Monday, December 28, 2009

Pro-Palestinian Freedom March to Israeli Border Set for December 31st


[image is from here]


All that follows is from Alice Walker's blog, here. You can also click on the blogpost title, just below:

Historic Gaza Freedom March to Israeli Border Set For December 31 

Global grassroots initiative in spirit of Gandhi aims to break blockade


HaShoah and Kindertransport Survivor Hedy Epstein, 85, Begins Hunger Strike in Support of the End of Israeli Occupation of Gaza

This post was first read by me at ANG, here. All that follows if from there.

85 year old Holocaust Survivor Hedy Epstein Begins Hunger Strike to Open Gaza Borders #GFM

Palestinian Pundit:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, December 28, 2009

By Ali Abunimah
(Ali is in Egypt, with the Gaza Freedom March (GFM). He will keep updating us with the latest news and photos.)

(Left: Kindertransport survivor Hedy Epstein with school supplies destined for Gaza #GFM)

"Hedy Epstein, the 85 year old Holocaust survivor and peace activist, announced that she will begin a hunger strike today as a response to the Egyptian government's refusal to allow the Gaza Freedom March participants into Gaza.

Ms. Epstein was part of a delegation with participants from 43 countries that were to join Palestinians in a non-violent march from Northern Gaza towards the Erez border with Israel calling for the end of the illegal siege. Egypt is preventing the marchers from leaving Cairo, forcing them to search for alternative ways to make their voices heard.

Ms. Epstein will remain outside the UN building at the World Trade Center (Cairo) - 1191 Cornish al-Nil, throughout today, accompanied by other hunger strikers. "It is important to let the besieged Gazan people know they are not alone. I want to tell the people I meet in Gaza that I am a representative of many people in my city and in other places in the US who are outraged at what the US, Israeli and European governments are doing to the Palestinians and that our numbers are growing," Epstein said.

In 1939, when Epstein was just 14, her parents found a way for her to escape the persecution, sending her on the Kindertransport to England. Epstein never saw her parents again; they perished in Auschwitz in 1942. After World War II, Epstein worked as a research analyst at the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi doctors who performed medical experiments on concentration camp inmates.

After moving to the US, Epstein became an activist for peace and social justice causes. Unlike most Holocaust survivors, one of the causes she has taken up is that of the Palestinian people. She has traveled to the West Bank, collected material aid and now she hopes to enter Gaza."

What do you call men who...

Question: What do you call men who don't get the difference between feminist critiques of institutionalised manhood and the anecdotal phenomenon of the "man-hating" woman?
Answer: Normal men.

Question: What do you call men who hate men?
Answer: Can't we pretend only women hate men?

Question: What do you call males who think they are oppressed by adult women?
Answer: Children.

Question: What do you call children who are oppressed by adult men?
Answer: Can't we pretend that only women oppress children?

Question: What do you call women who don't appreciate men's misogyny?
Answer: Womanists, feminists, self-respecting, and smart.

Question: What do you call men who laugh at misogynist jokes?
Answer: Normal men.

Question: What do you call women who laugh at jokes that poke fun at men's misogyny?
Answer: Women with a good sense of humor.

Question: What do men call women who laugh at jokes that poke fun at men's misogyny?
Answer: B*tches.

Question: What do men call women who like sex with men?
Answer: Wh*res.

Question: What do men call women who don't like sex with men?
Answer: Man-hating d*kes.

Question: What do you call women who don't like having sex with misogynist men?
Answer: Womanists, feminists, self-respecting, and smart.

Question: What do you call a woman who has willingly has a romantic relationship with a misogynist man?
Answer: Heterosexual, and either married or not married.

Question: Why do heterosexual women have romantic relationships with misogynist men? 
Answer: Why do birds fly in polluted air?

Question: Why don't patriarchally correct straight white men use non-sexist terms when describing women?
Answer: Because that would cut their vocabulary in half, leaving them only with the negative terms they have for white gay men and heterosexual men of color. (Silly straight white men: They don't realise there are gay men of color.)

Qusestion: What do misogynist men have that womanists and feminists need?
Answer: Institutional power, control of media, and religious authority.

Question: What do womanists and feminists have that pro-racism, pro-misogyny activists need?
Answer: A clue about political reality. [See, for example, here, for a clue.]

Question: What do you call academically educated men who think radical feminist writings are man-hating?
Answer: Illiterate.