[RSCT] backround reading for the Palestinean Israeli conflict and direct action

[Kathy Emery]

I recommend reading chapter 11 in A Force More Powerful (Ackerman and Duvall) for a perspective on the relative effectiveness of violence and nonviolence (and the little known history of the nonviolent resistance during the First Intifada).

I also recommend looking at the civil rights veterans website for teaching what is and is not effective nonviolent direct action.
most of the protests going on are not effective 
people today seem to have lost the understanding of what the PURPOSE of NVR is as a tactic.

For example? -- activists need to be targeting AIPAC offices and not the Israeli embassies in the US.

kathy


Kathy Emery, Ph. D.

SF Freedom School, Executive Director
SFSU, Adjunct Lecturer, PLSI
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SF CA 94114

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From: BBPDX at aol.com
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 03:32:46 -0500
To: rs at criticalteach.org
Subject: [RSCT] Song for Gaza

Dear Rethinking Schools friends,



It's often hard to know what to do when a crisis breaks out somewhere in the world and we're in the midst of teaching about other issues. The Israeli war against Palestinians in Gaza has a complicated history, so we may be tempted to avoid dealing with it in class. Ruth Shagoury, a colleague in Portland, shared this powerful YouTube video with me, "We Will Not Go Down (Song for Gaza)" by Michael Heart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfhoU66s4Y



No one song can provide the kind of context that students would need to grasp the issues of a struggle like this, but this song might be one way to alert students to some of the human dimension of the ongoing Israeli invasion and bombing and help students raise some questions. Below are the song's lyrics.



On Thursday, Bob Peterson forwarded to this list two articles that Hofstra professor Alan Singer distributed. There was a line in one of those that is one of the most telling quotations I've read about Israeli government objectives in their current and historic treatment of Palestinians. It's from Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.” I suppose that this is the objective of all colonizers vis a vis the colonized.



If you are teaching about Israel-Palestine issues, and especially about Gaza, please post your experiences to the Rethinking Schools critical teaching listserv.



For peace and justice,



Bill Bigelow

Rethinking Schools

www.rethinkingschools.org



We Will Not Go Down (Song for Gaza)

by Michael Heart



A blinding flash of white light

Lit up the sky over Gaza tonight

People running for cover

Not knowing whether they're dead or alive



They came with their tanks and their planes

With ravaging fiery flames

And nothing remains

Just a voice rising up in the smoky haze



We will not go down

In the night, without a fight

You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools

But our spirit will never die

We will not go down

In Gaza tonight



Women and children alike

Murdered and massacred night after night

While the so-called leaders of countries afar

Debated on who's wrong or right



But their powerless words were in vain

And the bombs fell down like acid rain

But through the tears and the blood and the pain

You can still hear that voice through the smoky haze



We will not go down

In the night, without a fight

You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools

But our spirit will never die

We will not go down

In Gaza tonight



We will not go down

In the night, without a fight

You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools

But our spirit will never die



We will not go down

In the night, without a fight



We will not go down

In Gaza tonight


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