LA-Orange County Conference, April 6, 2013

April 6, 2013
April 6, 2013

JUSTICE AND ONLY JUSTICE

 



An all Day Conference to Promote Justice and Peace in Israel and Palestine
Sponsored by the Friends of Sabeel Los Angeles and Orange County
 
Pasadena Presbyterian Church
585 E Colorado Boulevard
Pasadena, CA 91101


Dear conference attendees, speakers, workshop leaders, volunteers, and pastor and staff members of Pasadena Presbyterian Church: We want to thank you very much for helping to make our Friends of Sabeel Conference, “Justice and Only Justice” a great success.

Jim Bettendorf and Tony Litwinko
Conference Co-chairs
Friends of Sabeel Los Angeles and Orange County

Here are links to the Keynote and Plenary talks from our conference. These videos have been produced by our dear friends and supporters at Global Voices for Justice. If you watch the video, please consider donating at least $5 or $10 to Global Voices for Justice at: http://www.gvfj.org/?page_id=36 Consider subscribing to their list and donating periodically for their invaluable service.

A DVD of all the talks and two of the workshops will be available soon for a donation. More information on that will be posted on this
Friends of Sabeel LA/Orange County Conference website and we will be sending around an email communication soon.

Jonathan Kuttab's Keynote Address: http://youtu.be/bx83iC6ALIw

Jamal Nassar's First Plenary : http://youtu.be/a20htQBMSCE

Dr. Sara Roy's Second Plenary: http://youtu.be/rr1ctwIhfIM

Dr. Mark Braverman's Third Plenary: http://youtu.be/O0juT4-8BPk

Global Voices for Justice is a non-profit media organization located in Long Beach, California.
Email: mansoor@gvfj.org
Phone: 310.283.0885
www.globalvoicesforjustice.org


A Message from Allan Boesak to the SABEEL Conference

TO FRIENDS OF SABEEL CONFERENCE, LOS ANGELES AND ORANGE COUNTY

Dear Friends,
As I write you will already begun your deliberations and I had hoped fervently that I might be with you, to learn from you and hopefully to share with you. This is such a crucial time for testing the resilience of our commitment to justice for our Palestinian brothers and sisters, as well as for justice and peace in the Middle East. I regret deeply that I am not able to be with you.

It is with deepening distress that as a black South African, I observe the series of choices the Israeli government is making (and in the process causing their people to make) that are turning the Israeli state into the apartheid state South Africa had been, with all the bitter consequences such decisions have. It is not just the deliberate and progressive disenfranchisement, the pretense at democratic life and political participation, or the continued exclusion from economic life. It is not just the ruthlessness in the expropriation of land or the military aggression which is now indispensable for Palestinian subjection. It is not just the systematic decimation of a total generation through imprisonment, deprivation, denial of human rights; nor is it the reality that every longing for free and dignity means death in one form or another.

It is not so much that physical Wall – South Africa never had one – it is what the Wall represents in which apartheid South Africa will immediately recognize itself: the physical manifestation of a perverse, and ultimately self-destructive, longing for the permamentization of total separation, inequality, estrangement and of otherness.
It is in the deliberate turning away from the God of justice to the idols of self-sufficiency, self-preservation, and self-justification, turning the liberation story into the Great Myth of self-aggrandizement.

There are ways in which the Palestinian situation is much worse than our apartheid situation ever was. Think on just this one instance. Almost from the very beginning there were nations and pockets of people within nations we could turn to in our struggle for freedom and justice. Even if just for appearances’ sake for a long while, the United Nations offered political support. We could turn to the churches in the US, to the black community here for understanding and solidarity who in their active participation in our struggle recognized the dignity of fighting for justice everywhere.

With the situation the way it is in the US right now, the question that plagues me is: who can the Palestinians turn to, if not for justice then at least compassion; if not for freedom, then at least for understanding, if not for dignity then at least for solidarity?

And perhaps that is why we are here, doing what we are doing. We owe our brothers and sisters at least this much: someone they can turn to as they continue their struggle so that all may find peace.

God bless you all,
Allan Boesak

Sarah Thompson of Christian Peacemaker Teams reads Rev. Allan Boesak's message to the conference.
Sarah is introduced by the Rev. Don Wagner, Program Director of FOSNA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JImMara-pfE&feature=youtu.be

KPFK-FM 90.7 Los Angeles is our Media Sponsor

 

Please Donate to the Conference

 

Online registration is closed. You can register at the door beginning at 8:30 AM, April 6, the day of the conference. CREDIT CARDS CANNOT BE ACCEPTED. REGISTER WITH CASH OR CHECK ONLY. WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU.

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