Mark your calendars: Palestinian Ambassador Afif Safieh is coming to Boston 9/27.

Come hear Ambassador AFIF SAFIEH , the Ambassador of the PLO to the USA , who is visiting Boston !

When: Wednesday, September 27 , 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM
Where: Cathedral Church of St. Paul-Episcopal , 138 Tremont Street (across from Park Street Station and the Boston Common in downtown Boston )
Theme: "Palestine/Israel: Peace Process from Breakthrough to Breakdown - What Next?

"Afif Safieh is considered the most articulate Palestinian diplomat in Europe and the world. The most experienced speakers the foreign ministry can muster have been sent to face off against him in international conferences and on BBC talk shows, and have run into difficulty opposite the Jerusalem-born Palestinian with the rich vocabulary and smooth delivery." - Akiva Eldar in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, July 22, 2002

Sponsored by : American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee - Massachusetts , American Diaspora Alliance for Israeli Palestinian Peace, American Friends Service Committee - New England Regional Office, Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights, Boston to Palestine [local International Solidarity Movement chapter], Friends of Sabeel - New England, Jewish Voice for Peace - Boston .
For more information, contact: hilary_rantisi@ksg.harvard.edu [yes, that's a Kennedy School address]

Ambassador AFIF SAFIEH will also be the honored guest and speaker at a Ramadan Iftar (dinner to break the fast on-going during the holy month of Ramadan)

When: Thursday, September 28 , 6:30 PM
Where: The Irish American Club [!], 177 West St. , Malden , MA
Tickets: Adults $20, Children $10

Sponsored by : Palestinian American Congress - Massachusetts and American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee - Massachusetts

For more information and to purchase tickets, contact...

...he noted that since Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met in February, there are 3,000 more Palestinians in Israeli jails. Safieh, 55, pointed out that Israel refuses to release those “with blood on their hands.” “If we applied the same criteria to Israel,” he continued, “I would hardly find any Israelis to talk to.”

When Stone later challenged him on that, Safieh —who assumed his post on Nov. 1 — said he saw no difference between Palestinian suicide bombers and Israelis, all of whom must serve in the military. “I found that truly horrifying,” Stone told The Jewish Week. “If this is the way he feels — that a soldier in the line of duty is the same as a guy who blows up in a nightclub — he is not the one we want to sit down to have lunch with...