Druze youth refuse to serve in Israeli military

The earnest young man beside me spoke of the complexity of growing up as a Druze Christian Palestinian youth in Israel.  He is the sixth brother of seven. The Druze community is somewhat isolated, both from Jewish Israelis and from other Palestinian Israeli citizens.  That has been by design.  For years Israel "allowed" Druze citizens to serve in the military and later required them to serve. That was one of many steps to isolate them from other Palestinian Israeli citizens, who are not required to serve in the military.  There is a special department to supervise Druze schools and curriculum, a special section to supervise Druze municipalities (but not other Arab Israeli cities). 

Rafat was the first of his brothers to question serving in the military.  He had seen a film that

showed a Palestinian woman in the Occupied Territories being attacked by a dog while the nearby soldier did nothing.  He realized he didn't want to be in that position and began to consider refusing to serve.  He talked with his family and gradually they came to support him. They realized that their identity as Druze was very tied to their identity as Palestinians.  They slowly came to stop celebrating Israeli Independence Day and began to teach their children about the Nakba ("the Catastrophe" of Palestinian ethnic cleansing begun in 1948) and to honor Nakba Day.  His mother no longer asks fearfully if he went to the demonstration but asks "How was it"?  After much discernment he joined other Druze youth refusing to serve, in spite of dire threats about jail and that he would never be able to get a job.  He did do several months in jail, but he is now in college and has a job.  He is active in the youth program doing outreach to Druze youth.  They help them think about how they identify (Druze? Israeli? Palestinian?), offer support to refusers, do media work to reach the Druze community and are networking with other Palestinian groups. 

Rafat was one of many young people the AFSC staff delegation met with during our visit to Israel/Palestine to learn first hand about the work of our colleagues there.  Many, like Rafat, have grown up quickly as they consider whether to refuse compulsory military service while still only 16 and 17 years old.  Palestinian youth also grow up quickly as they have to learn to navigate their way through the complex and often capricious military authority that governs the Occupied Territories.  Gazan youth have grow up through bombardments, a siege that severely limits what items get into Gaza (from prohibitions on concrete and other building supplies to food and medicines to rationed electricity) and occupation that bans travel outside of the 25 mile long Gaza Strip.  Yet they, too, have dreams they pursue and are finding ways to work with other Palestinian youth to challenge the status quo. 

As you read the headlines about Israel refusing to recognize the new Palestinian coalition government, Israel's refusal to accept its own currency from Palestinian banks, and other high level dysfunction about the area, know that beneath the surface there are amazing youth who are tired of the failures of their elders and who are actively working to solve the many problems of the area.  Listening to them is to have hope, to have deeper understandings of what resistance to the status quo we are all called to in these times - and awe at the resilience of the human spirit.

ACTION ITEMS
I would love to do a presentation to Quaker Meetings or other groups about the trip.  Please contact me to so that we can make arrangements. 
Check out the AFSC website on Advocating for Peace in Israel-Palestine.  It is full of interesting and informative resources as well as ways to take action. 
Sign up for the AFSC newsletter, which often includes action steps.  The most recent edition, addressing the collapse of the "peace talks", is here.

Of Sugar Snow, Food Security and more

I am not so brazen as to say "Let it snow", but I do confess to a secret love of "Sugar Snows".  I grew up in Vermont.  By this point in March there usually was still snow on the ground, but it was looking pretty tired.  Then along would come a "sugar snow", named for the maple "sugaring season".  The world would be freshly white and beautiful, sometimes with deep snow.  The horses that pulled the huge sled along  with the holding tank for the sap along the side of our road had an easier time with less ice and patches of bare ground.  It often warmed quickly over the next few days, making playing in the snow a much more fun thing than in January.  It was often a wet snow, great for snowmen and building things.   Sugaring was finished off with a "sugar on snow" party (sap boiled till very thick, then drizzled on the snow where it hardened into candy for a delicious treat).  And then the snow was gone, brooks roared, wood frogs croaked - and it was time to plant peas.
Food - locally grown.  Seasonal.  What does it mean to talk about food security in these times of climate change and increased urbanization?  How has the corporate food industry changed what we eat and what food costs?  And who has access to what food?  How can we change those patterns?  Who gets to make those decisions?  What does a sustainable food shed look like?  (And what is a food shed?)
Food.  We all need it.  It can be a source of pleasure and satisfaction.  It is a topic one can approach as a casual gardener, with environmental concerns, with justice concerns, or with just a delight in the pleasure of food.
There are a lot of reasons why AFSC-SENE (along with other AFSC offices) is looking more closely at how we can build sustainable food networks accessible to all people.  Please join us the evening of April 25th at Providence Friends Meeting House to learn more about how food is produced in our area, who has access to that food, and how we can work together to build a just and sustainable network that will help all of us be food secure.  Watch for more details, but save the date.  We know it will include brief talks about amazing work taking place in the area.  We will have locally baked desserts.  Bring baby plants and seeds to swap during the dessert time.  And celebrate Earth Day and Spring with us!   Watch for details and registration information.
TAKE ACTION:
Raise the Minimum Wage in MA:  Press conference and lobby day Wednesday, March 26th.  Click here for more info.
National Day of Action to stop deportations.  President Obama will soon have deported over 2 million people, the most of any president.  Over 1000 are deported every day, many for the simple offense of driving without a license (which is part of why both MA and RI have legislation to expand access to drivers licenses).  The Providence event is April 4th at 4pm at the state house and will focus on the call for Governor Chafee to stop honoring ICE holds (which are not mandatory).  In Worcester the event is from 1-3pm on April 5th at the Federal Court House.  Can't make an event?  Visit the National Day Laborers Network website and take action there.
There are a lot of important events coming up - check out the listing on the right of this message.
And Happy Sugar Snow - and Happy Spring to you!
In Peace,  Martha Yager, AFSC-SENE program coordinator
P.S.  Your work every day for a more just and peaceful world is essential.  Your donations to AFSC-Sene help us help you stay connected to ways you can work for change.  Please give what you can - and THANKS!

Equality and the many faces of inequality

AFSC's work is informed by Quaker values, or as the tagline on the logo says, it tries to be Quaker values in action.  One of the core values or testimonies is that of equality.  In the New England Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice, 1985 edition, the introduction to the section on equality reads:
Friends believe the divine Light is accessible to all people, regardless of race, sex, age, or material wealth. Everyone has the potential to respond to God within. All persons ought to have the opportunity to develop their talents and skills under the leadings of the Spirit. Equality is not sameness. It is equality of respect. Every person is a child of God.
Evidence of our collective failure to live up to the ideal of equality that is also stated as a core ideal in our country, is all around us.  Profound poverty next door to extreme wealth, unequal education, structures that perpetuate racism, military occupations, violence in many forms against women, unequal opportunities to be come who we might be if given a chance ...
But these structures are human creations.  Working together we can change them.  And working together we can change the attitudes and address the fears that cling, sometimes fiercely, to those structures.  It is always ongoing work, as fears and greed will always be working to create structures to protect those who have more.  It is work that asks much of us - it asks us to be honest about our fears, about the priveleges we may not even be fully aware of, and it asks us to understand that our security is only as real as the shared security of the larger community.
The coming week holds a variety of activities that all in some way name varies faces of inequality and present opportunities to change attitudes and structures to make a more equal and just world. They range from the Women of All Colors assembly to programs on nonviolent resistence to occupation to screenings of the films Inequality for All and A Place at the Table and a discussion of what we mean by Shared Security.  I hope you will join us at one of these events.  Check out the AFSC-SENE website for event details.