Susan Barclay, age 26 and a 1999 Notre Dame University graduate from Seattle, Washington was detained by the Israeli military during its incursion into Nablus early last Thursday morning. She had been working with the International Solidarity Movement and was busy helping escort Palestinian families from homes that had been demolished to try to prevent the soldiers from opening fire. She has been in solitary confinement in a military police station in Hadera, Palestine since then with no criminal charges filed against her whatsoever and no ability to speak to a lawyer who has agreed to represent her.

The Israeli military has appealed a ruling by a judge who said Monday that Susan should be released in 48 hours. She is therefore in administrative detention indefinitely!!! Can you imagine if you were accused of a crime and at your arraignment the judge decided to dismiss the case but the prosecution had the right to appeal his decision AND KEEP YOU IN JAIL IN THE MEANTIME! This cannot go unprotested, people. We need for the national media to pick this up. If she were being held by Iraqi military, we would be in a full-scale war right now.

Now before going any further, it's important to recognize that THIS EXACT SITUATION is faced by thousands of Palestinians as a normal fact of life. The fact that she's an "all-American girl" does not make her a bit more important than all the Palestinians in administrative detention but it does mean this: we can get the injustice being waged against Palestinians on the radar screen of both activists and the general public in the US if we mobilize in protest.

If/when a war against Iraq hits, many of us fear that Palestine will be forgotten. We're also worried that if nothing happens in protest of Susan's detention, they will keep escalating their aggression little by little until they're shooting international peacekeepers in cold blood. We fear that Israeli military plan to use the war as cover to carry out its policy of "transfer." You can take a share of the responsibility for not allowing this to happen by taking a stand for Susan.

Here are some action suggestions:

1) Continue to call the State Department's Israel desk at 202-647-3930 and/or the US Consulate in Tel Aviv at +972 3 519 7575 and demand that they stop sitting on their hands and help Susan get out of jail (the state department's doing a better job than the consulate so don't be as angry with them).
2) Call your congressperson and tell him/her that a US citizen is being held by Israeli military in Palestine and you want the congressperson's office to call either the state department or consulate number above and request information on what's being done to support her.
3) Look up the phone numbers of all media in your area, call these numbers to get their fax numbers, email that information to you and/or find a fax machine that you can use to send out a press statement from the International Solidarity Movement, then FOLLOW UP WITH A PHONE CALL!
4) Get your local/regional/national antiwar organization to put together a statement in solidarity with Susan (I will send you a draft solidarity statement as well as fax numbers for the Israeli Embassy and other relevant places if you email me).
5) Post this information to your local indymedia site. Email me if you would like a more article-looking post to use.
6) Take direct action at the nearest Israeli Consulate or at the Embassy itself if you live in DC. If you're interested in locating consulates, do the research yourself or email me as I plan to research tonight.

Blessings of peace be with you. Pray/meditate/take action for the heroes that work tirelessly to make sure that the Palestinian people are afforded the same basic human dignity that we would expect for all citizens of the world.

In Solidarity,

Morgan Guyton
Tri-City Action for Peace
Saginaw, Michigan
tcap.mahost.org
tcap (at) mutualaid.org
989-758-0096