by US Rep. Jim McDermott
Published on Monday, February 26, 2007 by the Seattle Times (Washington)

In a world torn by conflict, I can’t think of a better time, or a greater need, for America to act as a force for good at home and around the world.
A bill recently was reintroduced in Congress that will go a long way toward bringing peace both at home and abroad. The measure would create a Cabinet-level Department of Peace. Continue Reading »

While the nation’s attention has lately been drawn to the injustice and illegality of detention in military prisons like Guantanamo Bay, much less has been said about attempts by prisoners in such institutions to take their threatened rights into their own hands. Mohammad Mahjoub, Mahmoud Jaballah, and Hassan Almrei, prisoners in the Immigration Holding Centre of Millhaven Penitentiary in Bath, Ontario, the so-called “Guantanamo of the North”, are doing just that.

These men have not been informed of the evidence against them, nor have their lawyers. They have been denied medical care and access to an independent ombudsman to hear their complaints. Though not officially charged, they have been deprived of the basic human rights enjoyed by convicted criminals in the federal justice system. To protest their inhumane treatment, Mahjoub, Jaballah, and Almrei went on hunger strike, and for Jaballah it has been 71 days since he last ate.

In their fast they are drawing on a long tradition of nonviolent protest, used successfully in the past as a last resort of prisoners, deprived of any other public voice. The fast can be a tremendously powerful tool for rehumanization and reconciliation, but it must also be used carefully. Continue Reading »

One of the many ways that nonviolence works on a deep level is to heal the relationship between oppressor and oppressed. In the Richard Attenborough film, Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked that he did not just want the British to leave, he wanted them to leave “as friends.” Which is precisely what happened, and the friendship lasts today.

A demonstration of this continued respect from Gandhi’s former adversarial regime came last week when the self-proclaimed future prime minister of the U.K. Gordon Brown visited India, laid a wreath at a Gandhi memorial in Delhi, and praised Gandhi as an inspiring “hero.”

Continue Reading »

As UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stepped down, he left the Security Council and a world of listeners with an important valedictory message. The following are his heartfelt and poignant remarks to Israelis, Palestinians, and those who wish to see both living in just and stable peace. -Alix Johnson

Posted by the Foundation for Middle East Peace

One of the most frustrating aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the apparent inability of many people on both sides to understand the position of the other, and the unwillingness of some to even try. As a true friend and supporter of both sides, I would like to address frank messages to each.

It is completely right and understandable that Israel and its supporters should seek to ensure its security by persuading Palestinians, and Arabs and Muslims more broadly, to alter their attitude and behavior toward Israel. But they are not likely to succeed unless they themselves grasp and acknowledge the fundamental Palestinian grievance–namely, that the establishment of the State of Israel involved the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families, turning them into refugees, and was followed nineteen years later by a military occupation that brought hundreds of thousands more Palestinians under Israeli rule. Continue Reading »

by Bill Simpich (truthout.org)

A first-hand report from the trial in Fort Lewis, Tacoma, Washington, another in the continuing series of historic trials of American military resisters to the Iraq War. For more on the Watada trial and other resisters, go to couragetoresist.org.

First Lt. Ehren Watada knew exactly what his case was about – and that scared the judge. Continue Reading »