“At the heart of the struggle for the Palestinian people are women. They have been at the forefront of the fight in their communities to raise awareness of their plight and to fight for justice for their people.”
Ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8th, Louise Regan calls for solidarity with the women of Palestine.
On international women’s day we speak out about the injustice that women face not only here in the UK but globally. Trade unions are built on the belief that an injustice to one is an injustice to all and that the only way to resolve this is for freedom and equality for all.
The trade union movement is a global movement and we understand that fighting for justice is a fight that we need to win globally. The struggle for the Palestinian people is not new and this year marks 75 years since the Nakba when 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes. When they left, the only thing many took with them was their keys, in the belief that they would soon return to their homes. Seventy-five years later they are still waiting.
At the heart of the struggle for the Palestinian people are women. They have been at the forefront of the fight in their communities to raise awareness of their plight and to fight for justice for their people. Women have organised local weekly demonstrations opposing the occupation, have been leaders in their local communities and regularly speak about the impact of occupation on their daily lives.
Women I have spoken to not only lead within their communities but also work to educate and support the young people locally. These are women who understand the need to educate and organise to build support for their cause. They do so with a humility and compassion which makes our job as trade unionists clear.
We have seen over the last two years numerous reports from B’Tselem, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and Al Haq calling out Israel as an apartheid state – the facts are clearly there. Since 1948, Palestinians have endured an ongoing Nakba of forced displacement, refugeehood, exile, the denial of their right to return to Palestine and an ongoing process of domination, occupation, annexation, population transfer, and settler colonisation. It is within this frame of both historic and ongoing violations that these reports have been written.
Among the many conclusions from the reports, one of the key aspects is how any description of the situation in Palestine as a ‘conflict’ ignores the reality of the situation. The prolonged occupation and the continuing transfer and expulsion of population with complete disregard for international law show that Israel’s policies are more than an apartheid regime, and amount to a colonial-settler policy in the 21st century, with the intention of uprooting and erasing the Palestinian people from their homeland.
Unfortunately there is too much silence on the international stage.
Our job is to do what our media and politicians fail to do – is to amplify the voices of the Palestinian people and, on International Women’s Day, what better place to start than to amplify the voices of Palestinian women.
Join women from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Labour and Palestine and the labour movement to hear about the current situation and our role in supporting our sisters in Palestine!
- Louise Regan is National Officer of Membership and Equalities at the National Education Union (NEU), you can follow her on twitter here.
- “Labour Women Speak Up for Palestine” is an online event hosted by Labour & Palestine on Monday, March 6th with live links from Palestine and solidarity speakers including Louise Regan; Ryvka Barnard, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Beth Winter MP; Christine Blower, Labour peer; and more. Register here.
