James Reeb UUC, 2146 E Johnson St, Madison, 2-4:30 pm
Madison’s Palestine solidarity community will host a Solidarity Fair in honor of Palestine’s fall olive harvest on October 10, open house from 2-4:30 at James Reeb Unitarian Universalist Congregation on Madison’s east side.
The fall olive harvest in Palestine is traditionally a time of celebration and productivity. Accounting for as much as 25 percent of Palestine’s economy, olives are the economic backbone of many families and villages.
But this year’s Madison event takes place amid unprecedented violence and destruction.
Ninety percent of Gaza’s olive trees – an estimated one million out of 1.1 million – are buried under rubble, uprooted by military bulldozing, or dead from lack of water and cultivation. Since the ceasefire, near-daily Israeli airstrikes have killed over 300 children and over 100 adults, and there will be no harvest there.
In the occupied West Bank, where olives are so critical to the economy, Israeli military bulldozers have already uprooted over 20,000 trees this year alone, destroying over 76,000 acres of agricultural land and the livelihoods of countless families and villages.
For families whose trees remain standing, spiking settler violence will make this year’s harvest the most dangerous ever. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports a current average of 6 violent settler attacks per day, resulting in thousands of injuries. Together Israeli armed forces and settlers have killed over 80 people this year in the West Bank, including 19 children.
The Madison-Rafah Sister City Project remains committed to helping farmers in the southern West Bank replace trees destroyed by Israeli settlers and soldiers, and the Solidarity Fair will invite attendees to sponsor an olive tree in the Madison-Masafer Yatta Olive Grove. Replanting these trees is a concrete way to support Palestinians, who care for them as a way of resisting dispossession and expressing their deep attachment to their land.
The event will also include Palestinian snacks, a Tatreez (traditional embroidery) workshop, book-making hosted by Andaleeb Cartonera, kite decorating, letter writing and advocacy, and children’s activities including story time and olive seed planting.
It will also feature a live feed to the People’s Tribunal on US Government Complicity in Palestine, being held the same day in Seattle, WA by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and others.
Why We Record: Defying Fragmentation and Erasure in Palestine, a visual exhibit from Visualizing Palestine and the American Friends Service Committee, will be on display.
Palestinian olive oil, crafts, and embroidery will be available for sale and the event will be followed by kite-flying, weather permitting.
Madison’s Solidarity Fair is one of many global actions being held October 9-11, coordinated by the Global Alliance for Palestine and calling for an end to the Gaza genocide and an arms embargo on Israel.
This drop-in event is free and open to the public and is co-sponsored by Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, Palestine Partners, Playgrounds for Palestine-Madison, Read Palestine, Madison Mennonite Action, Jewish Voice for Peace-Madison, Vets for Peace-Clarence Kailin Chapter, Madison for a World Beyond War, Madison DSA and the Madison chapter of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
Facebook Event
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Email: rafahsistercity@yahoo.com
Donna Wallbaum 608-235-7870
Cassandra Dixon 608-445-0357
Amy Atalla-Hill 608-514-5432
