September, 27 2019, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Akhila Kolisetty, MADRE, akolisetty@madre.org, (646) 461-3877
Katherine Quaid, WECAN, katherine@wecaninternational.org, (541) 325-1058
Women's Rights and Climate Activists to Host Briefing on A Feminist Agenda for the Green New Deal
Climate justice and women’s rights activists introduce set of collective feminist demands for Green New Deal policies, programs
WASHINGTON
A broad coalition of climate justice and women's rights activists will host a Congressional briefing on A Feminist Agenda for the Green New Deal on September 27, 2019 from 12 to 1 p.m. in the Capitol Building, Room H-122.
The coalition includes MADRE, the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), the Sierra Club, the NAACP, Ginew, and the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil.
Earlier this week, the coalition launched a set of collective feminist principles to help advance the Green New Deal. These 10 key principles call for climate policy analysis through an intersectional gender lens, reproductive justice, the creation of regenerative economies, a shift from exploitative and unsustainable production patterns and a rejection of false solutions to the climate crisis.
As New York Climate Week and the UN Climate Summit bring attention to the climate crisis and interest in the US Green New Deal Resolution grows, the coalition seeks to engage with Members of Congress; policy, activist and community groups; and others on the importance of centering gender justice, global justice, frontline communities, Indigenous leadership and human rights in Green New Deal programs and policies.
Available for interviews:
- Bridget Burns, Director of the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO).
- Diana Duarte, Director of Policy and Communications at MADRE.
- Jacqui Patterson, Sr. Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program.
- Maria Luisa Mendonca, Co-Director of Rede Social de Justica e Direitos Humanos (Network for Social Justice and Human Rights) in Brazil.
- Osprey Orielle Lake, Founder and Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN).
- Tara Houska, Couchiching First Nations Ojibwe, a tribal attorney, founder of grassroots frontlines collective Ginew, co-founder of Not Your Mascots, and former Native advisor to Bernie Sanders.
The coalition thanks Representative Barbara Lee for sponsoring the room for this event.
Comments from Feminist Green New Deal Coalition Partners:
Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director, Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) said, "The extreme magnitude and scope of the climate crisis requires that the Green New Deal (GND) addresses root causes of socio-ecological demise and offers bold, systemic change. In response to this need, GND Feminist Principles are essential in the strategy and implementation of climate solutions to advance a vision and actions that confront historical oppressions nationally and globally, and to ensure that community-led solutions are heeded and that Indigenous and frontline communities, peoples of color, women and girls, and all who have been marginalized are centered in decision-making. There is no time to lose in generating actionable policies and agendas that are truly just across all sectors as we work ceaselessly for a healthy future for people and planet."
Bridget Burns, Director, Women's Environment and Development Organization said, "The Green New Deal resolution marked an important moment in advancing the tireless work of indigenous peoples, local communities, researchers and grassroots advocates across this country and around the world who put their hearts and bodies on the line to protect people and the planet every day. It is long past time for bold, unwavering, and moral leadership in the United States to legislate the ambitious and large-scale policy shifts needed - shifts that are rooted in addressing systemic inequalities within communities across this country, and around the world, who suffer the first and worst impacts of climate change while contributing the least. For Green New Deal policies to work towards true systemic change, it must embody the principles of a transformative feminist agenda for change - where gender equality, human rights, and environmental integrity are at the heart of creating a peaceful and healthy planet."
MADRE Executive Director Yifat Susskind said, "The Green New Deal presents a vital opportunity for us to secure a more just and sustainable future--by recognizing the social and global dimensions of the climate crisis. The principles embedded in this feminist agenda offer the guidance policymakers and advocates need to put those priorities into practice, with the urgency and effectiveness that a response to climate breakdown demands."
Jessica Olson, Campaign Representative for the Sierra Club's Gender Equity and Environment Program: "The Green New Deal offers the boldest solution yet to address the root causes of the climate crisis and inequity, and together with our allies, we are proud to launch the Feminist Green New Deal principles to help move that agenda forward at the speed and scale demanded. We know that the climate crisis and inequity are not gender neutral, and together with this broad movement, we can help ensure that people across the gender spectrum, particularly women and LGBTQI people, are both at the center of the solutions and at the table making the decisions about their futures."
The Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International is a solutions-based organization established to engage women worldwide in policy advocacy, on-the-ground projects, direct action, trainings, and movement building for global climate justice.
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Bernie Sanders to Netanyahu: 'It Is Not Antisemitic to Hold You Accountable'
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Jewish U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a scathing statement Thursday pushing back against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's characterization of burgeoning protests on American university campuses as "antisemitic," declaring, "It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable for your actions."
"No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000—70% of whom are women and children," said Sanders (I-Vt.). "It is not antisemitic to point out that your bombing has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than one million people homeless—almost half the population."
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No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000 – 70% of whom are women and children.
You will not distract us from this immoral war. pic.twitter.com/oDaiyU4ipD
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 25, 2024
Sanders' statement came a day after Netanyahu
falsely described student protesters speaking out against Israel's catastrophic war on Gaza as "antisemitic mobs" and likened the demonstrations to "what happened in German universities in the 1930s."
"It has to be stopped," Netanyahu said of the campus protests, which have faced violent police crackdowns.
Students at Columbia, Princeton, the City College of New York, the University of Texas at Austin, Northwestern, and other schools nationwide are demanding that the institutions divest from any companies that are participating in or benefiting from Israel's war on Gaza and publicly support an immediate cease-fire.
On Wednesday, hundreds of UT Austin students walked out of their classrooms and marched to the main lawn of the campus before police officers with horses and riot gear
arrived on the scene, arrested dozens, and assaulted some protesters.
"One woman said she saw a large police officer place his entire body weight to detain a young woman protesting," The Texas Tribunereported. "Law enforcement was also seen kneeling on individuals' backs and necks, pulling their hair, and in one case punching a protester in the nose."
Jeremi Suri, a professor of history at UT Austin, toldAl Jazeera that contrary to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's claim, there was "nothing antisemitic" about Wednesday's protests.
"These students were shouting 'free Palestine,' that's all," said Suri. "They were saying nothing that was threatening. And as they were standing and shouting, I witnessed the police—the state police, the campus police, the city police—an army of police almost the size [of] the student group... many were carrying guns, many were carrying rifles, and then, within a few minutes, this group of police stormed into the student crowd and started arresting students."
In his statement Thursday, Sanders emphasized that criticism of Israel's massively destructive assault on Gaza cannot be conflated with antisemitism.
"It is not antisemitic to note that your government has obliterated Gaza’s civilian infrastructure—electricity, water, and sewage," said Sanders, who earlier this week voted against a foreign aid package that included $17 billion in additional U.S. military assistance for Israel.
"It is not antisemitic to realize that your government has annihilated Gaza's healthcare system, knocking 26 hospitals out of service and killing more than 400 healthcare workers," he continued. "It is not antisemitic to condemn your government's destruction of all of Gaza’s 12 universities and 56 of its schools, with hundreds more damaged, leaving 625,000 students with no education."
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Kapos is part of a small group of Shoah survivors and their descendants who "demonstrate disagreement with the use of the Holocaust experience as a cover by the Zionists and the state of Israel." They attend protests wearing signs around their necks reading, "This Holocaust Survivor Says Stop the Genocide in Gaza!"
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Holocaust Survivor Message to US Campus Protesters:
This survivor of the Holocaust is against Genocide in Gaza & conflating Jewishness with Zionism, which does nothing but increase antisemitism.
Your protests are so persistent, large and global that eventually the Western… pic.twitter.com/IDCH0NTO6m
— Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) April 24, 2024
Kapos' comments came amid a growing wave of pro-Palestine student protests—many of them Jewish-led—on dozens of U.S. university and college campuses in response to Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice in January found "plausibly" genocidal and which many Israeli and international experts say is undoubtedly a genocide.
According to Gazan and international officials, more than 122,000 Palestinians have been killed or maimed during 202 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks. This figure includes around 11,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Starvation and dehydration caused by Israel's bombardment and blockade of Gaza are killing children and other vulnerable people.
Instead of condemning Israeli leaders, the Biden administration has lavished them with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid while providing diplomatic cover for Israeli crimes and blocking recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.
As the suffering in Gaza continues, U.S. students have set up encampments or staged other forms of protest, some of which have been brutally repressed by police—who have also attacked and arrested journalists and bystanders.
On Wednesday, far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implored U.S. authorities to crack down even harder on the students, whom he called an "antisemitic mob."
Highlighting video footage of Netanyahu comparing the student protests to what happened at German universities during the rise of Nazism, Kapos said that "the way that the Israeli government is using the memory of the Holocaust in order to justify what they're doing to the Gazans is a complete insult to the memory of the Holocaust."
He said he is also protesting "the conflating of Jewishness with Zionism, which is what the Israeli state is trying to do, which does nothing but increase antisemitism."
Kapos predicted that "today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it, and I think we are not far from that."
"Today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it."
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Kapos and his comrades are part of a long history of Holocaust survivors speaking out against Israeli crimes against Palestinians.
Long before today's growing acknowledgment that Israel is an apartheid state, the late Suzanne Weiss—whose parents were murdered in Nazi-occupied France—said in 2010 that "the Palestinians are victims of ethnic cleansing and apartheid" and that "the Israeli government's actions toward the Palestinians awaken horrific memories of my family's experiences under Hitlerism."
Hajo Meyer, who survived 10 months in the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, argued during his lifetime that "what is happening to the Palestinians every day under the occupation" was "almost identical" to "what was done to the German Jews before the 'Final Solution,'" and that instead of making Jews safer, Israeli policies and practices were stoking the flames of antisemitism.
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A report published Wednesday found that the number of people around the world suffering acute hunger surged to 282 million last year amid the intensifying climate crisis and military conflicts—including Israel's assault on Gaza—that have further enriched weapons manufacturers.
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Extreme weather events fueled by the continued burning of oil, gas, and coal "were the primary driversin 18 countries where over 77 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity, up from 12 countries with 57 million people in 2022," the document added.
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"It is unforgivable that over 281 million people are suffering acute hunger while the world's richest continue to make extraordinary profits, including the same aerospace and defense corporations helping to fuel conflict, the main driver of hunger," said Farr. "The top 100 arms companies have hoarded nearly $600 billion in revenues just in 2022—enough to cover the U.N. global humanitarian appeal almost 13 times."
"States must prioritize justice and peace over politics, and radically reform global peace and security bodies to protect international law rather than perpetuate impunity."
Israel's war on Gaza and Russia's assault on Ukraine have been a major boon for the global weapons industry, propelling arms makers to record profits as governments ramp up orders for tanks, howitzers, missiles, and other lethal military equipment.
"This is a form of corporate welfare not only for the largest weapons manufacturers, like Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, and General Dynamics, which have seen their stock prices skyrocket, but also for companies that are not typically seen as part of the weapons industry, such as Caterpillar, Ford, and Toyota," the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) noted in a recent analysis.
Late last year, AFSC created an online database that allows users to see which companies are profiting from Israel's military assault on the Gaza Strip.
WFP's global hunger report was released on the same day U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a measure containing tens of billions of dollars in additional military assistance for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.
Reutersreported Thursday that Lockheed Martin and RTX—major arms manufacturers—"stand to profit" from the aid package's "$95 billion of mostly new weapons funding."
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Farr said Wednesday that "we cannot drastically change course without a global awakening."
"States must prioritize justice and peace over politics, and radically reform global peace and security bodies to protect international law rather than perpetuate impunity," said Farr. "Governments must also rehaul our global food system, tax the rich to invest in the public majority—the small farmers, workers, and vulnerable communities—and support green economies."
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