I wish I was going to be in Bethlehem this Christmas because Holy Land Trust (the organization I worked with this summer) is hosting an International Nonviolence Conference entitled “Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance.” It is going to be in Bethlehem, Palestine this December 27-30th. Some of the speakers will be:
- Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen): President of the Palestinian National Authority
- Azmi Bishara: Member of the Israeli Knesset
- Gene Sharp: Senior Scholar at the Albert Einstein Institution
- Martin Luther King III: Son of Martin Luther King, JR.
- Naim Ateek: Founder of Sabeel
- Bernard LaFayette, Jr.: Co-founder of SNCC in 1960
- Ingrid Newkirk: Co-founder and President of PETA
- Cindy Corrie: Mother of Rachel Corrie who was killed by Israeli soldiers while engaging in non-violent resistance
- Fr. Roy Bourgeois: Founder of the School of the Americas Watch
- Mubarak Awad: Founder of Nonviolence International in Washington D.C.
It looks like it’s going to be an amazing gathering of people from all over the world. If you have any chance to go to this conference, if you’ll be in the area, I encouarge you to check out the website.
I also encourage you to check out this video put together by Holy Land Trust. Sami, who is the Executive Director for Holy Land Trust, speaks on the video, and there are some videos of some of the HLT staff engaging in nonviolent resistance and you can see how the IDF responds. It’s a pretty good video – check it out here.
