“This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore. I still want to dance around to Pat Benetar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop.”
In April of 2006 hundreds of people came to Olympia, WA, from around the world for The Rachel Corrie Foundation’s inaugural Peace Works event. The two-day conference in April followed pre-conference activities and events and focused on the struggle in Palestine and Israel.
The foundation plans to conduct annual events to analyze war, racism, global economic inequality, oppression of women, and other forms of injustice, and to formulate a hopeful vision of a world community that responds constructively to its inhabitants’ rights, needs and aspirations.
Video
The following films were produced from the first annual Rachel Corrie Foundation Peace Works – April 2006, courtesy pdxjustice.org.
PART 1
Diana Buttu – “From Occupation to Enclosure: Fragmenting the Palestinian State”
Diana Buttu is a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer. In 2000, she left North America to move to Palestine in order to assist with the then “peace” negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel as one of the PLO’s legal advisors. With the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising against Israel’s occupation (and the breakdown of negotiations) Diana decided to remain in Palestine.
PART 2
Amira Hass – “From Occupation to Enclosure: Fragmenting the Palestinian State”
Amira Hass lives and works in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. In 1993 she became the first Israeli reporter to live in Gaza, reporting on the Israeli occupation for Ha’aretz, an Israeli daily newspaper, which is available in English translation through their website. Amira Hass received the International World Press Freedom award for her work in the Gaza Strip. Her time there also resulted in her first book, Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land under Siege. She is also author of Reporting from Ramallah : An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land. She spoke, along with Palestinian-Canadian lawyer, Diana Buttu, on the topic “From Occupation to Enclosure: Fragmenting the Palestinian State.”
Photo Album
These are a selection of photos from the Peace Works conference, held at South Puget Sound Community College, in Olympia, WA: See photos here.
Conference in the Press
• “Palestinian activists gather in Corrie’s hometown” by Simone Sagovac for the The Arab American News
• “Journalist describes daily life for Palestinians” by Diane Huber for The Olympian
