Eyeglass cases from Gaza made by Atfaluna Crafts. Available from shoppalestine.org
For up-to-date information about the Middle East Peace & Justice Action Committee, including participation details for future planning and action meetings — please contact MEPJAction@wilpfUS.org to reach the committee leadership.
Mission
- Educate and organize WILPF members and the community on Middle East issues
- Urge the media to cover the Middle East with fairness and analysis of root causes
- Lobby Congress, local governments and the United Nations for laws, policies and expenditures that respect the dignity of all Middle Eastern people
- Collaborate with groups and communities to support a culture of peace and justice in the Middle East
Vision
We envision a Middle East in which all people have equitable access to resources, equal human rights, and fundamental freedoms.
Values
- Adherence to international law without exceptions
- The right of civil society to organize nonviolently for freedom and justice
- Equal standing of all stakeholders at negotiations
- Participation of women in the peaceful resolution of all conflicts
- The obligation to investigate and make reparations for personal harm caused by state violence
History
Libby Frank founded the WILPF US Section Middle East Committee in the early 1970s, the period during which WILPF International declared support for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, a peace conference under UN auspices, and the creation of a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the area. In 1975 Libby Frank and Edith Ballantyne, WILPF International Secretary General, led a mission to Palestine, Israel and Lebanon to understand the problems Arab and Israeli women face and gain better knowledge of their status in society, their activities and their aspirations.
Women of Jerusalem by Palestinian Artist Rawan Anani.
Resources
Booklet “Hamas at the Middle East Peace Table: Why?”
Barbara Taft & Ellen Rosser, Authors
If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
—Desmond Tutu
For nearly three years our Middle East Peace & Justice Action committee researched available material and wrote: "Hamas at the Middle East Peace Table: Why?" the two women tasked with the writing have been witnesses to history as well as documentarians. They had help from our editorial committee. Our goals in presenting this subject remain the same today, as when the booklet was written---we believe that chances of peace are greatly improved when all parties are present at the negotiating table. This requires enemies to speak to one another--and also to listen to one another. In order for this to happen, we must urge the U.S. State Department to remove Hamas from its list of terrorist organizations. As long as Hamas remains on that list, all participants are restricted in not being able to speak with a major party which needs to be included.
We hope our readers will join with us and move to action for peace in the region.
Read the booklet by Barbara Taft and Ellen Rosser here or order copies from the national office at $1 each.
Recent Campaigns
Critique of the Israeli Government’s Actions Toward Palestinians Is Not Hatred Toward Jews
Other recent campaigns include postcards to Congress to end the Israeli siege of Gaza, support for Palestinian children in Israeli military jails, and solidarity with Palestinian human rights organizations criminalized by Israel. We are also part of the ongoing campaign for a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East.
Committee members have hosted webinars and written articles for WILPF publications to share what’s happening in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria.
Bridges Not Walls
From the US/Mexico border wall to Israel’s apartheid wall, and the nearly 70 other walls across the world, walls are erected through people’s lives and lands, separating families and intensifying state violence, surveillance, repression, and exploitation. These walls are tangible monuments of militarism and domination, unilaterally defining and fortifying borders and state control.
Together, we can help build bridges and tear down walls.
From the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights webpage (WILPF is a member of this coalition)
SPECIAL NOTE: Similar legislation will be introduced in the 118th Congress (2023-2024)
Congresswoman Betty McCollum (DFL-Minn.) introduced legislation to ensure that US funding to Israel isn’t used for specific purposes including: ill-treatment, torture, prosecution of children in Military Courts plus – forcible transfer, home demolitions, annexation of Palestinian land – 30 official signers plus over 200 organizations. We supported HR 2407, including instituting a postcard campaign and inviting all WILPF’s branches to participate.
MEPJAC works in coalition with Defense for Children International-Palestine, a children’s right organization that documents, exposes and defends children against all forms of violence, whether physical or psychological. DCI-P’s comprehensive approach focusing on monitoring, advocacy, awareness-raising and legal services, the combined impact of which is to expose and mitigate the ongoing violence against children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Since June 1967, when Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip following six days of armed conflict, children living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory have inhabited an environment characterized by violence and instability. Over 1,800 children have been killed across the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 2000.
Violence against children takes many forms, encompassing physical violence such as injury from gunfire or crowd control weaponry, beatings and torture, or individual attacks. It includes psychological violence that arises from fear of arrest or physical harm, as well as the psychological interrogation techniques employed by the Israeli army. It includes discrimination and neglect perpetrated by the Israeli and Palestinian authorities.
An estimated 10,000 Palestinian children have been detained by Israeli security forces and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system since 2000. Independent monitors such as Human Rights Watch have documented that these children are subject to abuse and, in some cases, torture — specifically citing the use of chokeholds, beatings, and coercive interrogation on children between the ages of 11 and 15. In addition, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found that Palestinian children are frequently held for extended periods without access to either their parents or attorneys. The United States Department of State and the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child have also raised serious concerns about the mistreatment of Palestinian children in Israeli military custody.
How Can I Make You Understand?
A poem by Barbara Taft, Co-chair emeritus
How can I make you understand
That people are dying by your hand?
And how can I help, so you can see,
That people there just want to be free?
You own much land, I’ve heard it said,
And you must know, within your head,
That you would fight to keep that land.
How can I make you understand?
People whose land was ripped away
Seventy years ago still hurt today.
All they want is to return—
The loss of land makes their hearts burn
And yearn one day to go back home.
Without their land, they only roam.
If someone took your land away,
I wonder if you wouldn’t say,
“This land is mine; I want it back,”
And those who stole it, you would attack,
At first with words, but on deaf ear;
You’d force the issue until they hear.
Would you be brave enough to die?
Or would you only sit and cry?
Or maybe you would let stones fly
To make the world your plight decry.
After all, when you were peaceful,
Trying their heartstrings to pull,
They lied and said you were a threat
As a way to shirk their debt,
And with live fire, they set upon you,
Wreaking death and pain to all who
Wanted only what is their due—
A chance to live as you now do,
Upon their land that they still see:
In their mind’s eye: their history.
Past articles, statements and alerts:
May 2019: Support New Bill on Human Rights for Palestinian Children
by Genie Silver
July 2018: WILPF US supports bill to end Israeli military detention of Palestinian children
by Jan Corderman
April 2018: Rachel Corrie we will not forget you
By Odile Hugonot Haber
January 2018: The situation of the children of Palestine
by Odile Hugonot Haber
March 2016: No way to treat a child campaign
by Odile Hugonot Haber
December 8, 2017: Yemen: Time to End its Suffering
Statement on the War in Yemen
Statement on Syria by the WILPF-US Middle East committee
Take Action Now! Cut off Aid to Egypt Until Democracy is Restored
