Native of Gaza Strip and Nobel Peace prize nominee are featured speakers
DES MOINES – The Catholic Peace Ministry and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom are leading a conference on Saturday, October 19th at First United Methodist Church (1001 Pleasant Street), focusing on the costs of war.
Featured speakers include a native of the Gaza Strip who lives in Coralville, Iowa and who has helped to form Hope Foundation, a network of humanitarian workers on the ground in Palestine during the ongoing war.
Yaser AbuDagga, an engineer, will present information about its ongoing work in Gaza, including Hope Medical’s participation in polio vaccinations. Hope Foundation works with non-governmental organizations on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank supplying food, shelter, and medical services.
AbuDagga currently has his father and siblings living in Gaza and is the featured speaker of an afternoon session of the conference. https://www.thegazette.com/nation-world/eastern-iowans-fear-for-family-in-gaza-israel/
The conference also includes a panel that will speak about environmental costs of war. Former mayor Frank Cownie of Des Moines will be one of the panelists. Cownie will speak to his work at Mayors for Peace and trips to the United Nations, representing the city of Des Moines.
A morning session will feature Kathy Kelly, who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in the 1990s for her work delivering humanitarian aid to Iraq and opposing the U.S. war. Kelly has seen up close the “forever wars” of the United States, and recently has been working with an international team to help the Afghan Peacemaker Teams she helped establish in Kabul, to escape from the rule of the Taliban.
Kelly was described by U.S. Marines driving in tanks arriving in Baghdad during the invasion of 2003. “The soldiers were shocked to see these Americans, on the ground during the invasion in Baghdad, but we interacted with them for several days,” Kelly said. https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27014-and-a-time-for-peace
Kelly spent years traveling in Iraq and Afghanistan as an eyewitness to what happens when the most powerful military in the world unleashes its might on civilian populations.
The October 19th conference, “Paying for war; working for Peace.” is from 9 am to 5 pm at First United Methodist Church, 1001 Pleasant. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m.
The day will also feature a catered celebration of Palestinian and regional food for lunch from local restaurant Mo'z Mediterranean Grill.
(One final note: The morning session will also feature Joseph Gerson, author of Empire and the Bomb, is an international authority on nuclear weapons. Gerson is the founder of Coalition for Peace, Disarmament, and Common Security).
The last session will include a breakout session that focuses on 'next steps' to end the state of our permanent war economy and state of perpetual war. Who profits from war will also detail the weapons corporations that get tax money.