[Peace-discuss] AWARE Meeting Minutes 3/9/03

[Linda Evans]

Facilitator:  Peter Rohloff
Minutes:  Linda Evans
Time:  Al Kagan
Intros:  over 40 people

David Green spoke on the Israel/Palestine situation:

David suggested the book 'Perceptions of Palestine: 
Their Influence on US Middle East Policy' by
Kathleen Christison as a primer on this subject.  He
said this book is good for Americans who want to
understand Palestine by beginning with the treatment
of the Palestinians by successive U.S.
administrations, going back to Woodrow Wilson.  David
discussed the US policy favoring Israel, which is
structural and consistent, not an aberration or a
mistake.  He displayed several newspaper clippings
showing violence on both sides during the past week
and how they are covered in a manner that avoids
addressing the fundamental nature of the occupation in
shaping Israeli oppression and Palestinian resistance.
While the word "terrorism" is no longer used to
describe Palestinian violence, neither is the word
"occupation" used to describe the fundamental reality
of Palestinian lives. Thus Palestinian violence is
seen as a force of nature, and Israeli violence is
seen as retaliation or preemption. He suggested that
Israel will not resolve the Palestinian problem in a
just manner without a radical re-thinking of U.S.
support, with the help of the international community,
as Israel's right-wing government has never been more
identified with a U.S. administration as it is now,
and more free to pursue policies that murder
Palestinians and put Israeli citizens in danger. He
discussed the context of suicide bombings--the
targeting of Hamas leaders by Israel, and their
predictable response. While suicide bombings are
immoral and condemnable, like other forms of
"terrorism" they must be explained and understood. A
couple questions were asked regarding the break down
of peace talks. David expressed pessimism regarding
"reforms" in the Palestinian authority. He said that
the new boss would be the same as the old boss, his
job being to sell out the interests of the Palestinian
people.

News of the week:  Carl Estabrook (posted previously)

Student Peace Action:  A representative from Student
Peace Action described their scheduled 'Day of War
Event'.  They are planning a march following the PRC
event on the quad.  The march will start around 1pm on
the quad the day after a major US bombing of Iraq. 
AWARE agreed to endorse this event.  A suggestion was
made to SPA to contact Teachers for Peace.

AWARE's Day of War Event:  Charlotte Green and Jeff
Sowers discussed AWARE's Day of War event and flyers
have been posted at local businesses.  Remaining
flyers were passed around for people to post them at
business where we have yet to flyer.

Finances:  Gabe said we have approximately $2000 in
the bank.  Approximately $60 was collected at Prospect
for Peace last Saturday.  Linda Evans will be able to
write checks soon and will try to have a financial
report for next meeting.  Since Raia will not be back
for awhile, Linda will start handling finances with
the help of Gabe.

AWARE Care:  Al Kagan reported on the AWARE Care
meeting last Monday.  Long term goals and AWARE's
philosophy (non-violence?) was discussed.  Al said
'another world is possible'.  Organizing structure
(openness vs. coordination), outreach, and cultural
presentation were also discussed.  It was suggested
that people with announcements give them to the
facilitator of the meeting so we can streamline the
announcement part of the meetings.  An AWARE notebook
is being created by Linda Evans and Charlotte Green. 
This notebook will have meeting minutes, flyers,
current literature, etc.  Linda and Charlotte are also
working on a list of working groups and their
facilitators that will be available every meeting. 
This may help people find ways they can get more
involved in AWARE.  Linda and Charlotte are also
working on a table with current information for every
meeting.  The welcome flyer will also be resurrected.

Prospect for Peace:  Ricky Baldwin said over 160
people were protesting on N. Prospect last Saturday. 
He estimated around half of the people were newcomers
to the N. Prospect event.  He thinks the word is out
about N. Prospect so we may not need to publicize this
weekly event as much.  Security was discussed.  A
green van stayed on the street, but got very close to
the protesters last Saturday.  The P4P security
working group scheduled to meet after the meeting. 
Even with the 'security' group, we all need to look
out for one another during the P4P.

Flyers:  Randall Cotton showed the new P4P handout
with a new more readable layout by John Baldwidge. 
Randall estimated 1,000 Move On flyers were handed out
last week on the corner of Green and Wright.  Tuesday
March 11, 2003 at 11:45am on the same corner,
literature will be handed out so anyone can come by
and help.  An estimated 350 flyers were put in doors
around the C-U area.  Janet has the original
electronic copy of the literature.  There was
discussion regarding adding AWARE information to the
Move On literature.

March 15th:  If anyone is interested in traveling to
DC for March 15th, contact Randall Cotton.  For those
people staying in the CU area, we need to have a
strong presence at Prospect for Peace.  The New
Gazette will be at P4P March 15th.

Speaker's Bureau:  Linda Evans reported on last
Tuesday's meeting of the Speaker's Bureau.  The list
of speakers is being updated.  All the speakers on the
old list will be contacted to make sure they still
would like to speak and new speakers are being added. 
If anyone is interested, contact Joe Parnarauskis. 
The Speaker's Bureau is working on ways to outreach to
the community and is interested in looking at this as
an exchange of speakers.  We would ask people from the
community to come speak to AWARE as well as making
AWARE available to speak.

Announcements:

The Public I's next issue (due out April 1st) will
have an article on war tax resistance.

Ken Urban has started 'Parklanders for Peace' and so
far eight faculty have come out to the Prospect for
Peace.  He tables at Parkland with AWARE literature.

Ken Urban suggested AWARE support Care3 since they
have supported AWARE.  He mentioned four people
running in the Unit 4 School Board; Nathaniel Banks,
Scott Anderson, Margie Skirvin
(http://www.skirvin.net/), and Charles (Ken, please
provide the last name here I couldn't find it during a
quick web search). 

Ken also said Miles Robert thinks we should have
another DI ad regarding the Day of War Event.  Due to
the amount of money involved, it was suggested we
write a letter to the editor instead.  Jeff Sowers
offered to write the letter.

There is a lock down in Milwaukee, but we were lacking
specific information.

Jay Mittenthal announced the Nonviolence working group
is going to have a meeting at the IMC on March 30th
prior to the AWARE meeting at 4pm.  There will be role
playing and information on nonviolent activism.


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