Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice 202 Harvard SE Albuquerque, NM 87106 505-268-9557   Updated: 27 June 2007 Newsletter July 2007
July 2007 Newsletter Contents Nuclear Alert & Update and A Wall to Wail By Membership Application	Nuclear Alert & Update On the proposal to build a Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Facility in SE NM Do we want highly radioactive nuclear waste being transported across NM from nuclear power plants around the world in order to reprocess the spent nuclear fuel -- yielding weapons-grade plutonium and contributing to continued nuclear power production? The Department of Energy (DOE) and its industry partner, Energy Solutions, are pursuing the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) and want to build this reprocessing facility in the Roswell or Hobbs/Çarlsbad area in Lea County. All of NM would be affected because the waste would be transported on our roadways. Previous attempts at reprocessing have been economic and environmental disasters. Our tax money will be used to subsidize this monstrosity! We can still stop this if enough people care about it and call Senator Bingaman to let him know that you oppose this dangerous, expensive and unnecessary project. Congress did not fund GNEP, but the DOE has been funding the current scoping process out of their existing budget. As chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Bingaman will hold hearings on GNEP soon. Please call Senator Bingaman today at 505-346-6601 or 202-224-5521 (calls are better than emails). For more info, visit www.ieer.org , nuclearactive.org or call the Peace Center at 505-268-9557 or SRIC at 505-262-1862. Thank you!
A Wall to Wail By Iris Keltz lived with a family in east Jerusalem when the war started in 1967. She recently returned for the third time, and describes some of what she experienced. Tonight, forty years later, the Israelis are ecstatic -- dancing and singing in front of the Wailing Wall and on rooftops around Jerusalem. Arabs still live inside the old city, but tonight they stay at home, wanting to remain invisible to the soldiers and the thousands of ecstatic celebrants. Arabs are not part of this celebration. The friends I have made over the years live in legal limbo hoping that the passage of time will resolve their status as their situation gets ever more precarious. Jerusalem, the heart of all, is severed from Hebron, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus and smaller towns and villages. Everything is separated and divided. After 40 years of reunification there is little mingling. Jerusalemites hold a precious identity card, offering them some security but not citizenship. There is no government to advocate for them and protect their human and civil rights. Obtaining permits to build or repair homes is a Kafkaesque nightmare. But while the Israelis are ecstatically dancing in front of the Wailing Wall, there is a wall to wail by. It snakes hideously through out the West Bank, 467 miles long, and still growing, like an insatiable monster who feeds on land and humans living on it. There are no tufts of papers stuck into crevasses between huge Herodian stones. This wall is smooth and lithe and as seamless as poured concrete can be. But this wall contains the prayers, dreams, curses and thoughts - of the Palestinian people and the international community who choose to bear witness. The wall separates Israelis from Palestinians, Palestinians from one another, Palestinian farmers and villagers from orchards, vineyards, olive groves and cemeteries. I am drawn to the wall with the same fervency as those who pray at the Western Wall. I want to take photos of every inch and send them around the world. Will this break the world's silence? The words of the prophets are written on subway walls, tenement halls--and the separation wall. Yesterday, I was standing in Aida refugee camp, near Bethlehem on the spot where a nine year old boy was shot while playing with his friends. His organs were donated to an Israeli child, for which the Jewish family are eternally grateful. The dead Palestinian child is now a smiling face plastered to a wall near the spot where he died. Nearby children fly kites from tiny balconies because they are afraid to play in the street. I know what I am praying for in the shadow of this daunting wall. There is only one thought - the occupation must end, the hideous separation wall must crumble before the raising of human rights and international law. In the end we are a single humanity. The Palestinian message is this: "We are human. We deserve to live with abundance. We have the same dreams, hopes and rights as everyone else.Tell the world." My message: I came. I saw. I didn't conquer because I was invited -- anywhere I chose to go, like there was no border and that was perfectly normal. Please send calendar items, comments, and questions concerning this Web document to Web@abqPeaceAndJustice.org .