Anna Baltzer's Life in Occupied Palestine: Eyewitness Stories & Photos

Amnesty International, Global Exchange, the American Friends Service Committee, and Jewish Voice for Peace present a FREE lecture/presentation by Anna Baltzer.

Anna Baltzer is a 28-year-old Jewish American Columbia graduate, Fulbright scholar, and author of Witness in Palestine: A Jewish Woman in the Occupied Territories. She is a three-time volunteer with the International Women's Peace Service, where she documented human rights abuses in the West Bank.

Anna's presentations are personal, moving and educational. During a talk in a church in Minneapolis on January 23, anna said, "This week, our country celebrated Martin Luther King Day and the official end to segregation and racial discrimination in this country. As we celebrate certain historic advances, we mustn't forget that these policies are far from over in this country, and that as we struggle against one injustice we are perpetuating another system of discrimination and segregation on the other side of the world in Occupied Palestine, a land where there are separate roads, schools, hospitals, neighborhoods, and legal systems, access to which depends on one's ethnicity or religion."

Other points she may highlight in her talk:

"Over the past five years, close to 20,000 Palestinians have been made homeless and thousands of others have lost their livelihood as the Israeli army has destroyed over 4,000 homes, vast areas of agricultural land and hundreds of other properties" [Amnesty International].

Roughly 40% of the adult Palestinian male population has spent time in Israeli detention [Nelson Mandela].

The proposed Wall will separate 34.4% of Palestinians from each other or their land, and Israel will annex approximately 15% of the West Bank, including 60-80% of the region's most fertile land and water resources [UN OCHA].