Interested in Middle East Issues? Join Our Meeting!

By Middle East Committee Leadership Group         

Calling all members and each branch to send a rep to join our Middle East Issues Committee calls. Join us in an exciting conversation about what our Middle East Committee’s work and areas of focus might look like going forward! The 2018 Call Series is on the third Thursday of each month at 5 pm pacific / 6 pm mountain / 7 pm central / 8 pm eastern!

Are you interested in the Middle East? Involved? Concerned? Don’t know much but would like to know more? Think you should know more? Convinced that “Middle East” issues are so complicated you’d never understand it so want to run the other way? Drawn to topics around the Middle East but hesitant to explore more? Have information you’d like to share but didn’t think there was a place in WILPF-US to do so? There is and we’re here!

Please Join the Middle East Committee’s May meeting on Thursday, May 17 in conversation about these and other topics around the Middle East. The Middle East Issues Committee’s 2018 meeting series is monthly on the third Thursdays, at 5 pm pacific / 6 pm mountain / 7 pm central / 8 pm eastern!

Open Invitation to Expand Our Activism

• We will be discussing the scope of our interests and capacity around our activism—and we hope members with interests in the Middle East that go beyond Israel-Palestine will join in our conversations about how our committee might be able to welcome anyone with interests in greater Middle East area issues who also have capacity to engage in activism.
• What is your interest in the Middle East? Could you engage with others of us on the committee, or in your community or branch (or both), or throughout the section, to help educate ourselves and others? Do you have projects you want to accomplish? Information you want to learn? Areas you’d like to explore but could use some encouragement, guidance, or advice? Please join in on this call to start some conversations!
• We’d like to engage in dialogue with ALL Section members with Middle East interests. We are issuing this open invitation to start conversations about expanding our activism within the committee. We need new members to be able to do that! Those who are involved right now are at capacity in our own activism activities, but not in our ability to welcome new members with other and kindred interests and capacity to engage in new work!
• We welcome all members who would like to work on any aspects of Middle East advocacy, and specifically on our own US Policy that affects the greater Middle East. Though Israel and Palestine have been at the heart of the issue for a long time, the wars have evolved and enlarged and are now consuming the entire region.
• Our committee has made recent statements on Syria and on Yemen, and on other areas of grave concern in the Middle East. These are issues that are within the parameters of our 1985 Principles & Policies. Other national and international policy frameworks that are relevant to the Middle East can be explored by members with interest and capacity. With new members, we should be able to work on multiple issues within the Middle East "umbrella” and still be consistent over our program structure.
• JOIN OUR CALL: Thursday, May 17, 2018. Start Time: 5 pm pacific / 7 central / 8 eastern. Dial-in Number: 1-712-832-8300 (Midwest). Participant Access Code: 908909.

For more information, contact:
Committee chairs: Odile Hugonot Haber at odilehh@gmail.com; Barbara Taft at beejayssite@yahoo.com.