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The displacement of the Palestinian people has gone on for 70 years. Your voice is needed for justice to prevail.
Your gift supports our programs in the United States, including educational conferences, BDS campaigns, witness trips, theological education in our seminaries, speakers' bureau, church & community outreach, and much more.
To ensure your gift provides a maximum impact, please consider committing to make a monthly donation by clicking here.
Friends of Sabeel is a certified 501c3 non-profit organization.
Prefer to donate via check? If so, please make your check out to "Friends of Sabeel - North America" and mail it to:
Friends of Sabeel North America
PO Box 3192, Greenwood Village, CO 80155-3192
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Patricia Daugherty posted about Women of Faith Support Ahed Tamimi on Facebook 2018-03-02 13:34:55 -0800Sign the petition: ahed
Women of Faith Support Ahed Tamimi
We call on women of faith, from all denominations and religions, to sign on to the below letter from Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Amanda Weatherspoon. Rev. Weatherspoon went on our Living Resistance: No Child Behind Bars speaking tour against child detention from the U.S. to Palestine in January of 2017. Read her letter on Ahed's situation below, and add your voice to the chorus of people speaking out in support of Ahed Tamimi, her mother Nariman Tamimi, and the entire Tamimi family.
Last January, I went on a speaking tour with FOSNA that was supposed to include Palestinian teen activist Ahed Tamimi. The tour was titled “Living Resistance: No Child Behind Bars,” and it focused on child detention and mass incarceration from the United States to Palestine. Unfortunately, today, 17-year-old Ahed herself is behind bars due to her activism. She spent her 17th birthday inside an Israeli prison.
Ahed was never granted a visa, so she could not physically be with us on the tour. However, we produced this short documentary of her speaking, in her own words, about her work and daily struggles. The video has been shared worldwide, and has garnered millions of views. Between the tour, which visited 18 U.S. cities in two weeks, and the video, Ahed’s powerful words and story have reached millions of people.
Though still just a child, Ahed has today become a prominent figure of nonviolent resistance, serving a leading role in her community of Nabi Saleh, which has staged nonviolent protests against Israel’s occupation for years. In the early morning hours of December 19, 2017, then-16-year-old Ahed Tamimi was arrested, along with her mother, Nariman, and cousin Nour. The women were arrested after a video of Ahed slapping an Israeli soldier went viral. The soldier had, just minutes before, shot her cousin point blank in the face, and was attempting to enter her home to shoot at other children. Ahed bravely stood up to the soldier, preventing him from entering her family’s home, and possibly saving other young people in the process.
Since her arrest, Ahed’s trial date before the Israeli military court (which has a 99.7% conviction rate for Palestinians) has been postponed multiple times and has been closed off to reporters. Her cousin was released, but her mother is still in prison, and the Israeli army recently arrested 10 other members of her family, including her cousin, Mohammad, who was shot in the face the day she was arrested, and is still recovering from his wounds.
Many Palestinians, including children, are subjected to torture and maltreatment while in Israeli custody. We are concerned for Ahed’s well-being in the Israeli prison, and join the chorus of people around the world demanding her immediate release. And while Ahed is an exceptionally brave young leader, her case is not unique. Hundreds of thousands of young Palestinian girls and women stand up to Israel’s occupation and aggression every day in Palestine. Many are arrested and tortured, without so much as a moment of media attention, for their acts of brave resistance.
Today, I call on women of faith all over the world, from all religious and denominational backgrounds, to join me in demanding the immediate release of Ahed and Nariman Tamimi, as well as the other members of their family.
Sincerely,
Rev. Amanda Weatherspoon
Unitarian Universalist Minister“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
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Friends of Sabeel - Sacramento Region endorsed 2017-11-08 05:39:37 -0800
(Click here to read our message in full and see a list of signatories.)
Actions for individuals:
Things you can do right now
- Call or e-mail your national elected representatives (202-224-3121) to oppose proposed anti-BDS legislation as a serious attack on the right of free speech.
- Help us spread the ad on social media by visiting us on Facebook and Twitter and sharing our posts.
- Stay informed of our upcoming actions and efforts to oppose anti-BDS legislation!
Actions for organizers:
Things you can do in your community
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Visit elected representatives and officials in states that have passed anti- BDS legislation or have legislation in motion and urge them to do all they can to stop, rescind these measures or effectively put an end to their enforcement. Deliver this ad and this clergy statement.
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Write letters-to-the-editor, articles, or op-eds in media outlets exposing the serious danger that the attack on BDS poses to the First Amendment. Use the ad as a point of reference.
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Use the ad to encourage faith leaders to take a public stand against these attacks on free speech. Clergy can sign on to a letter denouncing anti-BDS legislation here.
Actions for groups:
Add your faith or activist organization to the list of endorsers!
Protect Free Speech: A Message from Faith Organizations in the United States
WE CALL ON all Americans to join us and the ACLU in defending our First Amendment right to freedom of speech and on our state representatives and members of Congress to reject anti-BDS legislation as an infringement on the rights of American citizens.
Laws that penalize support for Palestinian human rights violate Americans' rights.
We, the undersigned, are members of faith communities in the United States whose congregations or denominations have adopted resolutions to boycott products made in Israeli settlements—built on occupied Palestinian lands in violation of international law and longstanding official U.S. policy—or have implemented a screen to divest from companies that profit from the 50-year-old Israeli military occupation of Palestine. These resolutions affirm our commitment to a just peace for all Palestinians and Israelis. (Continued below...)
We are alarmed by legislation recently passed in a number of states penalizing participation in the nonviolent, grassroots Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights, and by similar legislation that is proposed in the U.S. Congress.
Endorse
In August, the Kansas State Department of Education used the state’s anti-BDS legislation to bar a member of the Mennonite church, a math teacher and curriculum coach in Wichita, Kansas, from participating in a program to train other math teachers. This is a dangerous precedent threatening to extend repression of Palestinians living under Israeli military rule by muzzling the right of Americans to free speech. Accordingly, the ACLU has filed suit against the Kansas Commissioner of Education in defense of this school teacher and her right to boycott.
Anti-BDS laws that have already been enacted in several states, and similar legislation that is proposed in Congress effectively penalize actions taken by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Methodist Church, the Mennonite Church USA, the United Church of Christ, and other denominations; and tens of thousands of Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and secular Americans who support boycotts and divestment aimed at ending Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights.
As faith leaders, we have long used the nonviolent instruments of boycott and divestment in our work for justice and peace. These economic measures have proven to be powerful tools for social change, from strengthening labor rights for farm workers to ending apartheid in South Africa. As has been warned by the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, anti-BDS legislation is an extremely grave attack on free speech that threatens the use of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions for other peace and human justice causes.
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Patricia Daugherty posted about encuentro_livestream on Facebook 2017-11-06 11:33:15 -0800I'll be tuning in Nov 10 & 11 for live streams on resisting borders from the US to Palestine. Register here!
Livestream Nov 10 & 11 workshops on resisting walls, from the U.S.-Mexico border to Palestine
Register here for a live stream of two workshops Nov 10 & 11 from the SOA Watch Border Encuentro in Tucson. By signing up, you will receive a reminder e-mail about the live stream and a link to watch it one hour before it begins.
November 10
10:00 AM Pacific | 12:00 PM Central | 1:00 PM Eastern
“From Palestine to Mexico, All the Walls Have Got to Go: BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) and Border Militarization” with Palestinian BDS National Committee, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and Friends of Sabeel North AmericaNovember 11
Sign up
1:15 PM Pacific | 3:15 PM Central | 4:15 PM Eastern
“Towards a World Without Walls! Combating the Violence of Border Walls and Militarization from Palestine to the US/Mexico and Beyond” with Jamal Juma of Stop The Wall (Palestine), and Pedro Charbel of the Palestinian BDS National Committee
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We Pledge to Become an HP-Free Church
Not yet ready or able to sign the pledge on behalf of your congregration? Find additional resources here!
For thousands of years, churches have served as places to give thanks, to bring families together, to provide sanctuary for those in need. We cannot allow these core commitments to be diminished by allowing companies complicit in human rights abuses to establish themselves in our houses of worship. Hewlett Packard (HP) provides Israel with the technological tools to facilitate its oppression of the Palestinian people.
The Presbyterian Church, Unitarian Universalists, United Church of Christ, Quaker Friends Fiduciary, and Alliance of Baptists have all divested from HP at the denominational level. Let’s bring this courageous stand to the congregational level by becoming an HP-free church.
As a community of faith, we recognize that mass incarceration, restrictions on movement, and illegal settlements and occupation are unjust, unsustainable, and irresponsible practices.
Until HP ends its complicity in the illegal Israeli occupation and ceases to profit from the violation of Palestinian human rights, we pledge to not buy Hewlett Packard products, including printers, computers, and ink.
(If you are unable to sign on behalf of your congregation, you can sign as an individual here.)
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To: Sacramento Regional Transit Board of Directors
Because G4S, the world’s largest private security company, is complicit in and profiting from well-documented violations of human rights and other international laws, we the undersigned ask that you: 1) not extend Sacramento Regional Transit’s current contract with G4S, allowing it to expire on June 30, 2016; 2) develop criteria to be included in Request For Proposals (RFP) for the next contract to exclude companies that are involved in human rights violations; and 3) do not award G4S another contract if they are still engaged or complicit in violations of human rights and international law.
We add our voices to the letter that you have received from local organizations and individuals and to others around the world who are calling on G4S to reform its business practices and have refused to do business with them until they do.
(For technical assistance, please feel free to email [email protected])
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