Palestinian Human Rights are a Feminist Cause
There has been a lot of misquoted and out-of-context coverage recently about SlutWalk Chicago’s stance when it comes to Israel’s policies toward Palestinians. We want to set the record straight.
As a feminist, transnational movement calling for an end to rape culture, we march in solidarity with all Palestinians suffering the impact of the State of Israel’s brutal policies.
The reasons for this are simple. In the words of Linda Sarsour, one of the architects of the 2017 Women’s March who also organized “A Day Without a Woman,” “You either stand up for the rights of all women, including Palestinians, or none.” In a nutshell, women’s rights are human rights.
If the rights of Palestinians are degraded by the State of Israel’s policies across the whole territory they control – including the West Bank as well as Gaza, where Israel controls all entry and exit in this tenth year of military blockade – the treatment of Palestinian women is particularly dehumanizing.
As Donna Nevel, a community psychologist and educator, has said, “Palestinian women are forced to give birth at checkpoints; their homes are bulldozed because permission to build is denied from racist Israeli authorities; Palestinians face systemic discrimination wherever they are living; and [parents] live in fear that Israeli soldiers or settlers will injure, imprison, or kill their children.”
Palestinian women activists and leaders are regularly targeted for persecution by the Israeli government, whose military tribunals have a 99% conviction rate against Palestinians.
Khitam Saafin, chairwoman of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committee, and Khalida Jarrar, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, were recently arrested by Israeli military authorities. Dareen Tatour, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, faces up to 8 years imprisonment and is in her second year of house arrest for posting a poem on Facebook that denounced Israeli violence, racial profiling, and occupation.
Rasmea Odeh’s story exemplifies the way the State of Israel targets Palestinian women. She was tortured - including through sexual assault - into confessing to participating in a bombing that killed two university students. During this torture, “the Israeli Army also undressed her father in front of her and threatened to force him upon her.” She recanted her confession soon after, but was nevertheless convicted by the aforementioned military courts which - again - have a 99% conviction rate. Now, almost 50 years later, the United States Department of Justice is using her forced confession to strip her of her U.S. citizenship and have her deported.
Despite the unconscionable brutality of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, some have asked us: “Why is SlutWalk singling out the cause of Palestinians and not other issues?
But we aren’t singling it out - we’re including human rights for Palestinian women alongside other cases of state violence against women, especially given the United States’ yearly, multi-billion dollar blanket support for Israeli human rights abuses.
We stand with Chicago survivors of sexual violence (often condoned or ignored by our state, government and educational institutions); therefore, we also must resist on behalf of all people worldwide what we resist at home here in Chicago. We believe borders are arbitrary and that everyone should have access to the same resources and rights. We fight for all human rights, which includes freedom of speech, justice and reparations, equity, safety, basic needs, self-determination, and bodily autonomy. SlutWalk Chicago stands for access to medical and mental health care. Basic needs includes clean water everywhere, from Flint, Michigan to Gaza. Safety includes standing against domestic violence, police brutality and state control. Bodily autonomy includes fighting against sexual assault and standing for reproductive healthcare everywhere.
We listen for the most marginalized voices - those of people of color, trans and gender expansive folks, people who are differently-abled, poor folks, sex workers, women and femmes - so that we can lift them up and ensure all are heard. And we offer megaphones when we can. The current powers want community organizers to be single-issue organizers in order to maintain the status quo and pits us against each other. We refuse to cooperate. None of us are single-issue humans.
Stances like ours threaten white supremacy because they lift up all voices of marginalized folks. We will not be cowed, distracted or divided. We stand for justice for all people, because we at Slutwalk recognize that freedom for only a few is no freedom at all, and true liberation will only be achieved when we are all free.
In solidarity,
SlutWalk Chicago