Illegal Israeli Settler Roads Are Surging Across West Bank Since October 7

A Wall Street Journal investigation found that since Oct. 7, Israeli settlers have been rapidly building illegal roads and outposts across the West Bank. This work is sometimes done under armed guard with funding from the Israeli government.

Chapters:
0:00 WSJ’s findings: a surge in illegal construction
1:24 How roads become borders
2:35 Farkha: a new road threatens the village
4:41 Wadi al Seeq: a Bedouin village violently expelled
6:53 Government support for illegal farming outposts
8:35 Alonei Shilo: An illegal road 10 years in the making
9:29 Will Gaza be settled next?

WSJ video investigations use visual evidence to reveal the truth behind the most important stories of the day.

What will the “uninstructed” vote say about Wisconsin?

A photo shows Joe Biden speaking at a public event. Biden is shot from below, so that he looms over the camera at an angle, with bright stage lights behind him. The photo has been altered such that Biden is overlaid with a field of distorted static.
Illustration by Tone Madison. Source photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr.

A disconnect written in blood.

I don’t know what will come of the effort to encourage Wisconsin voters to vote “uninstructed”in our April 2 Democratic presidential primary, after more than 100,000 Michigan voterschose the equivalent “uncommitted” option in that state’s primary. Call it just a protest vote campaign, but I’m curious to see what it says about the conscience of voters here, and about their willingness to demand something better. Like Michigan, Wisconsin has open primaries, so you don’t have to be a registered Democrat or Republican to vote, though you can only vote in one. Thank god for small mercies.

Numerically, the “uncommitted”/”uninstructed” campaign isn’t threatening Joe Biden’s coast to the nomination as an incumbent. The greater threat may be that these disaffected voters will also abandon Biden in the general election, especially given that Wisconsin specializes in razor-thin electoral margins. What matters is that it is wrong for the United States to enable Israel’s slaughter of 31,000 people and counting in Gaza, and that a decent-sized chunk of the Democratic electorate—including those who are engaged enough to vote in primaries—is willing to take a stand. Whether or not they come around and hold their noses to vote Biden in November, it’s worth putting real pressure on Biden to support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and do more to reign in Israel’s belligerent regime.

It would be hard to get any momentum behind a movement like this if Democrats understood or respected what drives a lot of us, let’s say… “ugh yeah fine I’ll vote Dem by default again” voters. For a long time, I’ve felt ambivalent about leftists who sit out elections. I’m starting to understand them a lot better. No, I don’t want Donald Trump back in office. If I had my way, the Republican Party would be outlawed and busted up, along with a host of right-wing civil-society organizations that have tried to help it seize power through violence and legal trickery. It’s also disturbingly clear how much certain Dems relish the threat of Trump as a bargaining chip, and how much they still share Republicans’ commitments to capital and empire.

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Trump would likely help Israel do even more gruesome things in Gaza, Biden’s defenders often remind the pro-Palestinian crowd, as if we should be grateful for the restraint Biden is showing. I’m reminded of conservatives who respond to our critique of the American justice system by going off about how “well, in such-and-such country, they’d just chop off your hands or throw you off a building!” This is a very messed-up way to talk about the world’s problems. If you want to draw a real contrast with Trump’s GOP or such-and-such country’s hand-chopping practices, you should aim to do way better, not just a little better. Take some responsibility for what you can do. Or if you’re the Democratic Party, reflect on all the choices over time that leave you depending on a blood-soaked creep like Biden.

    This is our newsletter-first column, Microtones. It runs on the site on Fridays, but you can get it in your inbox on Thursdays by signing up for our email newsletter.

Of course, if you’re deploying the argument that Biden’s leftist critics are just helping the Republicans… you’re doing that in defense of a guy who knows a lot about helping Republicans: supporting the Iraq War, supporting mass incarceration, stopping short of voting for Clarence Thomas’ confirmation but still doing a real bad job with all that.

How willing are we to at least send a message to President Joe Biden, and to Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation, including Senator Tammy Baldwin, that enabling Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is unacceptable? How many voters will Democrats accuse of “just helping Trump,” as the Democratic leaders of Wisconsin’s biggest, most diverse city roll out the red carpet for Trump’s white-supremacist party?

Given that Republicans tried to stage a coup and have become even more explicit in their embrace of vigilante violence (for instance, making a folk hero out of a guy who went around shooting people in Kenosha), we’ll just be lucky if the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee doesn’t turn out to be a nightmare for a city full of people Republicans hate. (Anyways it’s actually really great and smart because conventioners will stay in hotels, and stuff.) This is not simply an opposition party that plays by the rules and can be reasoned with. These are people who, if you keep enabling them, will keep working very hard to erode your rights and quite possibly just kill you.

So, as Democrats continue to tell us how urgent it is to beat the Republicans in elections and save democracy, they’re maybe not really that icked out. They’ve perhaps not outgrown the blithe arrogance and calculated tepidness that cost them Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016.

Let’s look at just a few recent things elected Democrats have done with the power they have, and whether they are the actions of people serious about stopping fascism. People serious about stopping fascism would not humiliate themselves to try passing immigration legislation that panders to the right. They would not throw around terms like “illegals” in the same speech where they congratulate themselves for supposedly not demonizing immigrants. They would not send National Guard troops to harass people in the New York City subways. They would not openly enable the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, a man every bit as corrupt and authoritarian as Trump. They would maybe stop short of smooching the far-right prime minister of Italy. (I’m sorry, truly… it’s so embarrassing that we have to think about this kind of shit. Our precious Dark Brandon is just so tactile!) They would not cross the aisle in Congress to pass a pointless, racist resolution attacking a Palestinian member of their own caucus. Granted, that last one was a minority of House Democrats, but even so, it’s never any of these folks with actual power who get perversely blamed for helping Trump, the march of fascism, or whatever.

The Teamsters, supposedly a cornerstone of the Democratic coalition, made a hefty donation to the Republican National Committee in February. Liberal commentators in recent years have routinely argued that it’s practical to downplay “culture war” issues like trans rights, notwithstanding the self-evident practicality of making sure people whose vote you seek aren’t killed or persecuted. Democratic elected officials and liberal politicos who should be encouraging a more open debate about Israel are instead aiding ridiculous smear campaigns, like the effort to convince people that the phrase “from the river to the sea” is an anti-Semitic call for genocide. Dress these examples up in all the campaign consultant-speak you want—they’re major capitulations.

When all this is going on, it’s selective and disingenuous to dismiss the pro-Palestine movement as petulant and unrealistic saboteurs. “Uncommitted” or “uninstructed” voters are people the Democratic Party has taken for granted and failed to properly engage. If you’re asking voters to line up behind Biden without question and lay aside any political leverage they might have, you’re asking them for a level of discipline the Dems can’t even get from their own elected members.

Some of us formed our politics in the wake of 9/11, watching our country treat the threat of terrorism as a blank check for bloodshed abroad and surveillance at home. Speaking for myself, I’m a “yeah just not a Republican” voter because I think American belligerence sucks, blind belief sucks, patriotic gibberish sucks, the reflexive demonization of all things Arab or Muslim sucks, and contempt for mass movements sucks. I think moderates give the whole game away by failing to fight for something better. I think this country is basically a huge wealth-management office draped with human entrails, and I’ll believe differently when we achieve something different.

All these years later, we still find ourselves asked to be part of an uneasy coalition with a lot of people who refuse to understand the glaring lessons of the post-9/11 era, and who will respond to concerns about actual war-crimes with an insufferable horse-race mentality. (If you’re in my agéd-millennial age bracket and you still dance to the “because terrorism” tune in any variety… what the hell is wrong with you?) A lot of the people we’re arguing with these days don’t seem to understand that debate within a political party/faction/movement is a good thing, and so is demanding accountability from the very people you’ve voted for. Defending the people you vote for with simplistic excuses and wishful thinking is… not behavior worthy of free people. This is getting so old.

Let’s keep in mind that voters delivered major upsets for Democrats in 2020. Six states that went to Trump in 2016 flipped to Biden in 2020. Voters delivered Georgia’s electoral votes—and both its Senate seats, which required them to come out twice in tough runoff elections. All of this during an absolutely horrible, exhausting year, and in spite of the fact that no one in their right mind was thrilled about Biden, exactly. If you are a reasonable person and convinced yourself that you were thrilled about Biden, well… we all have our moments.

Between 2021 and 2023, what we needed was for Democrats to deliver, as swiftly as possible, to treat their two years in control of both the White House and both houses of Congress like they treat every election—as an emergency. Sure, they got some meaningful things done. Still, priorities like codifying abortion rights and filibuster reform fell prey to the same “well you see it’s the art of the possible” fiddle-dickery Democrats have been stuck on for ages. (Yes yes, I’m sure we’ll keep hearing the pleas that Democrats were helpless to discipline Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, two politicians who have turned out to be not long for public office. Isn’t the whole point of electing Biden that he’s a creature of the Senate and can maybe work out these sorts of things?)

In 2022, Democrats lost the House but kept the Senate, avoiding the bloodbath that often awaits the party holding the Presidency during midterm elections. That’s in part because voters came through for candidates like Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman. After years of progressive posturing, Fetterman turned around and declared he wasn’t so progressive after all. Fetterman has taught the nation a lesson that we in Wisconsin, especially Madison, know all too well: “Progressive” has become a weasel word, divorced from specific historical moments and movements. Everyone can hide behind it, and no one can be held to it. The bait-and-switch will continue until faith in the process improves.


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Slideshow: Gaza Geno-Ecocide at its Cruelest

Click to Start

The Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network — Friends of Earth Palestine (PENGON — FoE Palestine) is a coordinating body for Palestinian environmental NGOs in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. PENGON looks to resist and highlight Israel’s violations of Palestine’s environment and its control of Palestinian natural resources. PENGON sees international advocacy as fundamental in stopping Israel.

21 Years Later Gaza Crushed With Our Tax Dollars

From Craig Corrie – 21 Years Later
Gaza Crushed With Our Tax Dollars

On March 16, 2003, our daughter Rachel Corrie was killed as she stood to protect the home of a Palestinian family in Rafah in Gaza. Rachel was crushed to death by the Israeli military under a militarized, Caterpillar, Inc. D9R bulldozer, supplied by our United States government, paid for by our tax dollars. Now, twenty-one years later, we are witnessing the entire Gaza population being crushed by the Israeli military, using planes, bombs, shells, tanks and, yes, even bulldozers supplied by the United States. Genocide. Paid for by our tax dollars.

In some ways you could see this coming: soldiers never held accountable for their war crimes, human rights violations by the army of a country feeling entitled to the land of another people. We know this story, and we have seen this genocide. Ask any native American.

Our family worked for almost two decades to secure accountability in Rachel’s case, first through diplomatic means, and when that failed, through a civil lawsuit in Israeli courts. Some of the court testimony is particularly telling. An IDF Colonel responsible for training stated that there are no civilians in war zones, and the officer responsible for the military police investigation into Rachel’s killing testified that he thought Israel was at war with everyone in Gaza, including the peace activists. And all the time, the Israeli defense team referred to the people of Gaza – Rachel’s friends, our friends – as “the terrorists.” Even the Israeli high court said that international law did not apply to the actions of Israel in Gaza. How telling.

Repeatedly, the U.S. supplies weapons to Israel that are used in ways giving probable cause of human rights violations. But when the U.S. asks for investigation, Israel replies with reports that are far from the result of the thorough, credible, and transparent investigation required of, or in Rachel’s case promised by, Israel. Citing that violations cannot be proven, the U.S. continues military aid – rather than withholding more funding until our questions are properly answered, as allowed by U.S. law and dictated by common sense. The U.S. routinely rewards IDF war crimes with increased military aid, rather than sanctions. When that aid is abetting genocide, as it has since October 7, 2023, the aid itself is a war crime.

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The time to avert the massacre of October 7 and the genocide that has followed was during all the prior years of the Israeli occupation. Repeatedly, Palestinians, often joined by Jewish Israelis, have protested nonviolently to have their rights respected. Cindy and I have joined them for Friday afternoon protests in the olive groves west of Bil’in in the West Bank and have been met by teargas and small arms fire from the IDF, even though we never left Bil’in land. I remember stumbling up the hillside while an Israeli friend helped Cindy to medical aid for gas inhalation.

We have watched a landowner weeping as her olive trees were being uprooted to make way for a great wall to divide her forever from her crops. We watched from afar the Great March of Return in Gaza, again met by gunfire – often targeted at medics, journalists, and even children. Had Israel and the U.S. been moved by any of these nonviolent protests to respect the rights of Palestinians, then the violence of October 7, 2023, and the more than five months of carnage and destruction in Gaza thereafter might have been avoided. To have peace, there must be justice, and there is nothing peaceful about the daily injustice of the occupation.

On a larger, even more depressing scale, I remember in grade school wondering how it was possible that any nation could ever let the Holocaust happen. It was personal. Linda, the girl I shared a desk with, was Jewish. Now, as I watch in horror at the atrocities perpetrated in Gaza and rationalized in Washington DC, I see how genocide happens: by nations making excuses and looking the other way.

That is where we come in – by refusing to look the other way. And an amazing number of us around the world have done so. Activists on the street corners, in city council meetings, in front of the White House, on state capitol steps, many for the first time in their lives, refusing to hear the excuses, refusing to look the other way. We are heartened by each one of you and by the visible, constructive actions you are taking. You have joined with Rachel, who wrote to her mother more than two decades ago, “This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop.”

Craig Corrie (Rachel’s dad)
March 16, 2024


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The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Donations by check can be mailed to the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace & Justice, 203 East 4th Ave, Suite 402, Olympia, WA 98501.

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Maps: Loss of Land


Above: One of the best teaching tools to convey succinctly what has happened to the Palestinian people, this postcard-size Loss of Land map card (sometimes called “Shrinking Palestine”) can be ordered online with several options for information on the back of the card.  To order them, see FOSNA’s website.

Above: A more detailed Loss of Land series of maps, with some brief information on the events leading to each change of borders. See a larger view here.

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Above: Click here to see a larger view of this map which also includes a brief history of the changing borders in Palestine.

Above: Many people have noted the similarities between the ethnic cleansing that American Indians were subjected to during the colonization of North America and the events in Palestine over the last century. Today there is growing solidarity in action between American Indians and Palestinians. See the video and statement at a demonstration during the United Methodist General Conference 2016 and Palestinian actions for and with those protecting land and water at Standing Rock in North Dakota.

Above: Many comparisons also have been made between the bantustans to which black South Africans were confined during that country’s apartheid era and the fragmented communities that Palestinians have now in the West Bank, similarly created by systemic colonialism and racism – a system of apartheid.

Clearly such fragmentation of their land and of their communities was not intended – then or now – to facilitate a cohesive, viable homeland for either peoples; rather it is a method of controlling an oppressed people and fully exploiting/colonizing the territories to which they have lost access.

The South Africans understand too well what is happening to the Palestinian people and South African leaders have testified to what they have identified as apartheid – worse than they experienced in South Africa – on their visits to occupied Palestinian territory. In 2009, the South African government commissioned a study by an international team of legal analysts to determine if the Israeli occupation regime met the legal criteria for the crime of apartheid under international law: The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1973.  See the results of that study here.


All Map Pages:
Maps “home page” includes map of The Middle East
Ottoman Empire through 1949
1967 to the present
Jerusalem
• Bethlehem (coming soon)
• Area C/ Jordan Valley (coming soon)
Loss of Land

See also the collection of maps in the Palestine Teaching Trunk.

See some of the key organizations in the Portal Community

Veterans For Peace statement about Aaron Bushnell protesting to the death


February 26, 2024

Madmen Arsonists Strike Again: They as Much as Lit Aaron Bushnell’s Match for Him

Aaron Bushnell just couldn’t take any more.

He couldn’t bear to see any more people eviscerated and incinerated by American bombs dropped by Israelis on innocent Palestinians.

So, in his Air Force uniform, he walked determinedly to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. and set himself on fire.

What can we say about a young man who would do that to protest his government’s acts of cruelty and genocide?

It is important we say nothing before quoting his own calmly spoken, final words to the world.

“I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal. Free Palestine!”

You can see Aaron’s last minute of life in this video, blurred out after he strikes the match.

In it, he shouts, “Free Palestine” six times. The last five are combined with screams of agony before he falls silent.

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A voice off-camera, shouts repeatedly, “Get him on the ground…on the ground,” which is the correct thing to do when someone is on fire.

People frantically rush in with a fire extinguisher. A police officer or uniformed guard appears and points a gun in Aaron’s direction. Someone calls out “I need a fire extinguisher…a fire extinguisher…another one…I don’t need guns; I need a fire extinguisher.”

Why would Aaron do something this extreme?

More of the “why” may come to light. But what he said in that video is sufficient. He could “no longer be complicit in genocide.”

Aaron’s motivation is strikingly similar to that of Norman Morrison, a 35-year-old, Quaker activist who set himself ablaze in the Pentagon parking lot below Secretary of War McNamara’s office, November 2, 1965.

In a letter to his wife, Morrison had written, “Dearest Anne, For weeks, even months, I have been praying only that I be shown what I must do. This morning with no warning, I was shown … Know that I love thee but must act for the children in the Priest’s village,” in reference to an article he had read in which a Catholic priest described Vietnamese “women and children blown to bits” from U.S. bombing and napalm.

Too many of us in VFP have seen the suffering war creates and it never leaves our memories. All of us agonize over our government’s aiding and abetting the slaughter of innocents.

We prod ourselves, “what is the most, the very best thing, I can do?”

That question moves some to learn the history of Palestine that they’ve too long ignored; some to contact elected officials; some to join a public protest; some to go on fasts; some to block roads or congressional offices and go to jail. But it never feels like enough.

Some may perceive fasting to the death or self-immolation as crazy and extreme beyond measure. Others see it as entirely appropriate because the horror protested is itself insane and extreme beyond measure.

Few who care deeply will have the courage to fast to the death or do what Aaron Bushnell did. But in addition to whatever inadequate things we already do, we can, we must, do two more things.

The first is to consciously let people who are pained and grieving at what our government does know that they are not alone. We should not assume our colleagues and comrades know we are aware of their anguish.

Secondly, we can resolve that we will move beyond simply reacting to bestial policies.

We could call our policymakers “madmen arsonists” because they go around the globe setting fires much faster than we can extinguish them.

These policymakers, swaddled in privilege, take their orders from those who profit from death and suffering. We know who they are: the people who run Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics and their fellow merchants of death, and the people who finance what the merchants do.

These madmen arsonists operate on a grand scale internationally but also on a singular, small scale as in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. They as much as lit the match for Aaron Bushnell. The fire that killed Airman Bushnell was simply the “collateral damage,” as it’s so callously called, of the ongoing conflagration in Palestine.

Our firefighting will never keep up with arsonists who operate on a global scale. We are long overdue to learn the fire prevention skills needed to halt them.

Fire prevention in this context means prohibiting the lobbying, advertising, vote buying, campaign funding and actual legislation writing that corporations do behind constitutional shields given them by the Supreme Court, like free speech and protection.

Until we strip corporations of their shields, they will continue to amass economic and political power to govern us, to set fires large and small, while we run frantically for fire extinguishers until we are exhausted, penniless and gone.

Veterans For Peace is learning the necessary fire prevention skills we need as we continue fighting fires set by the madmen arsonists. It is simply our responsibility to do both at the same time.

Millions will be in the streets against the Rafah invasion on March 2; find a demonstration near you. Vigils will be held across the country for Aaron Bushnell in the coming days.

If you are a member of the US military want expert, confidential advice on how to get out, call the GI Rights Hotline 24/7 at 1-877-447-4487

Tell Pocan No More Military Aid to Israel

CALL Pocan’s offices and insist on a pledge not to vote for any further military aid. He’s still not done that. Here is the link to the Democratic discharge petition.

    Pocan in Madison (608) 258-9800
    Pocan in DC (202) 225-2906

Reject AIPAC from the Democratic Party. Join Us.
Right now, the Israeli military is preparing to invade Rafah, where over 1.7 million Palestinians are sheltering and starving from months of brutal bombardment.

Yesterday, AIPAC was on Capitol Hill lobbying members of Congress to give billions in unconditional weapons funding to Israel — directly enabling the attack on Rafah.

Now, Democratic leadership is using a procedure called a discharge petition to try to force a vote through and fund Israel’s assault on Gaza this week.1

Tell your member of Congress to reject AIPAC and their agenda: say no to $14 billion in weapons funding to Israel.

EMAIL YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS

We put this easy tool together for you — all you have to do is fill in your information and press the button!

Urgent: Your Action Required March 13, 2024 AIPAC is lobbying Congress today to give billions in unconditional weapons funding to Israel — just as the Israeli military prepares to invade Rafah. Send a message to your member of Congress right now calling on them to reject AIPAC's agenda and oppose these weapons transfers. innmvmt.org/urgentaipac

Here’s why this is urgent: The discharge petition only needs 218 signatures to bring a vote to the floor — and at least 169 Democrats have already signed on.

That means we need to take action today to urge our representatives to refuse to sign or withdraw their signatures — and make it clear that they oppose billions in unconditional weapons funding for Israel.

The Israeli government has made its intention to invade Rafah very clear. Sending $14 billion in military funding would only enable Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, which has already killed over 31,000 Palestinians.

Send a message to your member of Congress right now calling on them to reject AIPAC’s agenda and oppose these weapons transfers.

On Monday, we joined a broad coalition of nearly two dozen progressive organizations calling on the Democratic Party to reject AIPAC.2

Moments like this are exactly why we organize — and exactly why we need people like you in our movement.

When you send a letter to Congress, you’ll be joining thousands of people across the country who are saying NO to AIPAC’s agenda and NO to Israel’s massacre of Palestinians.

Email your member of Congress right now to tell them to reject any vote to fund Israel’s assault on Gaza.

In solidarity,
The IfNotNow team

Sources:
1. Axios, House Democrats’ foreign aid discharge petition goes live
2. ABC News, Progressive groups launch ‘Reject AIPAC’ effort as Democratic divides over Israel deepen

DONATE TO IFNOTNOW

We continue to put all our resources into actions to respond to this moment. Please contribute if you can.

IfNotNow Movement
1629 K Street
Suite 300
Washington, DC 20006
United States

May 22, 2024
Music for Gaza Relief at the Bur Oak

The Bur Oak [Map]
2262 Winnebago St, Madison
Doors open at 7 pm, music at 8

Grassroots to Gaza presents a night of music for humanitarian aid to Gaza, featuring: Moonboot, The Takeaways, and 20 Minute Mission.

Suggested $10 donation. All proceeds go to Middle East Children’s Alliance for immediate humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

Sponsored by Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, Palestine Partners, and WORT 89.9FM

Learn more about Middle East Children’s Alliance or make a donation.

The Only Barrier to Delivering Gaza Aid Is Israel

Aid Worker in Gaza: The U.S. Must Pressure Its Ally

MARCH 12, 2024

GUESTS
  • Yousef Hammash
    advocacy officer in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council
  • Francesca Albanese
    United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory.

Palestinians in Gaza marked the first day of Ramadan on Monday amid rising hunger and desperation, with Israel continuing to restrict aid shipments into the besieged territory. United Nations officials have complained that even basic items like medical scissors have resulted in trucks being stopped by Israeli forces at the border. This comes as countries such as the United States conduct dangerous airdrops of essential supplies and have announced plans to build a pier off the coast of Gaza to deliver aid. “It’s going to be more simple, more realistic and more efficient if the United States has pushed the Israelis to allow the aid truck to go into the north of Gaza and Gaza City,” says Yousef Hammash, advocacy officer with the Norwegian Refugee Council, speaking to us from Rafah. “The only issue that we are facing on delivering the aid on the ground is the restrictions the Israelis put on it.” Hammash also describes “living day by day” amid “madness, violence [and] bombardment.”

April 14, 2024
Commemorating the Life of Rachel Corrie

Christ Presbyterian Church, 944 E. Gorham St, Madison
1:30-3:30 pm
Free & open to all, donations to Middle East Children’s Alliance welcome

Join us to remember the life of Rachel Corrie, who was killed March 16, 2003 when she was crushed by a US made bulldozer, driven by an Israeli operator as she attempted to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home.

We believe that Rachel’s wish now would be that we act to end the genocide in Palestine. The event will include readings of Rachel’s letters home, a message from her parents, Craig and Cindy Corrie, and time to write and call congress and the White House to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire and an end to US funding of the Israeli military.

Music by acoustic musical trio Shamaali, featuring the oud.
Dessert and beverages will be served.

This event is a fundraiser for Middle East Children’s Alliance, for immediate emergency aid to Gaza. It is free and open to the public. Donations to Middle East Children’s Alliance will be gratefully welcomed.

Israel’s Measures intended to Prevent Births within Gaza Strip

PCHR, March 9, 2024


On Saturday, 9 March 2024, The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) issued a new report titled, “Israel’s measures Intended to Prevent Births within Gaza Strip.” The report sheds light on Israel’s commission of one of the genocidal acts that is preventing births within a group.

The report lays out the catastrophic conditions facing pregnant women in the Gaza Strip, one of the most vulnerable categories and in need of lifesaving preventive and curative nutrition interventions. Estimates show that there are 50,000 pregnant women in shelters with no access to adequate food and proper healthcare, and 15% of them are likely to experience pregnancy or birth-related complications and need additional medical care that is not available.

Respectively, the report highlights Israel’s measures intended to prevent birth within the Gaza Strip amid lack of protection from military attacks. They are under direct attacks, resulting in killings, injuries, toxic gas inhalations and causing serious psychological and physical harm amid heightened feelings of fear and anxiety and lack of special protection. All of this combined will lead to preventing births and have serious consequences on reproductive health, including a rise in pregnancy pains, miscarriages, stillbirths and premature births.

The report then reviews Israeli violations resulting in provision of poor health services to pregnant women with no safe access. This has forced a lot of pregnant women to give birth in houses or shelters, worsening the birth-related complications, increasing their suffering and leaving them with unprecedented levels of stress.  Pregnant women unable to have safe access to health services are facing a double nightmare as if they need healthcare, they have to walk for a long distance or sometimes feel reluctant to ask for adequate healthcare.

The report also monitors Israel’s imposition of dire living conditions that increase pregnancy complications.  Due to the ongoing aggression, a lot of women became the caretaker of their families because their husbands were killed, injured, arrested or etc. Therefore, women bear greater responsibilities towards their children and families. Meanwhile, the aggression has led to forced mass displacement of civilians in light of the outbreak of epidemics and dire living conditions in shelters along with lack of electricity and water supplies.  All of this combined has increased pregnant and postpartum women’s suffering and health risks during pregnancy and after childbirth.

The report emphasizes that the Israeli serious human rights violations against pregnant women in the Gaza Strip amount to genocidal acts, in particular imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.  It calls upon the international community to exert pressure on Israel to cease all genocidal acts, including imposing measures intended to prevent births within the Gaza Strip; comply with the legally-binding provisional measures order lately issued by the International Court of Justice to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance; and fulfill its obligations as an occupying power in terms of its duty to transfer pregnant women to safe areas.

Read the report

 

March 21, 2024
Palestinian Mother’s Day Events on Library Mall

Featured

Join MRSCP and Students for Justice in Palestine this Thursday on Palestinian Mother’s Day to commemorate the mothers and children martyred in Gaza. 

We will have art installations at Library Mall, handout flyers, and a vigil at 3pm.

We are in great need of volunteers, especially for the 2-4pm mobile installation slot, so please consider signing up to help.

March 25, 2024
Film Israelism: Screening and Discussion

Madison Central Library, Room 301
6-9 pm

When two young American Jews raised to unconditionally love Israel witness the brutal way Israel treats Palestinians, their lives take sharp left turns.

They join a movement of young American Jews battling the old guard to redefine Judaism’s relationship with Israel, revealing a deepening generational divide over modern Jewish identity.

March 15-20, 2024
Madison Premier of Film Bad River

From 350 Wisconsin:

Since long before 1953, when Line 5 was constructed without the consent of Tribal Nations in its path, the Bad River Band has been fighting for their rights, culture, land, water, sovereignty, and so much more. This is a battle that we at 350 Wisconsin continue to witness every day, led by the Tribe in the most courageous and selfless way possible – for future generations.

The 70-year-old Line 5 pipeline, on the verge of a catastrophic rupture, plows its way through the Bad River reservation in northern Wisconsin putting the Great Lakes, and so much more, at risk. Now, the Tribe is up against Enbridge, a multi-billion dollar multinational oil corporation, to protect Lake Superior, the largest freshwater resource in North America, and all that depends on it.

A new documentary, Bad River, shines a light on the Band’s story of struggle from the beginning and through to current generations. Mary Mazzio, director of the film, says that the Tribe’s resistance against Line 5 is “the newest chapter of a very old story”, a story that is largely unknown to the public.

Watch the trailer

Starting this Friday, March 15th, through March 20th, the film will be in select theaters around the country, including here in Wisconsin. Showings are selling out fast – be sure to reserve your seats soon so you don’t miss out on this amazing opportunity. Fifty percent of all profits will be donated to the Bad River Band. 

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