Wednesday, March 31, 2021 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET
REGISTER at http://bit.ly/UStoPalestine
Join us on Wednesday 3/31, 12pm EDT (9am PDT) for a powerful rally to take action against Israeli medical and vaccine apartheid.
The pandemic has exposed and exacerbated existing medical inequalities around the world.
While vaccines are a symbol of hope and optimism, we see how their distribution continues to be reflective of racist and settler colonial dynamics around the access to healthcare.
Israel – an occupying power – continues to be praised for its swift vaccine rollout, while hospitals in the West Bank are beyond 100% capacity, and Israel continues to deny life-saving vaccines to the majority of Palestinians under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.
Meanwhile, in the US, Indigenous, Black, and brown communities have been disproportionately impacted by the virus, but are receiving vaccinations at a much lower rate than white Americans.
Join us with health experts, doctors from Palestine and advocates as we call on Congress to take decisive action to end medical apartheid, and push forward in the fight for equitable healthcare access.
REGISTER at http://bit.ly/UStoPalestine
From the U.S. to Palestine, COVID-19 is revealing longstanding systems of racism and discrimination.
Join us to learn how you can take action to ensure safety for all people — no exceptions.
Speakers (list in progress):
- Ahmad Abuznaid, Executive Director, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
- Farah Kader, public health analyst
- Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Center for Blast Injury Studies, Imperial College London University
- Dr. Sahar AlSulibe, Palestinian Medical Relief Society
- Manal Shqair, International Outreach Coordinator of the Land Defense Coalition
- We are Not Numbers, Gaza
Co-Sponsors:
- 1for3.org
- Adalah Justice Project
- The Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine
- Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC)
- Corvallis Palestine Solidarity
- DSA BDS & Palestine Solidarity Working Group
- Eyewitness Palestine
- FOSNA
- Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
- JVP Action
- Madison-Rafah Sister City Project
- MPower Change
- The Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy
- US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR)
- US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI)
Speakers:
Ahmad Abuznaid, Executive Director, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights – Facilitator/MC
After completing law school Ahmad went on to co-found the Florida-based Dream Defenders in response to the killing of Trayvon Martin. While in leadership at Dream Defenders, Ahmad championed racial justice issues across the US and successfully led several delegations of organizers from the US to Palestine. After leaving the Dream Defenders in 2016, Ahmad served as the Executive Director of the National Network for Arab American Communities until 2019.
Farah Kader is a public health analyst in New York. Her work involves the evaluation of COVID-19 disparities and vaccine distribution in Westchester County. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Infectious Disease from the University of California-Berkeley and a Master’s of Public Health in Environmental Health Sciences from the University of Michigan. Her previous research includes the study of discrimination and its impact on Arab American health, genotoxicity of agricultural runoff in drinking water sources, and racial/ethnic disparities in flavored tobacco use and injury outcomes.
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Center for Blast Injury Studies, Imperial College London University, is a British-Palestinian Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon who completed his medical training at University of Glasgow in the U.K. In 2015, he co-founded and became director of the Conflict Medicine Program at Global Health Institute at the American University of Beirut. He returned to the UK in 2020 and continues his work in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. He has published extensively on war injuries including a medical textbook, “Reconstructing the War Injured Patient” and has a forthcoming book, “Treating the War Injured Child.” He has worked as a war surgeon in Iraq, South Lebanon and during the three wars in the Gaza Strip. He recently published in the Journal of Palestine Studies on “The Virus, the Settler and the Siege: Gaza in the Age of Corona.”
Dr. Sahar al Sulaibi, Palestinian Medical Relief Society
Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) is a grassroots community-based Palestinian health organization. PMRS was founded in 1979 by a group of Palestinian doctors and health professionals seeking to supplement the decayed and inadequate health infrastructure caused by years of Israeli military occupation. It is non-profit, voluntary, and one of the largest health NGOs in Palestine. Our quality health services focus on the needs of the most vulnerable members of Palestinian society: women, children, disabled and the poor in rural villages, refugee camps, and urban centers
Manal Shqair is the International Outreach Coordinator of the Land Defense Coalition, an umbrella of grassroots organizations based in Palestine. She is a trade unionist in the Palestinian New Federation of Trade Unions (New Unions) founded in 2012 to represent and defend Palestinian workers in the West Bank working in Israeli factories.
