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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 1, 2009
8:48 AM

CONTACT: Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA)

Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Pressing Obama for Peace

WASHINGTON - January 1 -

ANN WRIGHT, Reuters reports: "A small group of placard-waving pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered near U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's vacation retreat in Hawaii on Tuesday to protest against the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. ... Obama has made no public comment on the strikes, which Israel launched on Saturday." Wright is a former State Department diplomat and retired Army colonel who is currently in Hawaii and was at those protests. She said today: "The president-elect should put as a priority to press for a halt to Israel's indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, and of course for Hamas to stop their rockets. When he was in Sderot in Israel several months ago, Obama referred to how he would feel if rockets were coming to where his daughters lived. What about the little girls in Gaza?" Among her numerous assignments, Wright helped re-open the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan in 2001. She resigned from the State Department in protest of the Iraq invasion in March of 2003.

KATHY KELLY, Kelly is co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. The group is organizing with other secular and faith-based groups "Camp Hope: Countdown to Change" in Chicago, four blocks from Obama's residence there. The camp begins on New Year's Day and continues to Dr. Martin Luther King Day. She said today: "Large lobbying groups, including some of the large corporations, are pushing Obama around the clock to preserve the status quo, wage war and provide for unbridled greed. What we're asking is that the money spent on the military be spent instead on soluble problems such as lack of healthcare." Information about events, speakers and community forums is posted at: http://camphope2009.org

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A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.

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