A women’s march is being organised by Northern Rivers group A Mother’s Cry in solidarity with Israeli women and girls, and as a response to what the group describes as the UN’s ‘disturbing and harmful silence, following the brutal Hamas terror attacks in Israel’s south on 7 October.’
The march will take place this Sunday, 3 December, starting at Main Beach in Byron Bay. Women will gather from 9.30am, with banners and wearing white and red clothing and facial attire denoting the violence that occurred and the silence that followed.
A Mother’s Cry will commence the march at 10am, walking towards the Pass. Community members are welcome to join the mothers in solidarity.
Organisers say this event is part of a global action around the #metoounlessurajew campaign, and coincides with UN Women’s global 16 days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign.
The Byron event will be the first #metoounlessurajew march to occur in Australia.
Hypocrisy and silence
According to A Mother’s Cry, while UN Women publishes detailed reports focusing on the challenges faced by women in Gaza, it almost completely ignores the atrocities committed against women in Israel during the Hamas terror attacks.
‘To date they have made a single Instagram (where notably, many young people are getting their information about the conflict) post on the issue. Not only that, they deleted their original first post condemning Hamas. This bias and neglect highlight a significant disparity in the organisation’s approach to the crisis in the region.’
They note that António Guterres of the UN made a statement about gender-based violence on 30 November.
A Mother’s Cry quotes International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, who said, ‘We cannot leave a world for our children where burnings and executions and rapes and killings can take place as if they are normal, as if they are to be tolerated as if they can happen without consequence…
‘And when these types of acts take place, they cannot go uninvestigated and they cannot go unpunished. Because these types of crimes that we’ve all been watching, that we saw on the 7th of October, are serious violations, if proven, of international humanitarian law.’
The Mothers Cry march on Sunday is designed to expose and condemn the inaction and hypocrisy of these international bodies and call for acknowledgement and action.
Israel has made the murder of children a daily occurrence, with the evil “settlers ” murdering and stealing the Palestinian ancestral lands.
When will we unite and face this monstrosity, this terrorist state?
We must, as we have done with Russia, which has been pursuing the same agenda, we can’t allow these fascist countries to terrorise their neighbours and maintain their evil objectives, due to their illegal nuclear weaponry and the gutless response from ours and so many supposedly civilised nations.
Cheers, G”)
Yes it is shocking, both the Hamas murders and the impacts of the Israeli response, but evil “settlers ”? Jews formed the country of Israel about 3,500 years ago, followed by violent ocupations from India, Russia, Europe, Africa and regional Muslims, with the last being England, but Jews have always lived there through all those occupations, in their homeland, that has as much significance to them as Mecca has for the Muslims. Unlike Australia the Arab lands of those that stayed was not taken, and both Arabic and Hebrew were declared the official languages ( as oposed to Australia). Arabs werent forced into concentration camps as were the Aboriginals, and werent required to carry passes, and obey curfews as were the Aboriginals (including in Lismore). 20% of Israeli citizens are Palestinians, and they have their own political party which has formed govt in coalition with non Muslim parties, and they have a similar 20% representation in business and in trades and academic practices ( about 20 % of Israeli medical staff, including top medical specialists, are Israeli Palestinians).. Terrorist state? Australia where up to 1 million Aboriginal died, where english settlers spread in a line across Tasmania killing every Aboriginal, where the Aust govt gave a 10 Pound bounty on delivery of Aboriginals decapitated heads, and where Aboriginals were killed, or their bodies dug up, to send to Europe for ‘scientific investigation’, and where just about every criteria – health , life expectancy, income, education, kids in jail is worse for Aboriginals than Palestinians. Australia fits your “terrorist state” better than does Israel ( and you are the evil “settlers ” here). Israel is a democracy that presently has a distasteful right wing militarist govt ( which is hardly surprising as Hamas wants to rid Isreal of Jews and take over the country). The Israeli govt can change can change, but it will need Hamas to be eliminated (Hamas ‘s rejection of a two stage solution has been the biggest impediment to it proceeding). Hamas has now twice got voted in by a section of Palestinians to engage in war with Israel as Hamas’s founding principle – and this is the war that that section of Pallestinians voted for ( Its just not the war that slaughtered all the Jews and took over the 400 km X 200 km speck of land that is Israel). There have been major Pallestinian protests in Gaza against Hamas, which Hamas violently shut down. Israeli Pallestinian citizens have on average the highest income of all the arabs in the region – terrorist state? Illegally occupied country – your standing on it, illegal occupants – look in the mirror. I’m not an apologist for the worst excess of Israel or discount the huge rifts in Israel , but your uninformed diatribe wont head those rifts to heal.
A worthy sentiment and understandable response to other demonstrations/expressions of outrage taking place. I’d just love to see a march for all women who have become innocent tragedies of the conflict on both sides.
Sexist
I agree, I’d like to see a rally in support of all innocent victims. But for this one the organisers wanted a gender agenda.
Thank you Echo for sharing this important info. So many “Freedom supporters” around the world preffer to turn a blind eye to the atrocities commited on 7/10, and choose a one-sided narrative where Israel the bad and the Palestinians are the victim. We are all victims, from all sides, for the decision of the leaders. Both Israelis and Palestinians suffer by the hand if the genocidal terror organisation Hamas, who is openly commited to eradicate Israel, kill all Jewish people and establish an Islamic state.
The only way to peace starts with #FreePalestineFromHamas
Funny thing about being in a helicopter gunship in a chaotic situation, you can’t tell good guys from bad guys. Luckily, the new version of the Hannibal Directive now includes civilians. The tanks did the same with the Kibbutzes. Eretz Israel, from the river to the river, is to have no non-Jews in it. Your hasbara is not of peace. By implying that only one side wants to remove the other, you are perpetuating that conflict. The Israelis do deadly incursions into Gaza, West Bank, and other countries randomly. The two sides copycat each other.
Hamas’s entire existence is to militarily defend Palestinians against Israeli violence and occupation, and their second target is Fatah. “A Mother’s Cry” might direct their attention to the Israeli government murdering thousands of women, children, men, elderly, and utterly destroying infrastructure for generations to come. They can also focus on the West Bank, where Palestinian families continue being wrecked and displaced by settlers.
Hamas originally got voted in to install itself, by armed violence, as the governing body over all of Palestine. Palestine is a region that covers part of all of the surrounding Arab countries. The surrounding Arab countries forced Hamas in 1985 to amend its Islamic Jihad occupation proposal to just taking over Israel within the adopted Israeli borders. It is only the Iranian backed sectors in adjoining countraies that support Hamas, none of the adjoining countries govts do – they already have major problems with internal Islamic Jihad factions. “defend Palestinians” – not if you want Hamas gone, or are gay, or a woman who dishonors her family, or want to vote for Fatah, or a Muslim whos married a Jew, or a women who wants to not wear Islamic imposed dress and not be subservient to men as the Koran dictates, or who doesnt want her or her daughters subjected to Female Genital Mutilation ( although illegal in Egypt, 80% of female Egyption children have had FGM, so I suspect it is a higher rate under the fundamentalist Hamas). “occupation” – Gaza was taken in war from Egypt (and no claim for a Pallestinian state before Israel took it). The West Bank was taken from Jordan, and all of the Arabs that fled to Jordan on the reestablishment of Israel were given Jordanian citizenship (ie most of them have a country – Jordan) . Both these areas were taken in war from adjoining countries, but both these countries now have peace with Israel and dont want these territories back . The region is riddled with Islamic violence, and the Israel Hamas war, while terribly shocking, is just one minor skirmish – since the middle of last century Muslims have killed somewhere between 5 and 10 Million more other Muslims, than anyone else.
Hamas can’t defend Palestine, all they can do is retaliate.
You may also be interested in looking up the following articles….
New York Times: ‘Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago’
New York Times: ‘The Oct. 7 Warning That Israel Ignored’
Washington Post: ‘How Israel helped create Hamas’
Democracy Now: ‘“Divide and Rule”: How Israel Helped Start Hamas to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood’
This would make more sense to you if you had gotten to read my original comment.
very short sighted in only looking at the actions of Hamas. All violations of women’s rights should demand the same attention. Israel has so many human rights violations for approaching 76 years. Approx 16,000 deaths of Palestinian the majority being children, then women.
Thank you for finally covering real important information regarding the Middle East