April 22, 2011
Dear Rhonda,
Thank you.
I’m Andrew White, London-based lawyer and founder of the Beyond Images project. We do Israel education and advocacy (it is a spare time volunteer activity for me – I work full time as an attorney in an international firm).
We have an information website – www.beyondimages.info – and I run seminars, and network people together.
I am always on the lookout for materials which tell the other side of the story, including challenging the common assumption that the Palestinian society is ready for peace and the compromises necessary to achieve it. I thought that your article ‘First Hand Account: My Visit to UNWRA Palestinian Refugee Camps’ was extremely valuable, and I would like to reproduce it verbatim on the site. I have three questions for you:
1. Are you OK for us to do this?
2. I would be extremely interested to know how you came to be on the trip to the camps in the first place – could you give me some background, and permission to publish it, as part of the lead-in to the piece (or would you prefer that that be kept confidential?)
3. You mentioned your participation in the recent J-Street conference. May I ask, are you active in J-Street, or a Canadian affiliate? Or did you go as an external guest? I personally feel that it is particularly important that actiivsts in J-Street understand Palestinian intransigence, rather than downplaying it, which is why your insights are particularly powerful.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks in advance,
– Andrew White
Beyond Images, London
Editor’s short response: Yes, you can post the article on your site, not able to give more background at this time, went to J-Street Conference as a reporter.