Photos by Cherrie Hanson

Representatives of Wisconsin organizations that work on peace and justice issues spoke at a press conference against a potential genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

“We state unequivocally the loss of Israeli lives cannot justify the genocide of Palestinian lives,” said Lorraine Halinka Malcoe, Ph.D., co-coordinator of Jewish Voice for Peace, Milwaukee. “Our government is using the deaths of Israelis to justify a rush to the genocide, to provide moral cover for the immoral push for more weapons and more deaths of Palestinian children and civilians.”

Malcoe spoke yesterday at a press conference held by a newly formed coalition of more than 25 Wisconsin-based organizations calling on the United States government to end its support of Israeli military attacks on unarmed civilians in Gaza and for fair and accurate media coverage of the unfolding war. More than 50 people gathered for the press conference held at the Islamic Resource Center in Greenfield, including media representatives, members of the various coalition member organizations and two Palestinian Americans with family members in Gaza who died in Israeli assaults.

A video of the entire press conference is available on the Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition Facebook page.

Julie Enslow (left), co-founder Peace Action Wisconsin, and Lorraine Halinka Malcoe, Ph.D., (right),co-coordinator of Jewish Voice for Peace, Milwaukee, speak after the press conference.

Following a surprise attack Saturday by Hamas militants on Israeli towns, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war in retaliation and began airstrikes on Gaza, a densely populated area with about 2.2 million inhabitants. Palestinian American Wisconsinites told the Wisconsin Muslim Journal they are fearful for family members in Gaza. 

“In the past few days, the Israeli government has brought complete and total devastation on Palestinians across Gaza, attacking hospitals, schools, mosques, marketplaces and apartment buildings,” Malcoe continued. “We mourn with broken hearts the thousands of Israeli and Palestinian lives lost in the past six days.

“We call on all people of conscience to stop the imminent genocide of Palestinians. We demand our government work towards de-escalation and that it immediately stop sending weapons to the Israeli military.”

Marin Webster Denning, a leading educator about American Indian history and culture, addressed media representatives and others gathered Thursday at the Islamic Resource Center.

Coalition formed to counter false narratives

The coalition formed “to counter false narratives about Israel’s war on Gaza,” its press release stated. Member organizations include Jewish Voice for Peace, Peace Action Wisconsin, Racine Coalition for Peace and Justice, Milwaukee Anti-War Committee, Students for Democratic Society, Syrian American Medical Society, Catholics for Peace and Justice, Black Youth Project 100, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Sun-seeker MKE Collective and We Are Many—United Against Hate, in addition to Wisconsin Muslim and Palestinian American organizations and allies. 

Mohammad Hamad (left) from Brookfield recalled his last visit with his sister Faheemah Jameel Hamad. Hamad’s wife Heather (right) holds her photograph. Faheemah Hamad was killed Monday by an Israeli airstrike on a market in Gaza. 

“Organizations are continuing to join,” Najeeb said.

The coalition is made of people from diverse faiths and no religion at all, noted Thomas Hanssen, Ph.D., of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. “We represent America. 

“We are here today … because we are as angry as we can be. The bombs that are falling on Gaza right now were paid for with our tax dollars and we as Americans need to demand for this to end.” 

Mahmoud Malas (left) of Menomonee Falls speaks with Ibrahim Jaber (right) after the press conference.

“If you listen to the news media, and if you listen to our elected officials who know better, you would think that history just started on Saturday and the only people who have suffered are the Israelis,” Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition executive director Janan Najeeb said at yesterday’s press conference. “There is complete disregard for the dispossession of the people in Gaza.”

Palestinians in Gaza “are the refugees of 1948” who fled when Great Britain and other European powers “created a European homeland in the middle of Palestine,” Najeeb explained. 

“Israel’s apartheid system and colonization and military occupation over Palestinians, with the full support of the U.S. government, are the source of all of this violence,” Malcoe added. For 16 years, the Israeli government has suffocated Palestinians in Gaza under a total sea and land military blockade, imprisoning and starving over 2 million people, half of whom are children, and denying them medical aid. 

“(And now), the Israeli government has shut off all electricity, food, and water to Gaza. Hospitals cannot save lives. The internet will collapse. People will have no phones to communicate with the outside world, no clean drinking water without electricity to pump it. Still worse, Israel has openly stated an intention to commit mass atrocities.

“Inevitably oppressed people everywhere will seek their freedom. The only way to liberation, safety and equality for all is by uprooting the sources of all violence, beginning with our own government’s complicity with the impending genocide in Gaza.”

Will Perry, representing the Milwaukee Islamic Dawah Center, said, “There is no single issue in this country that has been so blatantly biased, so unashamedly one-sided … as the issue of Palestine and Israel.”

Another misconception is that the Palestinians in Gaza are all Muslims, Najeeb noted. 

“Among the scores of imperiled people in Israel and Palestine are a small minority of Christians who have lived on the land continuously since the time of Christ and know well the decades of human rights abuses and violations of international law that fuel the deadly violence we witness today,” Rev. Lisa Bates-Froiland, Ph.D., of Redeemer Lutheran Church stated in the coalition’s press release. She began speaking about the oppression of Palestinians in 2022 after visiting the West Bank.

First-hand experience also spurred Julie Enslow, Peace Action Wisconsin co-founder, to speak out for Palestinians. She visited the West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights in the early 1980s, where she said she saw “what a militarized police state really looks like.”

She noted: “All the other countries in the United Nations have voted over and over again to condemn Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. Yet, the U.S. has given $4.5 billion a year to the Israeli military and now the Biden administration is asking for $8 billion. 

“All the people who have died on both sides are part of this terrible tragedy. No one should have died. This continuous U.S. support of the Israeli occupation has added to the despair, suffering and anger that led to this violent attack of resistance by Hamas. It came as no surprise to those who have followed the increased tightening of the inhumane blockade of Gaza and the increase of regular bombings of innocent people in recent years.

Lorrain Halinka Malcoe, co-coordinator of Jewish Voice for Peace, told the audience, “I want to say unequivocally Israel does not represent all Jewish people. It is a colonial settler state and it does not represent me as a Jewish person or my Judaism.”

Other points raised

  • Othman Atta of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee highlighted a double standard in the U.S. of the treatment of Palestinians vs. Israelis. “When Shireen Abu Akleh, a well-known American journalist, was recently killed by an Israeli sniper, she didn’t have President Biden speak out for her. She didn’t have Anthony Blinken give a hug to her family and say we are really sorry.

     

  • Munjed Ahmad, representing American Muslims for Palestine, noted that in “fanning the flames of war” with misinformation, President Joe Biden contributed to a rise in Islamophobia in the U.S. “Mr. President, you are putting us at risk.”

     

  • Will Perry, representing the Milwaukee Islamic Dawah Center, wiping tears, said when the metaphor of “mowing the lawn” was mentioned as an Israeli expression for the occasional bombing of Palestinians, he was reminded of “the annihilation of Native Americans” and “slavery and the atrocities that took place on this soil.”  He concluded, “I had something prepared but nothing prepared me for this.”

     

  • When asked during the Q & A if any public officials have reached out to Wisconsin Palestinians with words of support, Janan Najeeb of MMWC responded, “No. Not a one. Not even with concern. Even the ones we have worked with and supported for decades. It is not only Israelis that weep and bleed and have families.”