The Jayyous Women's Charitable Society founded in 1980 in Qalqilya, Palestine, is leading a women's march to the West Gate of the Separation Wall on Thursday October 23 at 8 am (see their email below). The Global Women's Strike has been in touch with them and issued the following statement of support. The Strike will be holding a support action at lunchtime in the center of Galway as part of Palestine Support Week in Ireland North and South. In London the weekly Anti-War Community Picket in Parliament Square will give the latest news. The US Strike network is working to get media coverage of the March.

Please circulate widely, add your name to the statement and send it back to us (see contact emails below) so we can put together a list of endorsers, and send emails to the Jayyous women at info@palsolidarity.org

Stop the world and change it. Invest in Caring Not Killing Global Women's Strike

Global Women's Strike in US:
West Coast: Los Angeles - la@crossroadswomen.net, Phone/Fax 323-292-7405; San Francisco - sf@crossroadswomen.net, Phone/Fax 415-626-4114
East Coast: Philadelphia - philly@crossroadswomen.net, Phone 215-848-1120, Fax 215-848-1130

Web: http://womenstrike8m.server101.com

Message of Support from the Global Women's Strike to the Jayyous Women's Charitable Society
'WOMEN MARCH AGAINST THE WALL
Mothers demand right to feed their children'
Jayyous, Qalqilya, Palestine October 23, 2003

We send love and solidarity for your March that expresses women's absolute opposition to the Wall's ghettoisation of Palestinian society, the theft of its land, and the genocide of its people. You act for women all over the world who face unending violence, as well as for all - Muslim, Jewish, Christian, atheist . . . - who oppose the particular form of apartheid you confront daily.

We are women from an international network which has been campaigning since 1972 to make visible women's unwaged caring work and our right to society's support for this work. Our central demand is that society Invest in Caring, not Killing, and that military budgets be returned first of all to carers.

The struggle in Palestine is portrayed as a struggle only of men. Yet it is clear that the Occupation which has imposed racist violence, heartbreak and loss on the entire population, also has meant a tremendous workload for women. Without the caring work that women do, families and communities would not survive or be able to sustain the extraordinary resistance to the occupying force that we witness every day. Yet women's vital contribution to this struggle is hidden and unrecognised, and women's demands are as invisible as our work.

The Occupation of Palestine is never connected with any other imperialist occupation - just as the holocaust against Jewish people has been disconnected from the many holocausts, beginning with that of Indigenous people and enslaved Africans hundreds of years ago, which continue to this day.

All over the world, populations are organising massive resistance to US economic domination enforced by military might. US military spending is more than half of the $900+ billion world expenditure. Israel, the US policeman in the Middle East, is the third largest world military power.

From Colombia and Venezuela to Angola and Congo, Vietnam and East Timor, we have faced invasions, military dictatorships, coups, death squads, assassinations, disappearances . . . We have had governments forced on us, while those we have chosen were eliminated. And every time, it is women, starting with mothers, who have organised for the right to survival and to food for our children, spearheading movements which have led to the defeat of our oppressors.

In London (England), Galway (Ireland) and some US cities we hold weekly pickets against the occupation and exploitation of Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Congo and other countries where imperial powers are perpetrating genocide for the benefit of corporations and political and military domination. Women in our network have held anti-war actions in many countries. We bear witness in order to save lives by publicising and supporting the struggles of our sisters in Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere.

Today, we will publicise your March on our pickets and through whatever media we have access to. We are with you, women of Jayyous; we are with you, women of Palestine; we are with you today and every day until the walls and those who build them fall.

Global Women's Strike
Argentina, England, Guyana, India, Ireland, Peru, Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, Uganda, United States, Venezuela

Original Message From International Solidarity Movement 

INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT
October 21, 2003 For Immediate Release
***Media Advisory***

WOMEN MARCH AGAINST THE WALL
Mothers demand right to feed their children

[Jayyous, Qalqilya] For the first time since the construction of the Separation Wall, Jayyous women will collectively demonstrate their opposition to the Israeli Occupation and the confiscation of their farmland. The Jayyous Women's Charitable Society will be organizing and leading a women's march on Thursday, October 23 beginning at 8 am. The march will proceed from the Jayyous Charitable Society Building down to the West Gate of the Separation Wall.

The Wall is built 6 km inside the Green Line, cutting through Jayyous farmland and impeding the natural agricultural cycle and olive harvest. The farmland in Jayyous, and all over the West Bank, provides the major source of income to Palestinian families, and the recent gate closures mean financial crisis for much of the local community. International women are invited to join the women of Jayyous in solidarity to draw attention to the suffering of men, women, and children.

The Jayyous Women's Charitable Society was founded in 1980 to promote the social, political and economic development of women in Jayyous. The Society currently has 200 active members in the 3,000 person town.

For more information please contact:
Huwaida +972-67-473-308
Francesca +972-66-290-618

For transportation information please contact:
Laura +972-58-628-014

END

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led nonviolent initiative supported by International Peace Activists from all over the world. ISM aims towards ending the Israeli Occupation in Palestine through nonviolent means.

Tel: +97222774602 Fax: +972227744773 e-mail: ism-alert@palsolidarity.org

Web: www.palsolidarity.org