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. 

Mohammad Sabaaneh is a Palestinian cartoonist, whose book “White and Black: Political Cartoons from Palestine” was recently published by Just World Books. Mohammad was born in Kuwait in 1979 and has been working as a cartoonist since 2002. His work has been published in many Arabic-language newspapers.

The Palestinian hunger strike, which was launched on April 17, has now entered its second month with over 1,600 prisoners joining the strike. By way of comparison, Gandhi's longest hunger strike lasted for 21 days.

This strike was launched to protest the abusive conditions that exist in the Israeli military prison system, including the use of solitary confinement, restrictions on family visits, and the continued use of administrative detention where Palestinians are held without charge or trial.

Pedro Sosa is director of the AFSC Project Voice Immigrant Rights Program in Oregon and Washington.