NEWS

Photo in the public domain 

by Jan Corderman 

December 2024

BETHLEHEM, West Bank—For a second year running, there is no Christmas cheer in Bethlehem, with tourists shunning the Palestinian city and many residents seeking a way out as the Gaza war grinds on.  Bethlehem's Manger Square in front of the Church of the Nativity is largely deserted and souvenir shops are shuttered.

"During these difficult times that our Palestinian cities are going through, especially in the Gaza Strip, it is difficult to show any signs of joy and happiness," said Issa Thaljieh, an Orthodox priest who ministers at the Nativity Church.

• 44,758 + Palestinians killed and at least 106,134 wounded in the Gaza Strip, 59% of whom are women, children, and elderly.
• 808+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This includes at least 146 children.  At least 6,250 injured.
• Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,189.  At least 8,730 injured.

Amnesty International’s December 5 report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity. The report alleges that Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip constitutes the crime of genocide under international law, the first such determination by a major human rights organization in the 14-month-old conflict. Amnesty has called on the UN to enforce a ceasefire, impose targeted sanctions on Israeli and top Hamas officials, and for western governments such as the US, the UK and Germany to stop providing security assistance and selling arms to Israel.

The US is now very alone in its support of Israel. On December 11 the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for a resolution demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which was adopted with 158 votes in favor from the 193-member assembly and nine votes against with 13 abstentions.  Palestinians and their supporters went to the General Assembly after the US vetoed a Security Council resolution on November 20 demanding an immediate Gaza ceasefire.  Algeria’s deputy UN ambassador Nacim Gaouaoui warns:  “The price of silence and failure in the face of the Palestinian tragedy is a very heavy price, and it will be heavier tomorrow.”

The WILPF US Middle East Peace & Justice Committee sponsored a webinar on the International Day of Peace, the global event that aims to promote peace and understanding, on September 21.  Perhaps you were able to join us.  Together we watched the documentary, ‘The Night Won’t End:  Biden’s War on Gaza’. Through the 1 hour 18 minute film, Fault Lines and Al Jazeera take an in-depth look at attacks on civilians by the Israeli military in Gaza and the United States’ role in the war. 

Nada Farhat, MEPJAC Leadership Team member, introduced Sharif Abdel Kouddous, the Al Jazeera correspondent for “the Night Won’t End”.  Sharif is independent print and television journalist based in New York and Cairo. He is a recipient of the George Polk Award for his investigation into the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, an Emmy award for his coverage of the Trump administration’s Muslim travel ban, and an Izzy Award for his coverage of the 2011 Egyptian revolution.  

Sharif and the documentary leave no room to question that U.S. weapons have killed civilians in Gaza in violation of both international humanitarian law and domestic law.  

MEPJAC will be hosting more webinars with Sharif. Keep an eye out for future announcements.  

The grief, sorrow, and pain are endless. And it is funded and enabled by the United States, which continues to arm the Israeli government. Congress must intervene.  Use the link below to tell Congress to demand an immediate, permanent cease-fire and humanitarian access for Gaza. Urge them to end all military funding to Israel. 

Deck the Halls (Stop the Bombs)

Stop the bombs, the news is dire!  Fa la la la la, la la la la.
We demand a full ceasefire.   Fa la la la la, la la la la.
No more money for these weapons.   Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Tis the season, peace now beckons. Fa la la la la, la la la la.

We can’t bomb our way to peace.    Fa la la la la, la la la la.
When will all this suff’ring cease?  Fa la la la la, la la la la. 
Weapon sales fill U.S. pockets.  Fa la la la la, la la la la.
See the blazing bombs and rockets.   Fa la la la la, la la la la.

U.S. blesses Israel’s tactics.   Fa la la la la, la la la la.
That’s B.S. ye lads and lasses!   Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Sing we now in holy anger.   Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Sing for ev’ry friend and stranger.   Fa la la la la, la la la la.

• “Act Now” link from American Friends Service Committee
• MEPJAC Webinar 9.21.2024 Intro & Q&A
• ‘The Night Won’t End’: Biden’s War on Gaza, by Al Jazeera (1:18:36)

Snow Queen by Tamara Lorincz

by Glo McMillan
WILPF Tucson and Re-Start Chicago WILPF Team, DISARM
edited by Cherrill Spencer
Chair of DISARM

December 2024

Thanks to all those who worked collaboratively on the Snow Queen “Tamara Lorincz-Inspired” painting suggestions and more actions beyond this one painting to give visibility PR assistance from our new CCS action group at WILPF US. We are fully integrating the arts into our social activism at the national level and anybody who wishes can join. JOIN CCS E-group e-list by emailing me at: Scifi200111@gmail.com

Inspired by this Canadian WILPFER’s moral courage when Gloria McMillan learned about Tamara’s Lorincz’s trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, for a peace and ecology conference, Gloria informed our CCS collaborative action team and started on a painting of The Snow Queen for this CCS project.  Our CCS is helping Tamara in tangible and intangible ways to gain some visibility in WILPF US. Tamara was able to attend some conferences and to speak at schools in both St. Petersburg and Moscow in late September to, most importantly, attend The Peace, Nature, Cooperation in The Baltic and Arctic Regions Conference in St. Petersburg from September 21-22, 2024. Read Tamara’s complete report for more details on where she went and what she accomplished. 
Photo: WILPF Canada’s Tamara Lorincz attends peace conference in St. Petersburg, Russia! Tamara Lorincz (l), Finland’s Lea Launokati and Ulla Klötzer (r)

As members of the new WILPF US CCS action group, we are happy to work with each other to support members initiatives. Jane Addams and the women who went to The Hague knew it was pretty hopeless to “leave it to the men” to get over arming themselves to the teeth on all sides in 1914.  What Tamara has done shows the same kind of courage that those 1200 women showed when they met at The Hague in March 1915.  Our sisters in the north are doing some inspiring actions, so we at CCS want to highlight them and hope you will share this news.

Look for more updates from CCS working group of WILPF US and—stay strong!

WILPF Canada Describes Tamara's Trip 

PDF of Tamara's full report

For more information, please contact: wilpf.canada@gmail.com

12/3/24 ANA Group Photo 

by Ellen Barfield and Ellen Thomas

December 2024

Two WILPF US members toured the Savannah River Site (SRS) on December 5, 2024, the final day of the annual Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) fall meeting. While video was only permitted inside the building where they received their tour badges, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear shared important background information before the van arrived. You can view it here.  

For a glossy perspective, SRS offers its own greenwashing tour video. Get on the Bus - Savannah River Site.

We encourage you to attend next spring’s ANA DC Days and consider becoming a member of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability! Learn more here.
 
Further Information
by Ellen Barfield 

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) Fall Meeting, held in Atlanta from December 3-5, was a powerful gathering that brought together seasoned activists and new, young nuclear opponents. Founded in 1987 as the Military Production Network, ANA was created by neighbors of U.S. nuclear weapons plants who directly faced radiation and other health threats. These early activists, including myself, had to educate ourselves about nuclear policies and learn how to challenge the government’s negligence toward its own people and the world. My own early activism began at the Peace Farm, directly across the highway from the Pantex nuclear warhead assembly plant near Amarillo, Texas.

Today, ANA has grown broader in scope, with members covering a wider geographic area and addressing diverse nuclear issues. The network includes national anti-nuclear power, anti-weapons organizations, and anti-war allies like WILPF.

At this year’s meeting, we strategized for the future—discussing fundraising, resisting the return of nuclear war threats and new weapons designs, and confronting the dangerous fantasy that nuclear power can solve the climate crisis. We also continued pushing for proper handling of nuclear waste and contaminated sites, demanding they not be “cleaned up” and dumped onto impoverished, politically marginalized communities. ANA remains a critical hub for information on nuclear issues and is working to archive and preserve oral histories from long-time members about their sites and efforts.
 

The meeting’s host, Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions (Ga WAND), has long fought the nuclear dangers in the region surrounding the Savannah River Site, located near Augusta, GA, and Aiken, SC. SRS was originally built to produce tritium and plutonium for bombs. Now, its future includes plans to produce 50 new plutonium pits per year by 2032 for new nuclear bomb designs—another step in the reckless nuclear arms race. Nearby, the Vogtle nuclear power plant is the only facility in the country with new reactors under construction, and the Barnwell nuclear waste site looms just southeast of SRS. Residents in rural and small-town communities around these facilities face ongoing threats while also relying on the limited jobs they provide. Ga WAND works carefully to educate residents, sharing critical information while recognizing their few economic options.

The Tour

Following two days of ANA business, about 15 of us boarded a bus for a guided tour of the Savannah River Site. We asked hard questions of the tour guide, who—drawing on his former broadcast news experience—delivered a skillful greenwashing narrative about SRS’s operations being “under budget, ahead of schedule, clean, and safe.” While remaining friendly, we challenged his carefully curated script.

Join us for DC Days!

One of ANA’s most impactful annual events is DC Days, a spring lobbying effort likely taking place in May 2025. Participants meet with members of Congress, federal agencies, the EPA, NNSA, and DOE to advocate for more responsible nuclear policies and the urgent phase-out of nuclear activities in the U.S. Tara Vassefi of the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) WILPF Branch is working on forming a strong local delegation for DC Days. WILPF members from farther afield should also consider joining this critical event.

Click here for a PDF of this statement.

To: President-Elect Donald John Trump and the New Federal Administration
From: The US national section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Subject: Building Detente in Europe
Date: December 10, 2024

The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, US national section (WILPF US) is a nonprofit membership organization committed to nonpartisanship. WILPF International is a non-governmental organization (NGO), assigned consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), that engages in dialogue impartially with all governments. WILPF has national sections and groups in forty-eight countries, with an international Secretary General and Secretariat based in Geneva. The WILPF International website is https://www.wilpf.org/.The WILPF US website is: https://wilpfus.org/. We will celebrate our 110^th anniversary in 2025.

Originally this statement started out as an emergency message on peace in Ukraine prompted by the tensions between superpowers threatening a nuclear war, as in 1962 and again in 1983. Without attempting to address the specifics of the diplomatic steps needed to resolve the immediate tragedy and crisis of the war in Ukraine, a topic we leave to the more knowledgeable in the political realities of today, we look ahead to the opportunities for detente that this peacemaking process may open.

From this perspective, we would like to address some concerns and issues related to averting or ending a new Cold War between the USA and the Russian Federation, and towards bringing about the vision of President Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the USSR, of "a common house of Europe."

1. The Importance of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) represents what President Gorbachev sought: a 21st-century approach to the yearnings of Europe for peace and security. In contrast, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a relic of the Cold War, a vestigial and dangerous organization analogous to the appendix in the human body, presenting the peril of provoking rather than preventing war, as may well have happened in the Ukraine conflict. We see the demilitarized architecture for Europe of Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, including some crucially important arms control agreements at the end of the old Cold War, as a safer and saner guide to a flourishing "common house of Europe." 

The OSCE has concerned itself with Ukraine both before and after the outbreak of the current conflict (February 24, 2022) and should play an integral role in peace negotiations.

We emphasize that the effectiveness of the OSCE depends on the full inclusion of the Russian Federation in its proceedings. The 110 million Russians living within the European portion of their country deserve this closer integration into the civil society of Europe, and achieving this goal will be one important aspect of building a new and equitable global economic and political order based on multipolar plurality and peace. We note that Russia has deeply yearned for this integration into European civil society since the time of Czar Peter the Great (reigned 1682-1725), an aspiration recently and fittingly reaffirmed at St. Petersburg by an international conference of women, as detailed in Section 2 below.

We emphasize that using the OSCE is a thriftier path to European security for the USA than NATO. As President Dwight David Eisenhower declared (April 16, 1953):

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

It is also a more natural path, since the OSCE evolves out of the civil society of Europe. It is a safer path for Europe, the USA, and the world at large. 

We write at a time of present and urgent danger, as signaled by this November 19, 2024, statement of nuclear weapons doctrine from the Russian Federation:  

"Furthermore, a nuclear response is considered possible in the event of a critical threat to Russia's sovereignty, including through conventional weapons, including an attack on Belarus or a massive attack by warplanes, cruise missiles, drones or other aircraft crossing the Russian border." 

We see resolving this immediate crisis and negotiating peace in Ukraine as only the first steps toward detente with the Russian Federation and further development and expansion of the structures of peace for a safer world which President-Elect Trump's predecessors Presidents Ronald W. Reagan and George H. W. Bush helped to establish. WILPF is ready to offer dialogue and suggestions throughout this process. 

2. The Importance of Women in Conflict Resolution (UNSC Resolution 1325) and the St. Petersburg Conference on Peace, Nature, and Cooperation in the Baltic and the Arctic Regions and its Declaration (October 23, 2024) 

We also affirm the central role of women in peacemaking under UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSC Resolution 1325, October 31, 2000) and progeny. We see WILPF’s role of advising our government in the USA on war and peace issues as consistent with this UNSC resolution.

This role was highlighted by the St. Petersburg Conference on Peace, Nature, and Cooperation in the Baltic and Arctic Regions, which brought together an international group of women, including many from WILPF International, and their subsequent Declaration which is available here:  https://worldbeyondwar.org/declaration-from-the-international-conference-in-saint-petersburg-russia/ 

This Declaration urges: "Instead of the militarized concept of security, put emphasis on human and common security, prioritize peace, climate cooperation, environmental sustainability, equitable resource distribution as well as social, health and educational security." An important provision of the Declaration relates to the OSCE: "We call for an OSCE Summit in 2025 to mark its 50th anniversary –  and in the spirit of the Helsinki Summit in 1975 – to include Russia and a broad spectrum of civil society." 

We emphasize that peacemaking in Ukraine and detente in Europe could serve as a model and precedent for the implementation of UNSC Resolution 1325 in other regions of the world, thus realizing the values of International WILPF.

3. Doveryay no proveryay: "Trust but verify"

We hold that a just and balanced peacemaking process resolving the Ukraine war should follow a favorite Russian adage for President Reagan: Doveryay no proveryay, or "Trust but verify." While saving Ukrainian and Russian lives is the immediate worthwhile goal, such a peace, beginning with good faith, can consist of and facilitate confidence-building measures which serve to verify the mutual trust of the parties and set the foundation for other agreements on arms control and peaceful and flourishing coexistence in a multipolar world. We see the fears of both sides, fueling a new Cold War, need to be addressed urgently:

(a) Fears on the part of the Russian Federation that the USA is out to dismember Russia and dominate the world. This worst-case scenario was regrettably made all too credible and plausible by the unwise Wolfowitz Doctrine, shortly after the old Cold War, holding that the USA would not tolerate "rivals" on the world stage (1992). We urge a swift repudiation of this pernicious doctrine which might well illustrate renowned Senator J. William Fulbright’s book title The Arrogance of Power. 

(b) Fears on the part of the USA and some Europeans that the Russian Federation is out to invade other European nations, a scenario much favored in the old Cold War. 

First and foremost, the DISARM/End Wars Committee of WILPF US declares that regardless of the specifics of a peace solution, the USA, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine must be willing to make some compromises and “cease fire” in order to agree on treaty parameters and prepare for a decade or more of cooperative restoration and rebuilding. This will be only one step in building detente in Europe.