Peace Activist’s Talk Tonight Causing a Stir

ESSEX, MA —   Rev. Art McDonald is bracing for what he hopes will be a respectful evening tonight, June 18, in his church when Retired U.S. Army Col. Ann Wright comes to speak about her experiences aboard a ship in the Gaza flotilla during the Israeli commando raid on May 31. The reverend has received phone calls from people concerned about the event, including from one man who warned him the talk was going to be biased and that the woman would be speaking for Hamas.

Several callers to the Journal offices also anticipate that Wright’s talk at the First Universalist Church of Essex will devolve into bashing Israel and they questioned the motives of one of the sponsors, Code Pink, as well as the timing of the event on a Friday night, the start of Shabbat.

Susan Nicholson of Gloucester organized the event. She heads the North Shore Coalition for Peace and Justice, which is a member organization of the “U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation.”

The organizations sponsoring Ann Wright’s speech tonight are: Code Pink; North Shore Coalition for Peace and Justice, House of Peace, Veterans for Peace Chapter 45, Salem Peace Committee, First Universalist Church of Essex, Cape Ann Forum and the Social Action Committee of the Rockport Unitarian Universalist Society.

Code Pink staged a May 23, 2010 demonstration in Washington D.C. endorsing the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. Some of its members met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York when he visited the United Nations in September 2008 — a meeting that riles many pro-Israel activists.

A number of pro-Israel Christians and Jews plan to attend tonight’s meeting in Essex, according an individual who phoned the Journal.

Nicholson said she is not a member of Code Pink, but was contacted by a woman who is.

“Ann Wright is on a national tour and had a free night. She’s speaking in Allston on Saturday and Worcester on Sunday. I was asked to organize one on the North Shore, so I did,” Nicholson said.

Asked why she planned it for a Friday night, she said, “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t think of it. It was the only day that was given me. I’m not Jewish.”

Nicholson said she tried to get the time moved but couldn’t arrange it.

“I hope as may Jews as possible will come to this,” she added.

Ann Wright became a peace activist after spending 29 years in the military and later serving as a diplomat in the U.S. State Department. In an interview with the Journal, Wright said she resigned from the State Department in March 2003 when the U.S. went to war against Iraq. She has been on the lecture circuit ever since, involved in a number of causes, specifically the United States wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. She said she was aboard the Free Gaza Challenger — not the Mavi Marmara on which nine passengers were killed.

Tags:

ann wright

usa

freedom flotilla