Thursday, July 24, 2014

WISE WOMEN MEDIA for July 25th, 2014--A Path to Peace with Joann and Michelle



We will be broadcasting LIVE at 10PM EDT on Friday night, July 25th, 2014.
Tonight's show will be an interesting conversation with two sisters, Joann and Michelle. Both are members of the Green Party. Joann is currently an educator and a military veteran who worked in Intelligence Operations. Michelle is a Registered Nurse, a Humanitarian, Permaculture Gardener and a Home-Schooling Mom. Both think that a lasting PEACE is essential for our communities, our country and our country's Foreign Policy. 

We will be broadcasting live and can take your written questions during the broadcast. 
We will not be taking live call ins. 
Please post your questions on our Facebook page here: WISE WOMEN MEDIA on FB
If you do not use Facebook, you can email your questions directly to me at anitastewart@gmail.com with "QUESTION" in caps in the subject line of the email.

READ MORE ABOUT MICHELLE AND JOANN: 
Joann and Michelle are humanitarian sisters from Northern Ohio. They jokingly call themselves Agnostic, Catholic, Jews. Their mother was born in war torn Germany in 1943. Their German grandfather was an administrative clerk in the German military and died in a Russian concentration camp in 1945. In exploring their heritage they realized more and more that all of their German family names were Jewish and in fact found documentation that has been authenticated by a rabbinical council that the female line of their family is Jewish. Their Grandmother confirmed this before her death. Their Mother taught them of the horrors of the war and the holocaust and the political and economic climate that existed along with a healthy dose of racism and nationalism, which allowed it to happen and which compelled the people to be silent. They grew up appreciating the Jewish spirit of humanitarianism and watching Jews at the forefront of the civil rights movement in the US during the 60s and 70s.
Joann is retired from the USAF after serving 20 years in military intelligence. 
Michelle is a Registered Nurse.
They became aware of the situation in Palestine in the early 80's when they met and got to know several Palestinian people. Those friends described deplorable conditions in refugee camps that generations of Palestinian people had been living in. They described life under a military occupation where their people were treated as less than human, could be arrested at any time and lived in poverty like conditions. They talked about the diaspora and although they were Palestinian, they came from different places where their families had fled to as refugees in the 40’s or 60’s when they were pushed out of their villages. It was a better fate than the poverty of the camps, aka ghettos, but they were treated as second class citizens wherever they went.
As extremism and fascism have grown in Israel so have the episodes of collective punishment against the Palestinians. In the last 25 years the level of brutality used against them has been escalating and a devastating reality to face. As an example, the practice of breaking the shoulder blade, (hobbling), used against young Palestinian males, usually done with a large stone, was a commonly used deterrent against stone throwing and was used as standard procedure by the IDF. This was documented 7 minutes into the film “Palestine Is Still the Issue” which was made in 1977 by John Pilger. We have now reached a new low as the world silently watches the pogrom of a helpless, imprisoned, malnourished population. Every day there are dozens or hundreds of murders and many of them children. This collective punishment has escalated into a genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. These sisters belong to Jewish Peace organizations and filter their viewpoint and opinions through them and other Jewish and Israeli peace activists.

MICHELLE AND JOANN 

No comments: