A talk and panel discussion of the current situation in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, will be presented on Saturday, May 10, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Lopez Center for Community and the Arts.
The talk is entitled, “Israel/Palestine: Heartbreak and Hope – What the Media Doesn’t Show or Tell Us.”
The speakers will include Rev. Sanford (Sandy) Brown, a Methodist Minister and Executive Director of the Church Council of Greater Seattle, who recently led a 17-member Church Council delegation to the Holy Land. During the trip the delegation attended 28 meetings with influential members of the Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Christian and Muslim communities. Brown will discuss both the positive and negative roles of religion in the region.
Other speakers on the panel will include Mona Stucki, a Palestinian-Canadian and founder and president of Surge International, a resource development group for the building and strengthening of communities here and abroad by connecting people to higher purposes. Stucki works in the nonprofit sector to influence lasting change and transformation. She has family members living in the West Bank, with whom she visited during the delegation, and she will talk about the impact the occupation has had on both the Palestinian and Israeli people and the hope she sees for the future.
Dr. Hank Landau, a part-time Lopez resident for 22 years and a member of Grace Episcopal Church, will also speak on the panel. Hank is the founder of Landau Associates, a regional civil and environmental engineering firm. He studied water and environmental concerns while on the trip and will talk about the waters of the region, how over-appropriation and contamination have been root causes of the conflict and how recent cooperative efforts among Palestinians, Israelis and Jordanians further chances for peace.
The forum will be moderated by Lopez Island resident Jackie Wolf, who spent six months in the West Bank and Gaza in 1989, gathering over 200 hours of video footage with fellow activists Tom Wright and Rich Wood and eventually producing the 60-minute documentary film “Facts on the Ground.” Wolf returned to Palestine in 2002, visiting Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Hebron, and has written and spoken about her experiences living with Palestinians under military occupation.
“This event will provide an excellent opportunity for community dialogue about this issue,” Wolf said. It is being presented free of charge. Call 206-546-7939 for more information.
