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December 13, 2024
Join us for the Fourth Annual Philadelphia Palestine Day in partnership with the City Representatives Office, Mayor's Muslim Commission, elected officials, and community members, celebrate the rich social, economic, and cultural contributions of the Palestinian and Arab communities, which haue shaped Philadelphia since the mid-1800s. Enjoy light refreshments, inspiring speakers, and a brief cultural presentation. Show up for Palestine at the 4th Annual Palestine Philadelphia Day December 17th from 11-12 pm at City Hall, Conversation Hall.
By Mohammad Abulaban October 12, 2024
Where Olive Trees Weep The Interfaith Pillar of CAIR Philadelphia Invites you to attend a screening of the powerful film "Where Olive Trees Weep" followed by a Q&A with Executive Producer Ashira Darwish. Tickets are free, but please click on "Get Tickets" to ensure your seat! In lieu of a ticket fee we are asking (if so moved) for donations to the Non-Profit HEAL Palestine, HEAL Palestine is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to the humanitarian needs of children in Palestine. Our four main pillars of Health, Education, Aid, and Leadership will help both now and into the future to support children. donations can be made directly here: https://healpalestine.app.neoncrm.com/forms/144 Special Thank you to our event sponsors: Interfaith Peacewalk for Peace and Reconciliation and Prayers for Peace Alliance Disclaimer: Montgomery County Community College is not affiliated with the event, and the College should not be contacted regarding the program.
September 19, 2024
We invite you to join Prayers for Peace Alliance, Nonviolence International and our partners for Every Life, A Universe, a three-day vigil and call to action on October 6th , 7th, and 8th . Together, we will remember and renounce the violence that has impacted both Palestinian and Jewish communities. Event Details October 6: Solidarity Walk On this day, we remember that history did not begin in 2023. For 75 years, Palestinians have lived under systems of martial law, occupation, apartheid, and siege. Join us at Cottman Avenue and Castor Avenue at 4:00 PM to hear stories from Palestinian community members and walk in solidarity with them. October 7: Memorial Vigil We mark the anniversary of a traumatic day for the Jewish people, within the broader context of all that has come before and since. We invite you to join us at Fairmount Water Works at 6:00 PM as we grieve the atrocities together, committing ourselves to safety through solidarity. October 8: Peace Action On October 8th, we renounce Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza and escalating aggression towards Palestinians. Faith leaders will gather at City Hall at 6:00 PM to demand “Not Another Bomb” be sent from the United States to the Israeli military. We call for an end to the violent systems of ethnic cleansing, occupation, and apartheid that continue to fuel suffering. Whether in person or from afar, your participation matters. Together, we can stand against violence and create momentum for a future of peace, justice, and equality for all.
Family from Gaza in Philadelphia by HEAL Palestine
August 21, 2024
Family from Gaza in Philadelphia by HEAL Palestine
August 20, 2024
No matter what you ask Because we are the people of the land. Because we are the keepers of her stories passed down to us from the olive trees Because her rivers run through our bodies and our grandmothers embroidered her landscape on our skin since ten thousand years Because we saddled her first horses we sang her first ballads and we harvested her wheat with love no matter who held guns over us Because our poetry watered her gardens since before she was Canaan Because we danced when she married the Mediterranean Sea and we made her wedding cake a tray of kanafe from Nablus Because we were always there. We are the Jews and the Christians and the Muslims we lived converted between religions settled from pilgrims left and returned mixed with our conquerors died by their swords and nourished her soil with our bodies. But we never left. But we never left. But we never left. When Henry VIII sent Anne Boleyn to the tower we were in Palestine. When Marie Antoinette was marched to the guillotine we were in Palestine. When Galileo gazed at the heavens we were in Palestine. When Columbus got lost, pillaged, and raped where he landed we were in Palestine. When Queen Nzinga ruled the kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba When Genghis Khan broke through China’s great wall When the suffragettes marched When all of your history it was us who were there. Not in Europe or Russia or Poland or Brooklyn or Yemen or Iran or Iraq but in Palestine continuously for millennia. Because we created her dances we terraced all her hills and nestled our homes in her grooves, Because we slept, ate, gave birth married, loved, aged, and died in her arms since time was fitted for a calendar. Because now she’s under a foreigner’s boot her curves decapitated by urban planners her trees cut and burned by their hate her body scarred and siphoned dry her pomegranate owned and caged her zatar buried in concrete and her wild tumultuous history violently stuffed into a plastic box branded with a new name and an epic myth. They’ve killed her birds, taken our hummus and falafel hostage in a museum they built over the graves of our ancestors. But we know and only we can tell her native stories, sing her native songs and dance for her a promise from her children determined to make their way back to the embrace of her sun-kissed hills and her orange and olive groves to revive her desiccated rivers that they might again roar with life as they did when our family was whole on her banks. We will always write our love letters to her always sing and paint and sew and cook her favorite foods and think and fight and cry and plant and harvest and celebrate for her our Palestine. We lean on each other we count on our friends and repudiate to the normalizers of our oppression. We persist. We exist. We are one nation one history one heritage one people determined and destined to go home.
August 20, 2024
More than 3,000 people marched around Philadelphia City Hall to the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Sunday calling for Vice President Kamala Harris to oppose sending arms to Israel ahead of the DNC. The demonstration comes less than a week after the U.S. approved a $20 billion arms sale to Israel. The sale includes more than 50 F-15 fighter jets, advanced missiles and explosives, however the contract will take years to fulfill and the earliest deliveries aren’t expected until at least 2026. Sam Kuttab, a Palestinian American, lost two family members in the war. He said politicians need to remember “we are citizens” and “our vote will count.” “I think the politicians are stuck in thinking that they have to stand with Israel no matter what, otherwise they won’t get support,” Kuttab said. “What they need to realize is there is support for them if they are standing on the point of justice.” Campaigns across Pennsylvania have been asking voters to not support Harris’ presidential bid until the Biden administration secures a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, or Harris publicly commits to an arms embargo on Israel if elected president. “We’re saying to our president-to-be, hopefully Harris, ‘Please, do not forget,’” Kuttab said. “This war has to stop, and more important, the occupation has to stop. We can’t have this going on anymore. Enough is enough.” Campaigns across Pennsylvania have been asking voters to not support Harris’ presidential bid until the Biden administration secures a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, or Harris publicly commits to an arms embargo on Israel if elected president. “We’re saying to our president-to-be, hopefully Harris, ‘Please, do not forget,’” Kuttab said. “This war has to stop, and more important, the occupation has to stop. We can’t have this going on anymore. Enough is enough.”
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