Samiha Khanna ·
21 Dec 2009, 5:31 PM ·
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Four Triangle residents, including a history teacher from Hillside High School, will travel to the Gaza Strip next week to participate in an international protest to call attention to turmoil there resulting from Israel’s blockade of Gaza’s borders, according to a news release from two Triangle organizations helping publicize the effort.
The foursome is part of about 1,000 people from the U.S. who will travel to Cairo, Egypt, on Dec. 27 and join with an estimated 50,000 other protestors for the Gaza Freedom March, timed to the one-year anniversary of an assault by Israeli forces that killed more than 1,300 people and wounded thousands.
According to a joint news release from the Coalition for Peace with Justice and the Triangle Campaign Against the Israeli Occupation, the participants are:
- Bryan Proffitt, the Hillside teacher who attended N.C. State University and has worked in the formation of several Triangle-area anti-war groups
- Jodeen Olguín-Tayler, a Durham-based organizer for MoveOn.org
- Waleed Elhantaty, a small-business owner from Raleigh and current vice president of the Muslim American Public Affairs Council
- Burhan Ghanayem, a retired environmental health scientist and entrepreneur who lives in Raleigh
The protest is garnering support from notable figures from writer Alice Walker to Howard Zinn to Noam Chomsky. Read more >>
Proffiitt, who has been a teacher at Hillside for three years, said he has been compelled to participate to draw more attention from his community to the Israeli occupation, which he compares to South Africa under apartheid. Some of his students and fellow teachers are also learning more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from his experience.
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Durham, Durham County, North Carolina, national, news, politics Bryan Proffitt, Gaza, Gaza Freedom March, government, Hillside High School, international, Israel, military, Palestine, politics, war
Matt Saldaña ·
27 Jul 2009, 3:46 PM ·
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2008 Green Party presidential nominee, and former U.S. Representative (D-GA), Cynthia McKinney was scheduled to deliver a keynote speech to the roughly 100 Green Party members who attended last week’s convention in Durham. Due to health issues, she instead spoke to the group about her recent brush with the Israeli Navy, and her involvement with the “Free Gaza” movement, via online video.
Audience members lined up to ask McKinney questions, but because of a communications mishap, McKinney only referred to Gaza-related questions from the video stream’s live chat. One question involved Hurricane Katrina, though she responded by talking about Palestine. In fact, other than a brief reference to her 2008 run (disparaging those who didn’t understand it), and general praise for the Green Party candidates who spoke at a live-streamed news conference Friday, McKinney made almost no mention of her party’s gathering in Durham.
Last month, McKinney and 20 others were seized by the Israeli Navy after attempting to sail through a blockade to deliver humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Consulate has said McKinney’s group could have delivered humanitarian supplies by land, and accused the group of making a “reckless political stunt.”
McKinney was scheduled to be deported immediately, but refused to sign deportation papers and spent a week in jail, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“I spent seven days in prison because I wanted the children in Gaza to have crayons,” McKinney said in her video address. Continue reading »
national, politics Cynthia McKinney, Gaza Strip, green party, Israel, Jesse Johnson, mountaintop removal, Palestine
