On June 8, 2011, Project Peacemakers Forum panelists Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd and Howard Davidson discussed “Israel and Palestine: What is going on and what can we do?”
Did they succeed in answering these questions? Yes and no. No, because this is a huge, complex topic and considerably more time would be required to present it in a comprehensive way. Yes, because they provide a starting point for people trying to get a sense of the issue, both in terms of understanding some of the complexities and in pointing to actions people can take to contribute to a resolution of the conflict.
Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd is an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Winnipeg. As a member of the General Council Theology and Inter-church Interfaith Committee, she was part of an official United Church delegation that went to Israel and Palestine in February of this year, to update United Church policies and theology on the Middle East.
Howard Davidson is an Associate Professor in Extended Education at the University of Manitoba. He is also a member of the steering committee of Independent Jewish Voices and has visited Israel and the Occupied Territories on several occasions. He has published articles on Education and the Occupation.
Paul S. Graham 
Lorraine McKenzie Shepard began her lecture with a totally false notion; that there was somehow a connection between the Holocaust and the creation of Israel. The Zionist movement, the political movement to create a ‘political’ Israel, began in the century previous with Theodor Herzl when he published his book in 1896, “The Jewish State.” The Balfour Declaration, the UK govt’s promise to create Israel was made in 1917. The Zionist movement was in fact indifferent to the fate of Jews in the Third Reich’s Holocaust. Ben Gurion, the future first Prime Ministher of Israel, informed a meeting of Labor Zionists in Great Britain in 1938: “If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Israel, then I opt for the second alternative.” Rabbi Stephen Wise, a leading Zionist leader in the US in the 30’s, opposed any move to make it easier to allow Jews to find haven in the US: “It may interest you to know that some weeks ago the representatives of all the leading Jewish organizations met in conference … It was decided that no Jewish organization would, at this time, sponsor a bill which would in any way alter the immigration laws.”