Title: Occupation Art: Untold Stories, Eyewitness Accounts
Location: Pacific Grove Art Center, 568 Lighthouse Ave., Pacific Grove, CA
Description: Occupation Art: Untold Stories, Eyewitness Accounts featuring  Nora Barrows-Friedman & others and video featuring artist Suzanne Klotz. SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 2-4 p.m. Come starting at 1:00 to see the exhibits!. Pacific Grove Art Center, 568 Lighthouse Ave., Pacific Grove, CA. Nora Barrows-Friedman is a staff editor and reporter with The Electronic Intifada. She has been regularly reporting from occupied Palestine since 2004, and worked with youth in broadcasting and photographic arts at the Ibdaa Cultural Center in the Dheishah Refugee Camp in the West Bank for several years. .
Start Time: 1:00 -see the exhibits; 2-4 Presentation
Date: 2012-03-04

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh when arrested by Israeli soldiers at Al Walaja in May 2010.

“Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope & Empowerment”

Meet & hear Palestinian author & activist Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh

3 events on Saturday April 2!

12:00 noon Book-Reading
Resource Center for Nonviolence
515 Broadway, Santa Cruz

Militant Nonviolence & the Palestinian Struggle
2:30 presentation at SubRosa, a community space.
703 Pacific Avenue

7:00 p.m.* United Methodist Church
250 California Street, Santa Cruz

* Several speakers have been invited to share the platform and to represent Israel’s interests but their participation is not yet confirmed. The evening will not be a strict debate format, but a frank and clarifying exchange of views to help people in this community better understand what is happening, what is at stake and what is possible as we observe or examine the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Viewpoints will galvanize around the following topic:

“Given the current turmoil in Egypt, the impasse in making progress towards a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the prominent role that the US government plays in the Mid East region, what should be the priorities of US Middle East policy and why?”

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh (pictured above when arrested by Israeli soldiers at Al Walaja in May 2010) teaches and does research at Bethlehem & Birzeit Universities in Israeli occupied Palestine. He previously served on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke and Yale Universities. Qumsiyeh is president of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour. His most acclaimed book is “Sharing the Land of Canaan: human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle.” He published an activism handbook on his web site qumsiyeh.org. Qumsiyeh’s main interest is media activism and public education, having been published in and interviewed in print and on TV and radio extensively (local, national and international) including the Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe, CNBC, C-Span, and ABC. He also regularly lectures on issues of human rights and international law. His new book “Popular Resistance in Palestine” reviews Palestinian nonviolent civilian resistance to displacement and occupation dating back to the beginning of the 19th century until today.

Dr. Qumsiyeh’s “rather complex background” — born a Christian Palestinian in the Bethlehem area, exposed as a boy to the harsh realities of Israeli military occupation, trained in biology & teaching in US Colleges & Universities, field research in Israel & Palestine, extensive experience in civil society & nonprofit organizations, & leadership in nonviolent organizations & movements in the occupied West Bank — helped Qumsiyeh “come to understand the importance & the centrality of a pluralistic solution to the simmering conflict in the Land of Canaan.” Qumsiyeh’s electronic human rights newsletter” has made him the most important chronicler of contemporary popular resistance in Palestine, brilliantly evoking the spirit of Jesus, Gandhi, Edward Said, Rachel Corrie and many others, to tell the unvarnished truth about Palestine and Zionist settler colonialism, with a focus on ‘history and activism from below.’

Sponsored by Middle East Program of Resource Center for Nonviolence 831.423.1626 rcnv.org and the Palestine Israel Action Committee http://palestineisraelactioncommittee.com

<>You can still sign up for Engage!, a study program for learning and experimenting with the power of creative nonviolence to transform our lives and our world, led by Barbara Hayes and Joan Marsh.
Continuing series: each Thursday evening, 6:30 – 8:30p.m., Resource Center for Nonviolence, 515 Broadway, Santa Cruz.

<>This course is offered on a donation basis: $5 per session suggested; the workbook is $27 (includes tax). For more information, ask for Barbara, 423-1626×105.

Mexico at a Crossroad
Sun. April 13, 3-5p.m.,
SC Police Station Community Room, 155 Center St., Santa Cruz
AND
Mon. April 14, 7p.m.
- bilingual presentation -
Resource Center for Nonviolence, 515 Broadway, Santa Cruz (during la Liga de la Comunidad Soccer Coaches meeting)

Tanja Markus, a SIPAZ team member, will speak about the Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero regions of Mexico. Tanja holds a Masters in Law with an emphasis in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, and has worked with the UN High Commissioner on Refugees in Stockholm, The International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague, and with Caritas in Valencia, Spain. SIPAZ supports the search for nonviolent solutions that contribute to the construction of a just peace through building tolerance and dialogue. SIPAZ team members accompany threatened indigenous communities to reduce tension, and facilitate conflict transformation and human rights workshops. For more information, 423-1626 or www.rcnv.org

Sunday, Feb. 24, 2 p.m., at Trinity Presbyterian Church, 420 Melrose, Santa Cruz

George Baldwin is author of “A Political Reading of the Life of Jesus.” Baldwin was a local pastor for twelve years and a seminary professor for fourteen years. He felt called to live in voluntary poverty and lived in Nicaragua from 1984 to 1996.

Bill Moyers called George “…one of the memorable people I have met in my work and one for whom I have the utmost admiration.”

Baldwin says, “Don’t ask, what would Jesus Do? Read what Jesus did Do!” Baldwin examines Jesus as the leader of a political insurrection, in relation to Christology, the Trinity, theories of atonement, love of neighbor, and the role of the Church.

This event is part of a series, “Jesus and Justice: Journeying Towards Repentance and Reconciliation” organized by local churches, Quaker Meeting, and RCNV.

Call 251-4833 for more information.