Kathy Kelly, Fasting for Gazans.

Vet’s For Peace “Fast for Gaza”: Day 33
Alan Winson / Bar Crawl Radio

(June 25, 2025) — This will be the final of the “Fast for Gaza” conversations with peacemaker Kathy Kelly. It was the beginning of a brutal heat wave in NYC; we found a shady spot on the UN side of 1st Avenue. On the opposite side a small group of fasting protestors held signs and umbrellas.

Kathy and I talked about her 2004 book Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison — focusing on the chapter “Change Agents” — when she was visited in Pekin Prison by two FBI agents.

Kathy talks about the families and children she got to know during her many visits to Iraqi hospitals during the decades-long UN / US sanctions on Iraq. UNICEF reported that 500,000 children under the age of five died between 1991 and 1998 due to those sanctions. Kelly’s “Voices in the Wilderness” worked to bring medical supplies to those beleaguered people.

Fasting for Gazans Day 19

(June 9, 2025) — On the 19th day of the VFP Fast for Gaza — talking with peacemaker Kathy Kelly and friends, as they consume no more than 250 calories a day for 40 days in solidarity with the citizens of Gaza who have been forced to exist on very little sustenance

This program begins with a Democracy Now! report on the seizure of the Gaza-bound aid ship — Madleen — in international waters by Israeli forces.

When I arrived at the US Mission — Kathy Kelly was asking Bill Tottenham — US Marine veteran and VFP representative — about his attempt to get big media to report on the “Fast for Gaza” VFP protest.

I then spoke with Kelly about an early morning decision to walk from the US Mission on 1st Avenue — to the United Kingdom Mission to the UN several blocks to the north — to raise awareness about the Israeli seizure of the yacht — Madleen — operated by the Pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition.

I spoke with several of the fasters as we walked. At Rockefeller Center, security pushed the fasters out of the area and at St. Patrick Cathedral, NYP officers ordering the fasters off the north porch.

Mike Ferner of the VFP promised that for the rest of the “Fast for Gaza” protest, these walks would continue with a focus on the New York Times building.

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