From Greg Palast: "While Grassroots, Geeks, Pros, and Pols has the heft and footnotes of an academic treatise, it's a fun read. Suggestion: take a double of Felipe II with you into this zoo of miscreants, and savor the dark humor of one method of vote heist after another. Here is the line-up of ballot burglars who think democracy is a safe to be cracked. Bless Marta Steele for setting off the burglar alarm."

Personal perspective on Israel and Palestine

From New Hampshire Peace Action: “Local residents to offer a personal perspective on Israel and Palestine: Carolyn Cicciu and Will Thomas, retired teachers, will share their personal stories and experiences following their travels to one of the most conflicted areas in the Middle East—Israel and Palestine, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Both traveled to the Middle East as members of Interfaith Peace-Builders….” More info. October 15, 2012, 6:30 p.m. Manchester City Library auditorium.

Russell Tribunal for Palestine

New York Session, October 6-7, 2012

Elisa Massamino speaks on torture

Torture, the Constitution and Solitary Confinement: A Preview of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report
Elisa Massamino 
President/CEO, Human Rights First 
with expert panel that will make short statements on torture

Thursday, June 28, 2012, 7:30 p.m.
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton
Sophia Lyon Fahs Auditorium
50 Cherry Hill Road, Princeton, NJ

Sponsored by:
Princeton Area Interfaith Anti-Torture Group
Co-Sponsored by:
Coalition for Peace Action; National Religious Campaign Against Torture; American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey; Rabbis for Human Rights North America; Princeton Friends Monthly Meeting; Trenton Friends Monthly Meeting; Nassau Presbyterian Church; Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton Social Justice Committee; Princeton University Office of Religious Life; All Saints Church; Hanan M. Isaacs, P.C.; and Princeton Community TV.

9th Annual Philadelphia Interfaith Walk for Peace and Reconciliation, Sun., April 29, 2012, 2-6 p.m.

Details at http://www.interfaithpeacewalk.org/.

Philadelphia Premiere of Najla Saïd's "Palestine"

Palestine

Written and performed by Najla Saïd

Rich, honest, and amusingly poignant, Palestine is a compassionate look at the Middle East from the unique perspective of Najla Saïd, a self-described politically agnostic Upper West Side Palestinian American princess (and the daughter of eminent scholar Edward Saïd), who traveled to the occupied territories to discover her deeper identity as an Arab American woman.

April 17, 18, and 19, 2012, at the InterAct Theatre, Philadelphia.

Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin

"Israeli activist Gershon Baskin on release of Gilad Shalit, peace prospects," Radio Times, WHYY/NPR, February 10, 2012.

A few days after Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted in 2005, Gershon Baskin got a phone call from a Palestinian professor and colleague asking for his help in negotiating the soldier's release. Gershon was put in touch with a spokesman for the Hamas government and for five years, as an intermediary between senior Hamas and Israeli officials, Baskin worked through back channels to broker a deal for Shalit's freedom in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Baskin is a member of Israeli's Green Movement Party, is the founder of the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information and has been active in increasing understanding and promoting peaceful dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. He has been involved in peace process as an outside advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak and writes a column for the Jerusalem Post.

"Aim to promote human rights of the Palestinians."

By Ali Abunimah, Philadelphia Inquirer, January 29, 2012.

I am coming to the University of Pennsylvania this week to incite violence against the State of Israel - pro-Israel groups and commentators have contended - and, along with hundreds of students and other speakers who will attend the 2012 National Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Conference, to engage in an "act of warfare."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, we are coming together to push forward an inclusive movement that supports nonviolent action to promote the human rights of the Palestinian people, because only full respect for these rights can lead to peace. Today, millions of Palestinians live without basic rights under Israeli rule. This intolerable situation is at the root of problems that affect the whole world. . . . [continued]