10,000 Kites for Peace to released at wall 04/27

[Moses]

Washington Report, January/February 2005, pages 52-53

Southern California Chronicle

“10,000 Kites for Peace” Slated to Be Launched April 27 at Israel’s Apartheid Wall

By Pat and Samir Twair

Suzanne Marks emcees the “10,000 Kites” program (staff photo S. Twair).
 <br>
“THE WHOLE IDEA is absurd, but it’s just what Israelis and Palestinians need.”

So said Rabbi Leonard Beerman as he addressed more than 250 guests Dec. 2 at the “10,000 Kites” dinner in the Los Angeles Skirball Cultural Center.

“Negotiations between the two have been reduced to an abysmal failure,” stated the rabbi emeritus of Leo Baeck Temple. “This assertion of something so hopeful and absurd is full of profound meaning and hope.”

Giant kites decorated the Skirball’s Ahmanson Ballroom, where images of Israel’s apartheid wall flashed on a mammoth screen.

Co-chair Suzanne Marks emceed the program and announced that 10,000 kites made by Palestinian and Israeli children will be raised on both sides of the wall April 27. On the same date in Los Angeles, Jewish, Muslim and Christian children will fly kites as an expression of hope for peace in Israel/Palestine.

Working with Israeli artist Adi Yekutieli and Palestinian artist George Nustas, Marks and her husband, Wally, arranged the Dec. 2 gala and raised $125,000 for the kites project.

Earlier, Marks told the Washington Report that educators and artists will work during the week preceding April 27 with tens of thousands of Israeli and Palestinian families. Both groups will express their feelings about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict with images they draw on the kites. An interactive Web site is being established so that Israelis and Palestinians can continue to communicate by e-mail.

“This is about much more than flying kites,” Marks stated. “It’s about the children and recognizing that the child on the other side of the wall shares the same dream for peace.”<br>
In the spirit of Rabbi Beerman’s comment that “fences make for bad neighbors,” Palestinian artist Nustas said: “If there is a wall, one can’t see the person on the other side. This is about humanizing the other person over the wall who also is holding a kite string.”<br>
In addition to 23 rabbis listed in the program, Dr. Nazir Khaja, chairman of the Islamic Information Center, and Rev. Dr. George Regas, founder of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, are endorsers of 10,000 Kites. It also is supported by Americans for Peace Now, New Israel Fund and Progressive Jewish Alliance.

For more information, visit the Web Site <www.10000Kites.org>.

[Moses]

WIB Focuses on Apartheid Wall

The Jerusalem-Jericho road has not been closed for 6,000 years, but Israel’s apartheid wall is doing just that, states the narrator of “The Israeli Wall in Palestinian Lands.” The 43-minute documentary by Andrew Cortney and Emily Perry was shown at an Oct. 22 program sponsored by Women In Black/Los Angeles.

The event also featured a talk by John Reese and Erica Kay of Stop the Wall. The couple left Seattle on July 2 and were traveling through 38 states to bring a visual of the wall to Americans (see “Northern California Chronicle,” p. 47). Earlier that day, they had set up the wall on the University of Southern California campus and had engaged in challenging discussions with students who were unaware of the wall that is devastating the Palestinian economy and social fabric.

A hydrologist by profession, Reese studied firsthand the effect the wall is having on Palestinian water supplies. West Bank Palestinians depend on their wells, he noted, but 36 irrigation wells now are on the wrong side of the wall. Since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians have been required to have a permit for their wells, which the army regularly destroys then refuses to let them be repaired.

Of the 250 Palestinian greenhouses, Reese continued, 169 are now on the Israeli side of the wall, which costs $1.2 million per mile to erect. Of the 50 gates built into it, only 15 are operational. According to Reese, the wall also affects migratory species, which can no longer roam the area, and thus is decreasing their gene pool.

“This is a massive project that is destroying the ground water, the flora and fauna,” Reese stated. “The International Court of Justice declared it illegal on July 9, but the U.S. Congress condemned this decision 361 to 45.”<br>
In addition, he noted, roughly 200 Israeli industries are moving into the Tulkarem area and discharging waste into Palestinian farming areas.

For more information, please visit <www.stopthewall.us>.

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Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance journalists based in Los Angeles.