‘Women’s Strike’ Official Platform Calls For ‘Decolonization Of Palestine’

By Josefin Dolsten March 9, 2017

(JTA) — The platform for a strike to support feminism and women’s rights drew criticism from some over its call “for the decolonization of Palestine.”

The statement on Palestine is included in a section on “Antiracist and Anti-imperialist Feminism” in the platform for the U.S. affiliate of the International Women’s Strike. The grassroots feminist movement organized events around the world on Wednesday.

It groups solidarity with Palestine with other causes, including Black Lives Matter, “the struggle against police brutality and mass incarceration,” and immigrant rights.

“We want to dismantle all walls, from prison walls to border walls, from Mexico to Palestine,” the platform reads.

Critics of the platform included Emily Shire, the politics editor of the women’s news site Bustle. She wrote in a New York Times op-ed published Tuesday that as a Zionist she was “troubled” by the plank on Palestine.

Shire also criticized the strike for the involvement of Rasmea Odeh, a Palestinian woman convicted and sentenced by an Israeli military court in 1970 to life in prison for two bombing attacks, including one in 1969 that killed two Israelis.

Josefin Dolsten is a New York-based writer who has reported for the Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Times of Israel and other Jewish publications. She currently works as an account director at Fenton Communications, supporting organizations that work to advance racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive rights and more. Dolsten earned her B.A. in government from Cornell University and her M.A. in comparative religion and Jewish studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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