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WHAT:  "GAZA: SEPARATING THE FACTS FROM THE MYTHS and why you should be concerned"
WHO:  Linda Frank
WHEN:  Friday, January 23, 2009 -- 7:00 p.m.
WHERE:  King's Books, 218 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma, WA 98402

In her talk, Linda Frank will attempt to answer some of the following questions:

· The ceasefire: Who broke it?
· What do Palestinians really want?
· Why after 40 years are they still not free?
· What do Israelis really want?
· What is America's role in the conflict?
· How does Gaza fit into the larger Israel-Palestinian conflict?
· Is there still an "Arab-Israeli conflict"?
· How & why Israel helped bring Hamas to power
· The Gaza siege
· The news about Hamas that's not in the news
· The missing pieces of the missing peace
· What you can do to help to bring security to all parties

Linda Frank is active locally with several Tacoma/Pierce County peace-justice groups including United for Peace of Pierce County; People for Peace, Justice, and Healing; and the Northwest Middle East Peace Forum. She helped found the Tacoma chapter of Women in Black. Linda served as media liaison for the Citizens Hearing on the US Legality of US Actions in Iraq.

Linda Frank is a native New Yorker and former student of Judaism who, prior to the events of 9-11, had little exposure to politics, current events, or activism. Moved by 9-11 with a desire to help her country, Linda sought to understand the issues of global unrest that so devastated her hometown and our nation.

Intrigued by Rudi Guiliani's declining 20 million dollars in relief funds from a Saudi prince because of the implication that Israel's treatment of Palestinians had something to do with 9-11, Linda decided finally to learn about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Disturbed by the details of what she was starting to learn, and about the impact that conflict was having on America, she took a 15-month unpaid sabbatical to engage in the issue. She networked with groups and individuals in Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and throughout the U.S.; she outreached (briefed) to national and local media; she lobbied Congress; and has organized and spoken at numerous community events, hosting Israeli and Palestinian speakers and others who could help fill in, for Tacomans, the missing pieces of the missing peace.

In 2005, Linda was nominated for the Greater Tacoma Peace Prize.

Professionally, Linda has worked for the past 15 years in publishing sales.

Linda finds motivation/inspiration in The Golden Rule, found in all major faith traditions ("Do not to others what you wouldn't want done to you"); from the historic Rabbi Hillel's "If I am not for myself, who will be? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?" and in a Catholic Worker motto, "If you want peace, work for justice."

This event is sponsored by United for Peace of Pierce County, and the general public is encouraged to attend.