Women of a Certain Age

Gaza Freedom March Cairo Declaration

January 1, 2010  We reaffirm our commitment to:
Palestinian Self-Determination Ending the Occupation Equal Rights for All within historic Palestine The full Right of Return for Palestinian refugees

We reaffirm our commitment to the United Palestinian call of July 2005 for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to compel Israel to comply with international law.

We call for and wish to help initiate a global mass, democratic anti-apartheid movement to work in full consultation with Palestinian civil society to implement the Palestinian call for BDS.

FreeGaza News:  Is Israel Guilty of Piracy?

Hedy Epstein video interview

Huwaida Arraf Free Gaza–and Palestine

Last month I led a group of twenty-one human rights workers on a boat from Cyprus to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. We carried toys, medicine, olive tree saplings, toolkits, a fifty-kilo bag of cement and school supplies on our small converted ferry boat.  more

WCA’s Susan Johnson in Gaza

Blogging in defense of Palestinian Rights. First hand experience, seeing for myself the disastrous effects and inhumane conditions Palestinians in the West Bank endure under Israel’s illegal occupation and the devastating destruction, suffering and shortages in Gaza inflicted by the siege and bombardment by Israeli Forces.

US lawyers report on Israeli crimes in Gaza

WCA active at home – Stacey and Matt in Brooklyn

“Numu Numu – Lullaby For Pilots” Written and performed by Yonatan Shapira.
A lullaby to Israeli pilots who dropped a 1 ton bomb on a densely populated neighborhood in Gaza, 2002, killing 14 children and other civilians, and wounding 150.

Yonatan Shapira: “I want to shout as loud as I can and ask everyone to join us in this struggle, Palestinians and Israelis who want to stop the bloodshed. The massacre will not stop unless people from all over the world will wake up, join us and call for boycott, divestment and sanctions on the Israeli government”

WCA, Active at Home: We are proud of our own Jenny and Anni, arrested with March of the Dead in Washington. See it on Bill Moyers Journal

We Are Women of a Certain Age

Formed to travel to Palestine in 2004, Women of a Certain Age continues to advocate for Palestinian human rights. We are proud to have WCA members who are active in Adalah-NY, Brooklyn for Peace, Code Pink, the Granny Peace Brigades, the Green Party, ISM, MECR, UFPJ, Women in Black, and more. Our list of friends is a growing community, and we encourage others to work with us. As mothers, grandmothers and daughters, we believe in the power and responsibility each one of us has to effect change. In the summer of 2004, we traveled to the Occupied Palestinian West Bank. We stood beside women and men who, like us, wish to live in a just world at peace. We met with Palestinians whose voices have not been heard outside the walls of occupation.We traveled to learn and returned to educate and inform our family, friends, co-workers, indeed, our fellow citizens to the true and terrible nature of the Israeli occupation.

We traveled because we cannot remain silent in the face of such obvious injustice. We cannot remain silent when Israel builds an Apartheid wall that divides a people, that tears asunder villages from fields, people from their livelihoods. We cannot remain silent when illegal settlements are maintained and expanded onto other people’s lands. We cannot remain silent as the Israeli army enforces the Occupation with walls, fences, razor wire, checkpoints, roadblocks, tear gas, bullets and bombs fired from helicopters upon innocent people. We cannot remain silent when Israeli bulldozers (made in the USA) raze Palestinian homes creating thousands of new refugees in a land of refugees.

While some of our members had over 60 years of experience as activists, for others it was an introduction to direct action. Our group was varied; teachers, social workers, artists and lawyers, Jews, Christians, Muslims and secularists. Each brought a different contribution to the group. Two women brought their daughters. Some documented the trip in photos, video and diaries.

As individuals we had a desire to see things first hand, but the group provided the impetus. We hope that as Women of a Certain Age we might inspire others to do the same. Here are some ways to travel to Israel/Palestine: Alternative Tourism Group, Birthright Unplugged, Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, Fellowship of Reconciliation, International Solidarity Movement, International Women’s Peace Service, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and more. If you’re new to this and you’d like to form a group like ours, write to us, we’d be happy to share our experience.  Join with us on the Freedom March to Gaza January 1, 2010.  Lift the siege.