Local residents on Congressional Accompaniment Tour to Palestine/Israel

Hear local residents report their first-hand experiences in Israel/Palestine with a Congressional Accompaniment Tour, Friday, June 8, 7:00 pm.

Five local residents accompanied seven Congressional staff members in a Leadership Learning Mission to Israel/Palestine April 27-May 4, organized by the Rebuilding Alliance http://www.rebuildingalliance.org. Local delegates were Tom Helman, David Furnish, Joshua Grossman, Peter Klotz-Chamberlin, and Rose Leopold, Executive Assistant to Congressman Jimmy Panetta. The community report will be at the Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean Street, Santa Cruz.

The delegation included Congressional staff members from districts in Arizona, Texas, Indiana, Nebraska, and Minnesota.

The group visited cities and villages under military occupation, including East Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, Aida Refugee Camp. They met residents of Susiya village, the Bedouin village of Khan Al Ahmar, and Al Aqaba in the Jordan Valley, all under imminent threat of demolition by Israeli military court orders, and they visited Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Ma'ale Adumim and Kfar Adumim. They met with community leaders, officials from the U.S. Consulate, Rabbis Arik Ascherman and Jeremy Milgrom, and the Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for the West Bank, and the Director of UNRWA for Gaza.

They observed an Israeli military court in proceedings against Palestinian children, and heard from parents of the children.

Admission is free. A collection for donations will be taken during the program.

The Santa Cruz residents have photos and background information available. See this article by Helman, Grossman and Klotz-Chamberlin published in Mondoweiss about one dimension of the tour, meetings with residents of Gaza. http://mondoweiss.net/2018/05/life-in-gaza/.

Helman, Furnish and Klotz-Chamberlin are available for interviews and background briefings about the situations they encountered.