This week marks 50 years of the military occupation of Palestine. During the the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the Syrian Golan. Over the past 50 years, Israel's occupation has entrenched a deeply abusive system of inequality and injustice that denies Palestinians their basic rights. Here's what we're reading to learn more:

I spoke with Ingrid Latorre soon after she was granted a temporary stay of deportation after being taken in Sanctuary by the Mountain View Friends Meeting in Denver. Jenn Piper, AFSC’s Interfaith Immigrant Organizer joined us to translate and added her perspective as well. - Lucy

A new AFSC project helps allies develop skills to stand with Muslims against hate and fear. 

The dozens of people who showed up for our Communities Against Islamophobia workshop in Philadelphia last spring did not know quite what to expect. My colleagues—Dina El-Rifai and Gabriel Camacho—and I were facilitating the session, and among the participants were teachers and professors, social workers, local activists, and Quakers.

I moved to Jerusalem in 2003 and lived for the first two years in Beit Hanina, a neighborhood located in the North of the city on the way to Ramallah.  The house I lived in was literally next to the Ar-Rum checkpoint which made the surroundings quite “lively”, to say the least, and a bit “messy” to be generous.  My landlord, an old, gentle, blue-eyed Palestinian man took good care of me and helped me in navigating the intricacies of being a young, single, foreign white woman in Palestinian land.  The checkpoint was removed a couple of years later and I no longer live in that

This week marks 55 years since the Six-Day War in 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the Syrian Golan.

The Rev. Karyn Carlo, PhD, is a retired New York City Police Captain turned preacher, teacher, and theologian. She earned her Master of Divinity and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Union Theological Seminary. An ordained American Baptist pastor, she currently serves as a volunteer global servant for theological education with the American Baptist Churches International Ministries and as a social justice activist in the areas of immigration and police reform.

Last week, the Trump administration released the full version of their proposed 2018 federal budget. The budget includes large increases for immigration enforcement and for the military, and sweeping cuts to education, health care, food assistance, and other valuable social programs. Here's what we're reading to learn more.

On March 29, 2002, fifteen years ago, the Israeli military launched Operation Defensive Shield.  I was living in Ramallah at the time, working with the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq.  Defensive Shield followed a number of smaller military invasions of Ramallah and we all knew a day in advance that the invasion was coming. You could see the Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers massing around the city as the military prepared for their invasion.