Paul Larudee
Director/Global March to Jerusalem North America and Feriha/Media Coordinator
Host: Basima Farhat
Previously Aired On: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 – Listen to the Show!
Paul Larudee was born to an Iranian Presbyterian minister and his American missionary spouse in 1946 and grew up in the American Midwest. He has a Ph.D. in linguistics from Georgetown University and spent 14 years in Arab countries as a contracted U.S. government advisor, Fulbright-Hays exchange lecturer, teacher, training administrator and graduate student.
Paul has visited the Palestinian region many times since 1965, including four times with the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led movement that applies nonviolent principles to resist Israeli human rights violations. Paul was among seven ISM volunteers wounded by Israeli gunfire in April, 2002 in an otherwise nonviolent attempt to help Palestinian families. In 2006, he was held in Israeli detention for two weeks while unsuccessfully appealing a decision to deny him entry. He helped organize nonviolent resistance in Lebanon during the 2006 Israeli invasion. He is one of the founders of the Free Gaza Movement, whose boats, on August 23, 2008, became the first in 41 years to enter Gaza by sea, breaking the Israeli naval blockade. He is also a founder of the Free Palestine Movement, which also seeks to challenge Israel’s blockade and denial of access to all of Palestine by sea, air and land.
PAUL LARUDEE was born to an Iranian Presbyterian minister and his American missionary spouse in 1946 and grew up in the American Midwest. He has a Ph.D. in linguistics from Georgetown University and spent 14 years in Arab countries as a contracted U.S. government advisor, Fulbright-Hays exchange lecturer, teacher, training administrator and graduate student.
PAT CHAFFEE is a Dominican Sister. She has been active in human rights advocacy for thirty years. She visited the West Bank in 2006 and Gaza in 2009. In 2010 she participated in the aborted Gaza Freedom March, marooned in Cairo. Her motive for joining the flotilla is to tell the people of Gaza that she is opposed to her country’s oppression. She is committed to nonviolence, under any circumstances. 
JOE MEADORS is an American former U.S. Navy signalman, who survived Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty, June 8, 1967, which killed 34 Americans and wounded 174, including Joe. He is married to Jean Meadors; they live in Corpus Christi, Texas. He is a member of the U.S.S. Liberty Veterans Association. In 2010, he was a passenger on the Sfendoni in the Gaza Freedom flotilla with Ambassador Edward Peck, captured by the Israelis, and released. 
JIMBO SIMMONS is a member of the Choctaw nation and of the Leadership Council of the American Indian Movement West (AIM-WEST), which resists colonization, respects traditional knowledge and self-determination, and raises awareness on issues that concern Indians of the Americas, from racism to protection of sacred sites, the rights of the child, treaties, political prisoners, police brutality, immigration and militarization, climate change and the United Nations General Assembly “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He is in solidarity with Palestinians and all indigenous peoples that are subjected to expulsion and ethnic cleansing. 
Paul Larudee was born to an Iranian Presbyterian minister and his American missionary spouse in 1946 and grew up in the American Midwest. He has a Ph.D. in linguistics from Georgetown University and spent 14 years in Arab countries as a contracted U.S. government advisor, Fulbright-Hays exchange lecturer, teacher, training administrator and graduate student.
