Asheville’s new community center to celebrate grand opening
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Southern Girls Convention comes to WNC
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CULTURE BREIFS
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Shedding light on the machinations behind the Israeli/Palestinian conflict

By Seán Marquis

Israel/Palestine: How to end the war of 1948
Tanya Reinhart
Seven Stories Press 2002

The state of Israel was founded in 1948 following a war which the Israelis called the War of Independence, and the Palestinians called Nakba-the catastrophe. A haunted, persecuted people sought to find a shelter and a state for itself, and did so at a horrible price to another people.

Thus writes Tanya Reinhart in the introduction to her new book, Israel/Palestine: How to end the war of 1948. Reinhart, a linguistics professor at Tel Aviv University, uses the language of officialdom – both from public statements and government documents – to highlight the difference between intent and rhetoric in order to peel back the façade and reveal Israeli policy with regards to the Palestinian people.

After a few brief pages of the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Reinhart concentrates most of her efforts on the recent past – the decade following the 1993 Oslo Accords and the events leading up to the current Palestinian uprising (intifada) against the Israeli occupation.

Reinhart goes on to show that every “peace” deal has been a massive deception of the Palestinian people – usually with the complicity of corrupt and/or weak Palestinian leadership. Beyond that, all negotiations are part of an Israeli tactic of: “endless negotiations during which the other side replaces the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) in the police work of the occupation” – all with the result of maintaining the status quo.

The book is an easy and excellent read for those familiar with the conflict and highly revealing for those looking to understand how it is that the two sides can never seem to come to a decisive agreement and are always entering into and breaking off negotiations. The revelations are in the fine details which Reinhart points out and the US corporate media always conveniently seem to overlook.

Particular to this is how Reinhart shows the lack of attention given to the ethnic cleansing in the conflict. She shows that in the current intifada the injury rate of Palestinians by the IDF is quite high, but the mortality rate is relatively low. She argues that rather than mass killings this is a slow form of genocide: “In a place so closely observed by the world as Israel/Palestine, ethnic cleansing cannot be a sudden act of massive slaughter and land evacuation. Rather, it is a repetitive process by which people are slowly forced to perish or flee.”

Some of the most compelling revelations come from Reinhart’s discussion of the current intifada itself. She shows quite well how the new Palestinian uprising was instigated and manufactured by Israel’s current Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other members of the Israeli leadership.

This was done through a tactic proposed by Ehud Barak years earlier in regard to Syria, where he suggested, “in indirect ways to influence the forming of a chain [of events] leading to an anti-terrorist strike.”

According to Reinhart, the groundwork for this “chain” was laid in 1999 when Barak (then Prime Minister) suddenly laid claim to the Temple Mount during the Camp David negotiations. Reinhart states that the Temple Mount, a Jerusalem holy site, was up until that time supposed to remain under Palestinian sovereignty and that Israels’ claim to it was “completely new.” “All of a sudden Temple Mount was the ‘holiest site of all Judaism’.”

Her assessment of the subject is that: “Barak chose to make the issue a center of conflict. There was no way he could have been unaware that a new Israeli demand over the holiest Muslim site in the occupied territories was going to ignite further frustration and unrest.”

The matter came to a head when Sharon visited the site under fully armed military escort and civilians and even several Arab politicians tried to block his way with their bodies. Israeli police cracked down hard on them, sparking off waves of protests and riots resulting in more brutal crackdowns – escalating from there to the full-blown cycle of repression and resistance we see today.

Another note of concern that Reinhart adds into Israel/Palestine is with regards to Syria and the looming US war on Iraq: “By the summer of 2002 [Israeli] plans to attack Syria under the cover of a US offensive against Iraq were openly discussed in the Israeli media. Here is a typical example: ‘A senior General Headquarters officer, observing Damascus, said this week that Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran are trying to trap Israel in a “strategic ambush” and that Israel has to evade that ambush by setting one of its own, under the circumstances convenient to it. Those circumstances could be created during or near the end of an American offensive against Iraq.’”

Israel/Palestine does offer solutions as the title suggests, but it seems they would take the full weight of the UN to carry out – something the UN has thus far failed to use against Israel, the US vassal.

But if the UN can stare down the US and its war of aggression against Iraq, it may be possible yet for the UN to muster what it needs to clamp down on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and set a new course.

Book cover image courtesy Seven Stories Press

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Southern Girls Convention comes to WNC

By Tamiko Murray

Mar. 12 (AGR)— Every year I’ve seen the flyers and handbills for the Southern Girls Convention floating around town. Not being a native of the South myself, the idea of a convention of women who identify themselves as “southern girls” never spoke to me as an individual, nor was I inspired to investigate their cause. My thinking was mistaken, however. Liberation from the racism, sexism, and classism so deeply imbedded in southern culture is a cause personal to us all. “Fighting the southern belle archetype,” which is the underlying theme of this convention, according to one SGC organizer, Emily Kasinecz, embodies the movement to deconstruct gender and racial stereotypes and the struggle against the oppressive, patriarchal society that strives to limit us.

The Southern Girls Convention is a community struggle for self-sufficiency, positive change and social revolution. It evolved out of the Women’s Action Coalition in Memphis, Tennessee, which took place on the University of Memphis campus in 1999. Workshops were given on issues like reproductive rights, sexuality, racism, fatphobia, classism, and queer issues among other feminist topics. The convention has previously been held in Memphis, Tennessee; Louisville, Kentucky; Auburn, Alabama; and Athens, Georgia.

The Southern Girls Convention, a nonprofit, grassroots organization in its fifth year, is dedicated to the empowerment of women, girls, transgender and gender-queer people, as well as men committed to the feminist cause. The conference is hosted by a different southern community each year and will take place this year in Swannanoa, NC at Warren Wilson College over the course of the weekend. With an all-volunteer staff, speakers and participants from various communities, both southern and nationwide, the emphasis of the forum will be “to gather together and share information” through a series of skill-building workshops, discussion groups, and speakers. The workshops are inclusive with topics that will attract anyone interested in learning a new skill, exchanging ideas in a community setting, and bettering our communities through personal action.

Inga Muscio, the controversial author of Cunt, will be speaking on Sunday, to follow a forum with several speakers on sexual assault. Various Do-It-Yourself workshops will be available all weekend and women’s health care issues explored, covering topics such as menstruation, masturbation, sex, fertility awareness and mental health. Pro-active presentations such as organizing a community abortion fund in your hometown, women and girls running for elective office, women of color in the activist movement, and radical cheerleading are all being offered.

“Kick-ass Kick-boxing,” yoga and “Women’s Movement in Dance” are being taught as well as skill-building workshops on bike and auto maintenance. Radical, cooperative family parenting, recycled rubber crafts, and women’s spirituality are all a part an incredible schedule with workshops too numerous to list.

The weekend will close with an afternoon of rollerskating at the Tarwheels Skate Park with a shuttle bus available from Warren Wilson.

The Southern Girls Convention will be held Friday, Mar.14 through Sunday, Mar. 16. There is a suggested donation of $15, but the fee is sliding scale, and no one will be turned away. Free food will be provided by Food Not Bombs and Kitchn’ Witches on a first come, first served basis. To find out about registration, available childcare, workshops not listed and the shuttle bus schedule from Asheville, contact Emily Kasinecz at 299-0718 or visit the Southern Girls Convention website at www.southerngirlsconvention.org.

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Asheville’s new community center to celebrate grand opening

By Shawn Gaynor

Mar. 12 (AGR)— The Asheville Community Resource Center (ACRC) has arrived, and on Mar. 21 will be open for a day (and night) full of learning, food, and fun. Starting at noon, and lasting late into the night, people will be able to stop in to chat about the various projects that are housed in the center, eat some food, attend workshops, and spend the night celebrating something new and special on the Spring Equinox.

The Reading Room, at the center’s heart, will be holding a tea reception from 3-5 pm to celebrate the opening and introduce people to the reading room. The reading room, which features a treasure of hard-to-find zines, books, and periodicals, plans to operate daily.

“It’s not just a place for information to be exchanged, but a place where people can come together and build stronger ties of community,” said Stephanie Finneran, who volunteers at the reading room.

In fact, the entire community center is a volunteer effort, brought about by a group of young people in Asheville who saw a need in the community to create a democratically run center where everyone who wants to pitch in is welcome.

Roughly 50 volunteers make up the center’s governing body, or “collective” as they refer to it, and that number is growing all the time. Membership is based on a willingness to contribute time and energy to make the center run. Members meet every two weeks to discuss visions for the center, schedule events, and assign responsibilities.

The center will provide a venue for speakers, films, art, meetings, and classes.

The front room of the center, known as the Magpie, is already quickly becoming a hot venue for counterculture art, music, poetry, and education.

In addition to operating as a community center, the ACRC provides meeting and office space for non-profit groups with a social change mission.

The Womens/Transgendered Health Project, a newly formed group, is also housed at the ACRC. The group provides information on reproductive health and features a large reference section on women’s issues.

“We want people to feel empowered about their bodies and to make informed choices about their health, so they are not completely relying on a health system that often leaves certain populations out,” said Moque Krape, who is involved with the project.

Also housed at the ACRC is the Prison Books Project, and a bicycle recycling center called the Re-cyclery where people can learn about maintaining their bikes, find spare parts, or even build a bike from scratch.

The Asheville Free School operates out of the center, offering the people of Asheville a forum to exchange knowledge and skills.

The opening day will feature activities including a screenprinting workshop, a presentation on herbal health, a women’s self-examination workshop, and children’s art and story time throughout the day.

At 7pm a “fabulous, beautiful, decadent” spaghetti feast will take place. Dinner will be provided by donation, and all funds will go towards the center (no one turned away for lack of funds).

At 9pm the fun really gets going with three bands that will bring down the house. Local punk band Dead Things will be joined by Carrie Nation and 3 Penny Uproar. “Casper” will DJ the rest of the evening with dancing into the night.

The ACRC is located at 67 Lexington Ave., and will be open daily after March 21st

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