And here's the second water piece: Red-Dead Conduit

Another countdown begins

So today is a big day. I went to the Hill today to lobby for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Senator Merkley will be reintroducing it into the Senate legislation, hopefully before August recess, and both Senators Dodd and Lieberman have already agreed to cosponsor when it comes. Representative DeLauro was one of the original cosponsors of the bill in the House legistlation. So mostly it was a "Thank you" visit. But it was still pretty cool. I went with a fellow Machon Kaplan-ite who goes to Yale. I think we were a good pair.
This afternoon is my last at Americans for Peace Now, but I think my work here will continue. I'll have a "People for Peace" profile on the new APN website, and I'll continue to update Twitter and probably my blog with all the latest in the Middle East News, with some sprinkles of other Peace News (like the story about the KLA officer that the Serbs wanted to arrest... no update on that so far, but we'll see). Anyway, everything is wrapping up nicely. Katharine is here this week, and that's been nice as well. We went to the Natural History and American Indian Smithsonian Museums, and checked out an American Crafts exibit, which I thought was actually a museum until we went in and realized basically it was just a gallery full of whatever didn't fit in the American Art Museum.
Overall, my time in DC has been well spent. Once I'm at home and have a chance for some reflection, I'll be able to write more on a personal level of how I enjoyed Machon Kaplan and Americans for Peace Now.

In the meantime, here's APN's response to the "Breaking the Silence" testimonies I posted on last time. Looking Seriously at Breaking the Silence
And here's my first of two pieces on water resource struggle. Water Crisis reemerges in the Public Eye

I know I still haven't posted a real update, but I've been busy.
In the meantime, here's something. I'm quite unimpressed by the "counter-testimonies" that exploded all over the internet today. These are soldiers' responses to other soldiers' stories about what really happened in Gaza this past winter. A lot of soldiers have been coming forward with stories of the unethical actions of the IDF during the war. In response, I've read in a few places today that other soldiers are coming forward with "counter-testimonies;" that the IDF didn't do anything wrong. However, none of the counter-testimonies I've read actually counter anything. They mostly state how Hamas used human shields. Well we knew that, but that doesn't negate your fellow soldiers' claims that the IDF did as well. Telling the world that Hamas is a terrorist organization does nothing for your cause. No one is saying that Hamas isn't bad. These counter-testimonies seem to just be deflecting the focus of the situation. Now, I'm not saying either set of testimonies is right or wrong. I wasn't in Gaza, so I know what happened about as well as any of you. I'm just saying, this whole "counter-testimony" movement does not seem to be doing its job very well.

Americans for Peace Now wants to hear from you!

I'll have a more personal update on my life in DC later tonight, but first, please follow this link: http://peacenowconversation.org/.
Americans for Peace Now wants to hear your questions, concerns, and comments on Obama's relationship with the American Jewish people, and the US demand that Israel freeze its settlements!

My blog entry for the RAC

RAC Intern Blog

Some of the edits really take out my stylistic voice. When will people learn that I like my sentence fragments and one word statements?! Anyway, the content is the same, so I thought you might enjoy it.

Responses on the APN blog

Yesterday, I posted a link to the video of the attack settlers. Today, a response to that entry on the APN blog was posted. I'm not going to say exactly what it said, and it has now been deleted, but it was an extremely upsetting. It wasn't your usual lefty-bashing or settler-bashing, but instead bring the Shoah into the discourse in a way that made me feel - perhaps disporpotionately - uncomfortable. I don't think the world will see genocide against Jews again; I think the very word Holocaust still holds heavy fear. But if it were to happen again, the site of violence would probably be Israel, and seeing that comment in response to the settlers' behavior made me feel ominously sick to my stomach.

In case anyone needed yet another reason to boycott Walmart

"3-year-old Adolf Hitler finally gets his name on his birthday cake"

ShopRite refused to write "Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler," but Walmart didn't.