In September 2015, I joined colleagues from around the country on a delegation to the occupied Palestinian territories to meet with farmers, business people, politicians, and activists, in order to learn about how Israeli occupation impacts daily life for Palestinians living in the occupied territories.  Our delegation visited the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem.  This is second in a series of articles on my reflections of my visit to Palestine.- Pedro

later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere 

-Warsan Shire

Symptoms

Reflections from the AFSC Director of our Office of Public Policy and Advocacy on the recent ISIS attacks on Paris. - Lucy

Important perspectives on the violence in Paris last week have been articulated by many in recent days, highlighting human impacts across the globe out of the headlines, the 1.3 million people killed by the U.S.-led “war on terror” to date, the irony and cruelty of blaming Syrian refugees or Muslims globally for these acts, and the reality that white Americans are the greatest “terror” threat in the U.S. by far.

Tabitha Mustafa joined AFSC’s Peace by Piece (PxP) program in New Orleans in June 2015. Tabitha graduated from Tulane University in May 2014 with a degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies. Tabitha has brought a wide range of organizing skills and talents to her position at PxP. I met Tabitha when she visited AFSC’s central office for a staff delegation on militarism and interviewed her the next week. The following is edited excerpts of our conversation. - Genevieve Beck-Roe

I asked several staff members to write reflections on what it's like to live in Jerusalem right now. Ilona offered this reflection to add to those of her co-workers Sahar Vardi, Saida Khader, and Mati Gomis-Perez. - Lucy

Ilona Kassissieh is AFSC’s advocacy and communications coordinator working in the Jerusalem office. She was raised in the town of Bethlehem and left the country to pursue her graduate studies from the University of Grenoble III in France. She has extensive experience working with the civil society sector in Palestine, an experience she gained through her work with the Palestinian NGO Project, funded by the World Bank, to empower civil society.