Tag: afsc

In the Light, Palestine-Israel: New directions for Quaker-related institutions

2013 may be the big year of transitions for Quaker and Quaker-related institutions in Palestine-Israel. First the Friends International Center in Ramallah (FICR) is currently evolving, having been initially an experiment in connecting better with the local community. Its founding coordinator, Kathy Bergen, has retired. FICR had become a significant source of transformation in the […]

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A Little Story of the Occupation: With the American Friends Service Committee to Jenin (2006)

Those who have nothing they’re willing to die for are not fit to live. —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr To give you a flavor of the life of one innocent abroad, a close call—for me and more vitally the Palestinians who experience this regularly. The hour was late, the staff from the American Friends Service Committee […]

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With an Open Heart: Eyewitness to the Levant: Report of the Spring 2012 Journey

…There are ten measures of hypocrisy in the world—nine in Jerusalem and one in the rest of the world… —Avot D’Rabbi Natan Popular Achievement training session at Birzeit University, a program of the American Friends Service committee in the West Bank and Gaza Landfill in the Jordan Valley, nominally Palestinian Territory in the West Bank, […]

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Airlift to Gaza

Thanks to the preeminent journalist and truth teller, Robert Fisk, wondering why no one has proposed a Berlin-style airlift to Gaza—people severely oppressed, imprisoned, starved, political rights curtailed, true of Gaza as it was true for the East Berliners—I’ve decided to organize an airlift of more moderate proportions. Of course he could answer why there […]

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Overview Gaza

In Gaza for 6 weeks, November 17 – December 28, 2010,  to photograph and make a movie, I write the following as my personal assessment, checked with local people. Dedicated to Anne R and Louise D …Five months [after Israel promised to ease the siege in June 2010], there are few signs of real improvement […]

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“And you will be carried where you do not wish to go”—part one

© All text & photos (unless otherwise noted) copyright Skip Schiel, 2004-2010 A series from my earlier writing, not always directly about Palestine-Israel, this an attempt to understand and express my journey of discovery that continues to enthrall and mystify me. Originally written for the New England Yearly Meeting sessions (Quaker) keynote presentation on August […]

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Soon Gaza

Well, now the good news, provisionally: Israel has granted me a permit to enter Gaza—for 6 months. And the international organization I will volunteer at and who applied for the permit, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is now registered. Furthermore, the Israeli District Coordinating Office (DCO) tells us they’d granted the permit 2 weeks […]

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