, Haaretz, Aug 09, 2005 After it is all over – when the Jewish settlers from Gush Katif are luxuriating in their caravillas, when the Hamasniks have finished their victory parades and the Israel Defense…
The Jordan Valley, the settlement blocs that continue to merge into each other, the monumental Jews-only roads, the demilitarized zone long since annexed to Israel, the area annexed to Jerusalem in 1967, the de facto annexations of the fence – these already cover most of the West Bank. Amira Hass, Haaretz, Aug 03, 2005 A…
The International Crisis Group, REPORT No. 44 / MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA, 2 AUGUST 2005 While the world focuses on Gaza, the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations in fact may be playing itself out away from the spotlight, in Jerusalem. With recent steps, Israel is attempting to solidify its hold over a wide area in…
The legalistic deception of the Israeli Civil Administration: “It is all Israel” Amira Hass, Haaretz, 13 July 2005 Listen to the soldier in the field. He says what his commanders were trained to cover up and embellish. Listen to the red-headed soldier, who prevented residents of Qafin from passing through the gate in the separation…
Thank you Madison/Rafah Sister City Project for your endorsement of the Rachel Corrie Mural Project: Break the Silence’s project in honor of Rachel Corrie, a US solidarity activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer while defending the Nasrallah home, and the many Palestinian families and activists who have lost their lives in the struggle against occupation…
Gideon Levy, Haaretz, July 10, 2005 Here he is – the survivor. His head and arms bandaged, his cheek gashed, his right ear deaf. In pain, weak, exhausted, scared, stunned, angry, bitter. Hilal Majaida, 18, from Muwasi. For eight years he hadn’t left that area, in the heart of the Gaza Strip. Now he’s trying…
Life under occupation Yael Barda, Occupation Magazine, July 7 2005 Yesterday I had a fascinating experience. Plucking my eyes out and placing them in the heart of the occupation. Abdullah Abu Rahma, coordinator of the public struggle against the Seperation Fence in the village of Bili’in, was summoned to the Shabak (the Israeli General Security…
Two weeks later, I was at the Aaskar refugee camp, near Nablus. That day, the government decided to destroy a series of terrorists’ homes in order to “deter suicide bombers.” The officer in charge of explosives placed two anti-tank mines instead of half an explosive block. We knocked down a neighborhood instead of a room.…
Amira Hass, Haaretz, July 6, 2005 The hunting season is at its height, and the settlers are the prey. They have become a target for criticism in the media to an extent whose like is hard to remember. They are criticized for sending their children to block roads, for hitting and cursing soldiers, for the…
ATLANTA–(BUSINESS WIRE)–July 4, 2005–A United Church of Christ (UCC) resolution demanding that Israel dismantle its anti-terrorism fence “is functionally antisemitic, which devalues the lives of the citizens of the Jewish state,” charged Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, of Los Angeles. “This immoral resolution, which cloaks itself in the language of…
2005 United Church of Christ Synod Tear Down the Wall – Resolution of Witness Submitted by: Wider Church Ministries THEOLOGICAL RATIONALE For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. (Ephesians 2:14) A central tenet of…
For years, the news media ignored the injustices the settlers inflicted on their neighbors. Gideon Levy, Haaretz, Jul 03, 2005 The media is to blame: For months, it portrayed the story of the “great sacrifice” the evacuated settlers must make. For years, it ignored the injustices they inflicted on their neighbors and thus helped portray…
Sam Ser, THE JERUSALEM POST, July 1, 2005 The United Church of Christ is to consider divestment from Israel at its biennial General Synod assembly, which opens in Atlanta on Friday. A resolution submitted by UCC member churches in Hawaii suggests the church divest from American and Israeli companies “profiting from the perpetuation of violence…
The West Bank city of Nablus is relatively calm at present. Anyone who can raise money, even by selling their jewellery, is investing in the stock market. They want to make enough for a one-way ticket out of Nablus. Benjamin Barthe, Le Monde diplomatique, July 2005 THE sun suits Nablus. It makes the stone buildings…
Two emails from Beshara Doumani June 28, 2005 Dear Friends, I want to alert you to a disturbing development on the academic freedom front: It is possible that the University of California Press might not, after all, publish the long-awaited book by Norman Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of…