MadisonRafah.org

The Madison-Rafah Sister City Project (MRSCP)

Posts

Apr 9, 2025

❝Random Quotes❞

They’re willing to kill anybody, imprison anybody, and whatever the international community says or the UN says or some human rights organizations say, they’re not bothered by it. And that’s also a new element in the world. — Anne Applebaum, author of Autocracy, Inc, Jul 24, 2024. She’s talking about North Korea, but it could be Israel, or the United States.

  • Gaza aid flotilla plans to challenge Israeli blockade

    By Kareem Fahim and Beril Eski, The Washington Post April 21, 2024 at 3:00 a.m. EDT ISTANBUL — A flotilla of ships bound for the Gaza Strip is preparing to sail from Turkey in the coming days, organizers say, on a mission aimed at breaching Israel’s naval blockade and highlighting the lack of aid reaching Palestinians in the besieged enclave.…

  • ‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 196

    Israel strikes Iran, Gaza health ministry says Israel destroyed the Strip’s health system Israel targets Iranian bases in Isfahan with drones, while Iranian sources say air defenses intercepted the attack. Meanwhile, Gaza’s health ministry says the northern Gaza Strip is left without any health services. BY QASSAM MUADDI  APRIL 19, 2024  PALESTINIANS GATHER TO BUY BREAD FROM…

  • Calendar

    📅 See all upcoming events in the header and phone (☰) menu calendar

  • Why Hundreds of People are about to Sail to Gaza

    View this post on Instagram A post shared by Freedom Flotilla Coalition (@gazafreedomflotilla) Why the Flotilla? A video with Ismail of the Mavi Marmara Association and a view of the Freedom Flotilla ships.

  • Protect the Freedom Flotilla emergency mission

    Washington, DC | www.adc.org | April 19, 2024 – Your help is urgently needed to push Congress to protect brave civilians on the Freedom Flotilla’s nonviolent mission. The Freedom Flotilla is an emergency civilian aid mission, in which multiple ships are sailing to Gaza with more than 5000 tons of life-saving aid. Hundreds of people, including many Americans, are…

  • April 26, 2024: Apartheid Wall Rally

    Students for Justice in Palestine — UW-Madison is organizing an Apartheid Wall Rally with details TBA.

  • April 25, 2024: Palestinian Benefit at The Bur Oak

    Good people of Madison, are you ready to raise funds for those who are trapped in the devastating conflict in the Middle East? Let’s come together and generate some crucial assistance for this cause, and enjoy some live entertainment while doing so!  On April 25th at The Bur Oak, we’re uniting for an evening of…

  • April 25, 2024: Stories from Gaza

    Students for Justice in Palestine — UW-Madison will present a panel of university students and community members who have family living in Gaza. They will be sharing the current lived experiences of their families, and ways to help: RSVP Stories of Palestine: Stories of Gaza Panel.

  • April 23, 2024: Palestine Prisoners

    Students for Justice in Palestine — UW-Madison will hold an event of action for the Holy Land Foundation Five who were imprisoned over a decade ago for sending aid to Palestinian orphans: RSVP Stories of Palestine: Prisoners’ Event.

  • April 23, 2024: Refaat Alareer — The Power of Telling the Story of Gaza

    12-1:30 pm CT In December, Palestinian poet and professor Refaat Alareer was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike in Gaza. In this special event, authors, editors, and the publisher of the anthology “Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire” will come together to honor Refaat’s life, memory, and legacy. Livestreamed on You Tube. Sponsored by…

  • April 22, 2024: Living Under Apartheid

    Students for Justice in Palestine — UW-Madison will present an apartheid panel of university professors and students to discuss their life growing up under apartheid: RSVP Stories of Palestine: Living Under Apartheid Panel.

  • April 22 – 26, 2024: SJP Palestine Solidarity Week

    Students for Justice in Palestine — UW-Madison is holding its annual Palestine Solidarity Week on the theme “Stories of Palestine.” We would love to see you there! 4/22: Kickoff event with an apartheid panel of university professors and students who will discuss their life growing up under apartheid: RSVP Stories of Palestine: Living Under Apartheid Panel. 4/23: An…

  • The Freedom Flotilla’s Voyage to Break Israel’s Siege

    Peace activists aim to sail through the military blockade of Gaza. BY SAURAV SARKAR  APRIL 18, 2024 Hundreds of civilians from more than thirty countries will be sailing into the Israeli Navy’s blockade in a show of defiance and solidarity with the people of Gaza. Dubbed the Freedom Flotilla, this latest effort to break the Israeli siege…

  • Blinken Is Refusing to Sanction Israeli Military Linked to Killings or Rapes

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The allegations at issue mostly took place in the West Bank and occurred before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Credit: Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/AFP/Getty Images A State Department panel told Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the U.S. should restrict arms sales to Israeli military units credibly accused of human rights…

  • Gaza Postcards Delivered to Tammy Baldwin’s Office

    Today the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project delivered postcards written during the recent Rachel Corrie commemoration, along with an event flier, to Senator Tammy Baldwin’s office in Madison. The cards called for an immediate and permanent Gaza ceasefire, the opening of Gaza to unlimited humanitarian aid, and an end to US support of the Israeli military.…

  • Gaza Journalists Call Out Media Complicity

     On April 27, members of the U.S. media, celebrities, and politicians will wine and dine with President Biden and members of his administration at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.   Since October 7, Israeli forces have killed at least 125 journalists in Gaza –  more journalists than have ever been killed in a single country over…

  • Can AIPAC’s millions oust the Squad?

    As a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project cannot support or oppose specific political parties or candidates.  In one week, Democratic Congresswoman Summer Lee is up for re-election in her Pittsburgh area district. This is the first primary where a Congressperson who has openly called for a ceasefire in Gaza will face opponents backed…

  • Israel Kills Family, and Paramedics Given Safe Passage

    Palestinian paramedics said Israel gave them safe passage to save a 6-year-old girl in Gaza. They were all killed.  By Meg Kelly, Hajar Harb, Louisa Loveluck, Miriam Berger and Cate Brown Washington Post, April 16, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. For three-and-a-half long hours on Jan. 29, the cellphone in 6-year old Hind Rajab’s hands was the closest thing she had to a lifeline.…

  • Freedom Flotilla Emergency Gaza Mission

    #BreakTheSiege and #EndTheBlockade Apr 14, 2024 İSTANBUL Retired U.S. Army Colonel & former U.S. diplomat Ann Wright introduces our upcoming Freedom Flotilla Coalition emergency mission to #BreakTheSiege and #EndTheBlockade of Gaza. Flotilla Updates!

  • Stop Funding Genocide

    Go to https://www.notmytaxdollars.org

  • Israel’s Policy of Targeting Humanitarian Relief

    The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, @AlMezanCenter and @alhaq_org condemn Israel’s deliberate targeting of the World Central Kitchen (WCK) team through airstrikes, despite prior coordination of the convoy’s movement in the central Gaza Strip. Seven members of WCK team were… pic.twitter.com/5CoJiG4Nr2 — Palestinian Centre for Human Rights – PCHR (@pchrgaza) April 8, 2024

  • Sign to End U.S. complicity in Israel’s genocide

    The images of Palestinian children’s bodies hanging from the sides of bombed buildings or the cries of mothers holding their lifeless babies will never be forgotten. Witnessing the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza has changed us all.  With U.S. diplomatic and financial support, as well as U.S. weapons, Israel’s government has displaced 2 million Palestinians…

  • Update from Middle East Children’s Alliance

    Thank you so much for your support of the Middle East Children’s Alliance. At this devastating time, we want to share an online version of the most recent MECA newsletter to tell you about our emergency aid response in Gaza, and to provide some other news. Since this newsletter went out in the mail, the…

  • April 12, 2024 Gaza Freedom Flotilla & War Tax Resistance

    12 noon – 1 pm 89.9 FM or listen live online here. Join host Esty Dinur as she talks with Palestinian-American & Freedom Flotilla veteran Huwaida Arraf and local activist Cassandra Dixon about the latest plans of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla to sail to Gaza.   The flotilla will include a large cargo ship carrying thousands of tons of humanitarian aid,…

  • April 18, 2024: Israel Has Formed a Task Force to Carry Out Covert Campaigns at US Universities

    The author will be interviewed by Allen Ruff on Thursday, April 18 from 12 noon – 1 pm on WORT 89.9 FM, live online, or future archive. A major Israeli news site says Israel’s foreign affairs and diaspora affairs ministries are behind the operation. William I. Robinson, TRUTHOUT, March 23, 2024 Demonstrators march in solidarity…

  • April 16, 2024: CODEPINK Online Regional Meeting

    6:00pm – 7:00pm (CT) CODEPINK is hosting an interest meeting for people in the Madison area who may have been inspired to act by recent events in Palestine and want to get involved, but don’t know how.  April 16 at 6 PM interested people in the Madison, WI area are invited to join a short Zoom call to get…

  • 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 Music by Ensemble Shamaali, featuring Oud, Drum and Flute Join us for Madison’s annual event honoring the life of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old peace activist from Olympia, WA. She was crushed to death…

  • April 11, 2024: Journalist Arun Gupta on Debunked Oct. 7 Atrocity Stories

    12 noon – 1 pm WORT Radio 89.9 FM or listen live online here.  In the days following the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, numerous reports of horrifying atrocities perpetrated on civilians of all ages rapidly appeared across the media sphere. While some of the key accounts eventually came to be refuted by respected Israeli…

  • 41,000 FLAGS TO HONOR PALESTINIAN LIVES LOST

    Sandra Whitehead | Wisconsin Muslim Journal | Apr 9, 2024 Photos by Kamal Moon More than 100 people planted flags Sunday on Marquette University’s campus for Palestinians killed in Gaza since Oct. 7.Marquette University students arrived on campus yesterday to a sea of 41,000 green, red and white flags, each honoring a Palestinian life lost…

  • I’m Jewish, and I’ve covered wars. I know war crimes when I see them.

    Opinion By Peter Maass April 9, 2024 at 5:45 a.m. EDT   Palestinians view the damage at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on April 1. (Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters) Peter Maass is the author of “Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War.” He covered the Bosnia war for The Post, and the invasion of Iraq for…

  • Pocan discusses Gaza and Biden visit to Madison

    “It appears to be a collective punishment of all Palestinians in Gaza.” April 8, 2024 Any new assistance for Israel has to have conditions. We can’t allow them to continue to bomb people who don’t even have food and water. We need to be able to protect aid workers. We’re providing aid but we have…

  • Biden visits Wisconsin after primary warning signs

    “I was surprised to see the intensity on the issue of Gaza coming not from a student voice out of Madison, but older voters in more rural parts of the district,” Rep. Mark Pocan said President Joe Biden delivers remarks during a campaign event with Vice President Kamala Harris in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, March 26,…

  • Update April 8, 2024: Madison Rally to Protest Biden

    “Joe, Stop the Gazacide” Sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace — Madison, Students for Justice in Palestine — UW-Madison, and World Beyond War Madison Chapter. Madison College News: President Biden to visit Madison College Truax campus on April 8 More Published: April 7, 2024  Topic: Community This story was updated as of 2 pm CST…

  • justvisionmedia Tribute to Gaza Journalists

    View this post on Instagram A post shared by Just Vision (@justvisionmedia)

  • Israel’s war on Gaza

    Six relentless months of death and destruction A look at the devastating toll Israel’s war on Gaza has taken on the Palestinian people. By Maziar Motamedi and Alia Chughtai, Al Jazeera, 7 Apr 2024 It has been six months since Israel launched its brutal assault on the Gaza Strip on October 7. Israel shows no sign of stopping,…

  • We Israelis are the biggest Holocaust deniers

    OPINION The Jewish state learned that it can commit its own Holocaust in Gaza and deny that it exists. BY JONATHAN OFIR, APRIL 6, 2024 DESTRUCTION IN THE VICINITY OF AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL, GAZA CITY, APRIL 2, 2024. (PHOTO: © OMAR ISHAQ/DPA VIA ZUMA PRESS/APA IMAGES) I remember how our Israeli Prime Minster, Benjamin Netanyahu, toldHolocaust…

  • The New York Times and The Intercept on Palestinian Lives

    Apr 4, 2024, The Daily 26:15 Kim Severson, a food correspondent for The New York Times: I’m curious how you think about the speed with which Israel came out and said it was in the wrong here because as you said that’s not how Israel typically reacts to many of these situations and that makes…

  • House Democrats Demanding Biden Halt Weapons to Israel

    ‘UNJUSTIFIABLE’ In a letter to the president, the lawmakers expressed their “outrage regarding the recent Israeli airstrike which killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers”   CHARISMA MADARANG, ROLLING STONE, APRIL 5, 2024   Nancy Pelosi and President Joe Biden ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES; DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES FOLLOWING THE KILLING of seven…

  • Milestone

    7/13/2003 to 4/5/2024 20 years 9 months 7572 days Averaging 13 per day Currently  

  • International Civilian Aid Flotilla to Break the Siege of Gaza

    zohar, Freedom Flotilla Coalition, April 4, 2024 Media Release The international Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) will sail in mid April with multiple vessels, carrying 5500 tons of humanitarian aid and hundreds of international human rights observers to challenge the ongoing illegal Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. This is an emergency mission as the situation…

  • Statement from MECA on the World Central Kitchen Killings

    A statement from Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), our partner in the Grassroots to Gaza Aid Campaign, on the killing of their colleagues from  World Central Kitchen. We are devasted by Israel’s horrific attack that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza this week. MECA had the pleasure of working side by side…

  • Israel Pays a Political Price for Killing Aid Workers

    – When They’re Not Palestinians The attack that killed seven volunteers from World Central Kitchen is Israel’s latest assault on the humanitarian aid system in Gaza. This time most of the dead are Westerners, so Israel will have a hard time playing the strike down.   Children in Gaza gathering around a vehicle in the…

  • The Ghoulish Ostentatiousness of Israel’s Latest War Crimes

    It’s as if Israel is flaunting its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. JACK MIRKINSON, THE NATION, APRIL 4, 2024   Palestinians are standing next to a vehicle in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on April 2, 2024, where employees from the World Central Kitchen, including foreigners, were killed in an Israeli air strike.(Majdi Fathi…

  • ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing of Gaza

    Smoke rises after Israeli airstrikes in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, December 28, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90) The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local Call reveal. Yuval Abraham, 972+,…

  • A humanitarian catastrophe

    The U.S. calls on Israel to prevent civilian casualties while continuing to supply weapons for it TESNIM ZEKERIA AND JUDD LEGUM, POPULAR INFORMATION, APR 03, 2024 Palestinians are standing next to a vehicle in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on April 2, 2024, where employees from the World Central Kitchen (WCK), including foreigners,…

  • Israel Kills Aid Workers, Devastates Gaza’s Hospitals to Starve Palestinians

    Yesterday, an Israeli drone strike killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers who had been distributing vital food aid in northern Gaza. By deliberately killing the aid workers, Israel achieved its goal today: the charity suspended its operations, and a ship carrying hundreds of tons of desperately-needed food turned around and returned to Cyprus. The…