We are traveling to Palestine in June, 2004 to learn, to observe, to meet people, to educate ourselves and to express our solidarity with the long-suffering Palestinian people.
We travel to learn so that we can bring back what we have learned. We will return to educate and inform our family, friends, co-workers, indeed, our fellow citizens to the true and terrible nature of the Israeli occupation.
We travel 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.
We travel to learn but we also travel to act! To raise our voices in protest against this horrible occupation. Many of us are Jews. As Jews, a people who have suffered terrible oppression, we feel compelled to speak out loudly and clearly in opposition to the policies of the Israeli government which are being used to occupy and subjugate another people. In that, we stand with the many Israelis who, themselves, oppose the occupation and Sharon’s disastrous policies.
We are Women Of A Certain Age. We are older women. We are mothers, wives, sisters who are reaching out to the mothers, wives and sisters of Palestine. You are not alone! We are standing with you in your fight for human dignity and your right to build a country that may live in peace and friendship with the other nations of the world.
We can do no less.
Women of a Certain Age 