From palestinianrightssacregion at list.omsoft.com Mon Mar 4 21:20:12 2013 From: palestinianrightssacregion at list.omsoft.com (palestinianrightssacregion at list.omsoft.com) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 21:20:12 -0800 Subject: Ask President Obama to see 5 Broken Cameras and visit the West Bank (& more local opportunities to see the film) Message-ID: <680F0CE7C3424AEA8538766EF445ADB8@your4dacd0ea75> Two local opportunities to see 5 Broken Cameras: Sun, Mar 10, 2013 12 noon, Centennial UMC Fellowship Hall, 5401 Freeport Blvd. Sacramento. FMI: 916-725-5654 Wed, Apr 17, 2013 12:30 - 1:50pm, Rm D-5, Sierra College, 5000 Rocklin Rd, Rocklin. FMI: smcdonald at sierracollege.edu. More events on Palestine & other peace & justice issues: www.sacpeace.org Urge President Obama to view 5 BROKEN CAMERAS and experience the REAL West Bank on his trip to Palestine/Israel - Send him a letter! 5 Broken Cameras, a remarkable documentary film nominated for an Academy Award, focuses on the years-long nonviolent struggle of the people of Bi'lin in the West Bank to keep the Israeli Separation Wall from cutting through their olive orchards and bisecting their town. It was co-directed by a West Bank Palestinian and a Jewish Israeli. The film demonstrates the brave resilience of the people of Bi'lin and the challenges for Palestinians living in the West Bank in the face of the Israeli occupation. President Obama is traveling to Palestine/Israel on March 20, 2013. This is an opportunity for him to experience firsthand the effects of the occupation on Palestinian residents of the West Bank. We urge the President to prepare for his trip by viewing 5 Broken Cameras with his family, and while he is there, to visit some of the many communities that are severely affected by the occupation, such as Bi'lin and Hebron, to notice illegal Israeli settlements dominating hilltops across the West Bank, and to see how the "separation barrier" has divided communities and cut farmers off from their orchards. Our hope is that after these experiences, President Obama will promote changes in U.S. foreign policy that support international law and human rights in Palestine/Israel. Send a letter to the President Click here to link to the White House comments page to send the prepared letter below, or to send your own message. * When you get to the White House comments page, enter your Name, Email and Zip along with a Subject. Then you can copy and paste the letter below into the message space, or send your own comments. The Subject that you enter might be "Toward a just peace in Palestine/Israel" or something similar. * At the bottom of the page before you click on "Submit" button, you need to exactly enter a two-word challenge phrase that will appear in a CAPTCHA panel. Don't worry if you fail the challenge the first time, sometimes the challenge phrase is impossible to read - you can try again or click on the "Get a new challenge" button until you succeed. Toward a just peace in Palestine/Israel, Israel Divestment Campaign _____ Dear President Obama, Perhaps, like many of us, you saw Ben Affleck name 5 Broken Cameras as one of the feature-length documentaries nominated for an Academy Award. This remarkable film was co-directed by a West Bank Palestinian and a Jewish Israeli. Everyone who has seen it has been deeply moved as they observed the reality of life under occupation. We hope that you will take the time to watch it with your family before you leave for your trip to the Middle East in March. While you're there, we urge you to spend some of your time in the West Bank, not only in Ramallah, but also in the village of Bi'lin that is featured in 5 Broken Cameras. There you will see how Israel's "separation barrier" cuts these farmers off from their land, a phenomenon repeated all over the West Bank. Be sure to visit Hebron too, where an Israeli military checkpoint blocks the main street. Little children have to go through the checkpoint every day just to go to school. Let your eyes wander up the slopes of the hills as you drive around the West Bank and take note of how the illegal Jewish settlements dominate practically every hilltop. If you go to Bethlehem to visit the Church of the Nativity, you will pass Aida Refugee Camp. As you drive by the .71 square kilometer enclosure, think about the almost 5,000 Palestinian refugees that have been languishing there for close to 65 years. Your speech in Cairo in 2009 was eloquent, but it is time to move past eloquent words and demonstrate to the Arab world - and all of us - that you understand and care about the real life circumstances of people there, Palestinians as well as Israelis. It is time to do more than meet with heads of states and political bureaucrats. It is time to meet with and listen to the people on the ground and with the members of civil society who are organizing nonviolently for social justice. In other words, it is time to earn that Nobel Peace prize that you were awarded. Thank you. Please help end occupation! Boycott SodaStream and sign the petition: www.change.org/petitions/tell-stores-don-t-buy-or-sell-sodastream-3#share -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: