Solidarity with Palestine echoes in the halls of diplomacy
Activists attending the Commission on the Status of Women refused to be silent on the carnage on Gaza, and its impact on women and children
Between the start and end of the 68th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the UN estimated that the Israeli military would kill a further 756 Palestinian women in Gaza.
This was the shadow under which government ministers, diplomats, academics journalists, and hundreds of activists from across the world met in New York for two weeks to consider the global situation for women and progress towards equality.
Save from the recent interruption of Covid-19, the calendar of international diplomacy remains something of a constant. Wars, famines, natural disasters, even genocides, almost nothing halts the never-ending meetings, procedures, declarations, councils or committees in their tracks.
Next to the vast buildings on the New York skyline that seem to shoot up higher each year, the pristine white marble and blue glass of the United Nations seem almost austere. Perhaps it’s fitting for an institution that remains locked in a mostly imagined past, a bastion of rules written by rich countries, enforced or ignored on their whims.
At this private club, the states are the members, and we, the people, are just guests. In the most formal of surroundings, all formalities are observed, it is convention that conventions be disapplied to allies, states resolve to allow conflicts to go unresolved, for all standards to be double, for unfair treatment under treaty, and for the only things longer than the speeches to be the queues to get through the front door.
Amidst these surroundings, the energy that the thousands of women activists who sweep into CSW each year bring is an extraordinary contrast to the institution that hosts it. It is the work of we activists to disrupt the unfair, discriminatory, and often violent status quos in which we live, this is what has brought us to the organization in which decorum rules: a body designed to preserve and maintain a “peace” that the world has never truly enjoyed.
The vital contrast of the dynamism of activists and the staid surroundings at the UN is something that we always sense when we are at CSW, an event that feels so different to any other similar diplomatic process - General Assembly, COP, the Human Rights Council - but rarely have I ever felt the same energy as I did over the past two weeks.
In every event considering the situation for Palestinian, every seat was taken, every Palestinian voice was heard in wrapped silence, and the words shouted Free, Free Palestine! were shouted in every accent you could imagine.
For as much as the international community has been obstructed and confounded into inaction by its members, the voice of global women’s civil society has been as clear and consistent as possible. There can be no peace, no equality, no justice globally, without peace, equality, and justice for Palestine.
The incredible Palestinian women in our delegation made this point time and again in meetings, in side events, they told it to ambassadors, to heads of official delegations, to journalists and the media. The international solidarity of activists present at CSW towards Palestine was truly extraordinary and moving to witness.
At this global event held during Ramadan, the thoughts of nearly every participant were on the humanitarian catastrophe and looming man-made famine in Gaza, of the mothers who could not feed their babies, of the siege that withholds water and power from millions of people.
Since October 7th, it has taken 170 days for the UN Security Council to finally agree a resolution calling for a ceasefire - and even then the United States only relented from using the veto on the condition that “permanent” ceasefire in the draft be changed to merely “lasting”.
Despite the failure of the international community and the United Nations as an institution to end the ongoing genocide in Gaza, CSW remains important for global women’s civil society. At CSW, we are able to provide a reality check, to hold governments accountable. It is a forum in which we can recognize progress, as well as backsliding and backlash.
While many international governments choose to hide away from the impacts of their decisions on women across the world, there are others who remain true to the principles of the multilateral system. Governments who not only listen to, but elevate our voices. When the international system is under such great strain, these allies are more important than ever.
That solidarity between activists, member states and other parties is so necessary now because, of the more than 32,000 Palestinians killed in the war in Gaza, more than 70 percent are thought to be women and children. We need it because the conflict in Sudan has created the biggest internal displacement crisis in the world, because conflicts rage on and perpetrators and enablers must be held to account.
In the words of Security Council resolutions or press briefing huddles held in New York corridors, war, crisis, suffering - these are just abstract terms. It is when they are spoken by those touched by war and catastrophe that these phenomena must actually be understood and the impact they have on people must be reckoned with. Rana, one of our colleagues from Palestine, explained to the media that in previous visits to the United Nations, she had come as an activist, to speak on behalf of her community; but that day, it was her responsibility to tell her own story as a victim.
Occupation has forced victimhood upon all Palestinians, but the war in Gaza has forced the wider world to make decisions about who they are, and what they will stand for.
This year, the Commission on the Status of Women showed again the remarkable solidarity that exists across women’s movements, people who face very different contexts and challenges to the achievement of their dignity but who provide each other love and empathy. It is a choice to give your time and attention to the voices of the oppressed and to support them. It is a choice to ignore them, and we are made of our choices.
As Rana told CSW, the people of Gaza will again show their resilience, they will recover from this tragedy. But for those who have watched in silence as a genocide unfolds, that is the choice they have made, and they can never recover from the guilt they bear.