Orientalism & Settler Colonialism in Palestine

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With DR. MAZIN QUMSIYEH

TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2022 – In case you missed it – view on YouTube

US “freedom” and the creation of the Israeli homeland were both built on the ashes of atrocities known as settler colonialism. Cleveland Peace Action’s settler colonialism series begins with Mazin Qumsiyeh, historian, naturalist, and front-line activist. Professor Qumsiyeh is on the receiving end of settler colonialism in the Occupied West Bank of Palestine and is a leading spokesperson for Palestinian human rights. He will present an historical view, the current situation on the ground in the Occupied West Bank, and how people in the US can turn around the struggle for freedom and self-determination for Palestinians.

Part II of our series on Recognizing Settler Colonialism features Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, February 11, 2022, on her new book, Not A Nation of Immigrants: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion.

The Israel Lobby: A Threat to Democracy

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On Tuesday December 7, 2021, Walter Hixson, retired distinguished professor of the University of Akron spoke on “The Israel Lobby: A Threat to Democracy.”

View this program now on YouTube

Professor Hixson has written numerous books, among them two books about the Israel Lobby: Israel’s Armor (2019) and Architects of Repression (2021). He is also a columnist and contributing editor for the magazine, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.  Q & A will follow Professor Hixson’s remarks.

This event is free and open to the public. Prior registration is requested.

Contact Mark Weber – 216-870-1594 – [email protected]

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A BOLD PEACE!

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Cleveland Peace Action Movie Night
Tuesday, October 19th, 7 pm


A BOLD PEACE! tells the story of how Costa Rica abolished its army in 1948, allowing investment in health, education and the environment, enhancing the well-being of its citizens.


Cleveland Peace Action Education Fund presents a virtual film screening on Tuesday, October 19 at 7:00 pm ET. Guests are welcome to participate in a live chat beginning at 6:30 pm ET, watch the livestream film screening beginning promptly at 7:00 pm ET, and join the live post-screening discussion at 8:00 pm ET. 


To watch the film and chat: Go to the Film Screening Room and enter this video password: [email protected]

Screening Room opens with live chat: 6:30 pm ET – Film Screening: 7:00 pm ET – Post-Screening Discussion: 8:00 pm ET on Zoom. Read film synopsis and watch the trailer.


“A fascinating documentary…Tells the remarkable story of war avoided, or transcended, again and again and again…By the film’s end, this way emerges not simply as possible, not simply as a curiosity, but as the model for the future.” – Robert Koehler, Huffington Post

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The End of America’s Longest War

Statement by Mark Weber, President, Cleveland Peace Action

One month ago, the last United States soldiers left Afghanistan ending our nation’s longest war. This week, amid partisan finger-pointing, we are subjected to the spectacle of Congressional hearings over how but not why the U.S. mission to this war-torn nation ignominiously failed just like our military presence in Vietnam collapsed 46 years ago. In both cases, our country lavished hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up corrupt local elites that preyed on the people who lived amid repression and poverty. In Afghanistan, successive U.S. administrations lied about why we were in one of the poorest nations of the world. As in Vietnam in the 1960’s, in the 1980’s, we used the logic of the Cold War to justify arming the mujahideen fighters to overthrow a secular, modernist government committed to significant social reforms including education for Afghan women. In doing so, we enabled the first takeover by the Taliban in the 1990’s. Then in the period 2001 to the present, we spent almost $2.3 trillion in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban. We lavished money on local warlords, transforming them from being corrupt local leaders with armed militias at their backs to being corrupt multi-millionaires with political muscle and with armies at their backs. Money from Washington flowed freely into the poverty-stricken nation. However, very little of this money reached the people who needed it. The people who continued to suffer saw little reason to back a U.S. puppet regime that seemed indifferent to the vast majority of Afghani citizens who lived outside of a few urban centers like Kabul and Herat.  In addition, according to the Watson Institute of Brown University, the butcher’s bill for our two-decade long sojourn in Afghanistan amounted to more than 7,000 US service members, 150,000 Afghan service members, and 335,000 Afghan civilians. Almost 31,000 US service members committed suicide as a result of participating in all of the post-9/11 US-sponsored wars. 

Cleveland Peace Action says: ENOUGH! Since the end of the Second World War, we have sacrificed blood and treasure in countless wars waged in the name of anti-communism, oil, and now “anti-terrorism.” Our policymakers, from elite universities and foundations, have studied the lessons of the history of this period. However, they have refused to heed any of these lessons. The pull of ideology, and the interests of arms manufacturers and military contractors like Blackwater have shaped our policy. The sons and daughters of working-class Americans and the civilians in the war zones we have created have been slaughtered so that U.S. corporations can reap huge profits. Of the $2.3 trillion the Department of Defense spent on the Afghan adventure, the Watson Institute estimates that between 35% to 50% went to private defense contractors. Let us conclude by urging all Americans to organize against future Afghanistan’s, whether in North Korea or Iran or Venezuela. Such adventures have been and always will be “a rich man’s war; but a poor man’s fight.”

A big crowd for the Browns-Texans game

Beginning today, for the first time since the Fall of 2019, regular-season football games at FirstEnergy Stadium are allowed to have a full-capacity crowd and I took full advantage of the opportunity to promote peace to hundreds and hundreds of Browns fans, along with a few Houston Texans fans, streaming toward the southwest gate of the stadium. This meant maximum exposure for the peace flag and Lou’s message.

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