Prison industrial complex (PIC) abolitionists have always understood the work to dismantle the PIC to be connected to global movements against war, militarism, and colonialism. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen mass mobilization in solidarity with the Palestinian people as they face one of the deadliest assaults by the Israeli military in its history.
On Wednesday, Nov 1, join us for a critical discussion on the ongoing war on Palestine. Dr. Angela Y Davis, Lara Kiswani (Executive Director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center), Stefanie Fox (Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace), and Nadine Naber (INCITE! National) will join us in a discussion moderated by Mohamed Shehk (Campaigns Director of Critical Resistance) to help us understand the situation on the ground in Palestine, how our organizations and people everywhere can mount effective resistance to the genocidal war against Palestinians, and how we can use abolitionist strategies such as Dismantle-Change-Build, Divest/Invest & “Defund,” and “shrink and starve” to do so.
Organized by Critical Resistance. This event is also a fundraiser for Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), who are providing much needed aid to the people of Gaza. All funds will go to MECA after accessibility costs for this event.
Speakers:
Angela Y. Davis is Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz. An activist, writer, and lecturer, her work focuses on prisons, police, abolition, and the related intersections of race, gender, and class. She is the author of many books, from Angela Davis: An Autobiography (now available in a new edition from Haymarket Books) to Freedom Is a Constant Struggle.
Lara Kiswani is the Executive Director of Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), serving poor and working class Arabs and Muslims across the San Francisco Bay Area, and organizing to overturn racism, forced migration, and militarism.
Stefanie Fox, MPH (she/her) is the Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a grassroots membership organization that organizes and mobilizes hundreds of thousands of Jews and allies into solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle and a vision of Judaism beyond Zionism. Stefanie joined JVP in 2009 as the organization’s first National Organizer (when the organization had six chapters and a few hundred members) and played multiple roles as part of the team that grew the organization into the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world. Stefanie came up as a grassroots organizer, educator, and public health practitioner inside the global AIDS movement of the early 2000s, and spent about a decade in neighborhood and issue-based community organizing toward racial and economic justice before joining JVP full-time.
Nadine Naber is a scholar-activist and co-founder of organizations and programs such as: Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition and Solidarity; the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association; Arab Movement of Women arising for Justice; the Arab American Cultural Center (UIC); and Arab and Muslim American Studies at UM, Ann Arbor. She is founder of Liberate Your Research Workshops. She has been a board member of groups like INCITE! Feminists of Color against Violence; the Women of Color Resource Center; the Arab American Action Network; Al-Shabaka; and the National Council of Arab Americans. She is Professor in the Gender and Women’s Studies Program and the Global Asian Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of many books focusing on Arabs, Arab Americans, and feminism within these communities.
Moderator:
Mohamed Shehk is the Campaigns Director of Critical Resistance.
About Until Liberation: A Series for Palestine by Haymarket Books:
Today, we are confronting a watershed moment in the struggle against colonialism and apartheid. As an internationalist left around the world, we must take a decisive stance in support of Palestinian liberation.
Haymarket Books and partners are organizing an urgent series of online events to provide education in the context of current events. At Haymarket, Palestine has always been at the core of our political and intellectual project, and we believe free and accessible political education is crucial to solidarity efforts.
The situation is dire. As media outlets spread lies and misinformation, politicians and journalists are paving the way for Israel to carry out mass genocide in Gaza. In the West Bank, settlers are armed and carrying out pogroms. The governments of the USA, UK and across the Global North are putting in place chilling measures to crack down on solidarity. The Israeli state is killing Palestinians with impunity and Palestinians everywhere are being silenced.
We are entering a new era of the struggle for Palestine and until Palestine is free, none of us are free. Join us for a series of urgent conversations about the history, politics, and stakes of Palestinian liberation.
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This event is sponsored by Critical Resistance and Haymarket Books and is part of Until Liberation: A Series for Palestine by Haymarket Books, cosponsored by Palestinian American Organizations Network, Mondoweiss, Spectre, Dissenters, Tempest, Palestine Deep Dive, The New Arab, and more. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important publishing and programming work.