[WCUSP] Action Alert: Ask Oprah to visit the other side while she's in Israel

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

>  ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Subject: Action Alert: Re  Oprah to Israel 
 
"Oprah,  visit the other side of the wall!"

> Greta Berlin, a member of  Women in Black in Los Angeles, has initiated a 
campaign to urge Oprah Winfrey to  visit the West Bank and Gaza when
> she visits Israel and to see  the Palestinian side of the issue.
> ..
> Subject: Bon Voyage,  Oprah!
>
> Here's her address:
> _http://www2.oprah.com/email/reach/email_reach_fromu.jhtml_ 
(http://www2.oprah.com/email/reach/email_reach_fromu.jhtml) 
>
> Oprah Winfrey is an  international figure, and it's important that her 
producer is flooded with  invitations.
>
> She's is going to Israel,  invited by Elie Wiesel. She says she's going in 
solidarity with the terrorized  Israelis.
>
> Many of us have already  written to her producer encouraging Oprah to 
go...visit the occupied West  Bank...talk to the
>  Palestinians...see the wall for herself. If you're living in Israel, 
invite her.  Ask her to please come and visit, and that you'll be happy to take her
> to the weekly nonviolent  demonstrations in Bil'in, for example.
>
> We need as many emails from  around the world as possible, inviting her to 
come see the occupied territories  for herself. Please send her a short note
> and encourage her to go to  the West Bank.
>
> Then, post to your lists and  ask them to do the same thing.
>
> Greta Berlin
> Women in Black Los  Angeles





Dear Oprah,

I have long been a fan and  religiously use your shows in my urban high 
school classroom.
Today I heard that you would be  heading to Israel to be in solidarity with 
the "traumatized" Israelis at the  invitation of Elie Wiesel.  I too sobbed to 
the story of Dr. Wiesel's  life - his story and so many like his are horrific.

But, PLEASE, before buying the  media spin of today's Israel also read 
Moghrabi's  Olives (I sent a copy to your producers  as a suggestion for your book 
club) and understand the other side of the  Israeli/Palestinian story. Hamzi 
Moghrabi is an honorable, dear, sweet man who  has become to me what I perceive 
Elie Wiesel has become to  you. 
 
I went to Israel last fall for a  program organized by a Jewish American 
woman - The Compassionate Listening  Project. What I saw there curdled my blood - 
I stayed in a West Bank refugee  camp; I saw the ethnic cleansing in Hebron; I 
listened to activists - Israeli  Jews and Palestinians - who tell the truth 
of a story that I saw with my own  eyes.  Read The  Lemon Tree - I had Shabbat 
with the Jewish  protaganist and cried when she wrote in an inscription to her 
Palestinian  counterpart "Please forgive us."  Please make your trip 
balanced.   Please work to see what so many Americans don't or won't see.  Please be  
the one who gives perspective and truth. I have no Arab heritage - I'm a  
southern white Christian girl whose family can't figure out why this has  become 
so important to me.  You'll be entering a holy spot that somehow  grabs your 
soul - it is nothing like what I would ever have thought I would  want to visit 
- now I'm working very hard to be able to take American  teens there to see 
what I saw so that somehow we can begin to reveal the  truth there and find 
healing - that region is important to the world.  We  need peace and truth there.  
Please allow your credible voice to be the  one who speaks it.
 
And, look at the children - it  will break your heart.  They deserve our 
balanced voice - they need  it.  See the wall ("security fence") and see how it is 
The Berlin Wall  that is destroying families and businesses and villages.  Be 
open to the  parallels in the stories that have horrified us out of the 
Holocaust.  Be  careful, for me it has been a long road to recover - I lost so much 
trust on  that trip and am still trying to understand how and why history 
keeps  repeating itself when we all know so much better.

I am begging you to please heed  these pleas - and I know so many others are 
sending them too - because as  silly as it sounds even as I write it to 
someone I don't know, I just  can't stand the idea of losing one more figure of 
trust (and that's what  you are to so many) because they didn't do the right thing 
to know the  other side.  The other side isn't hard to find or see - it will 
hit you  like a brick wall and there are many who will be willing to show you. 
  Start with The Hope Flowers School near Bethlehem, for that matter go to  
Bethlehem - be stunned and then visit The Bethlehem Peace Center.
 
Your leadership and  example are so needed here - I pray that we can trust 
your sense of  justice to prevail.


Peace, Shalom and  Salaam,
Celeste  Archer










=



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