WILPF NEWS
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
East Bay and San Francisco Branches
Work to Advance Peace, Justice and Human Rights
MAY 2023
NO FUNDS FOR “INTERIM” NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE
As your Representative and Senators review the budget for 2024, let them know you want no funds for Consolidated “Interim” Storage sites or CIS. Tell them that tax dollars should not be wasted on moving tens of thousands of tons of high level nuclear power waste through our communities on roads, rails and waterways, only to move it through again some day. Every nuclear power reactor site is already a de-facto nuclear waste site. Don’t let Congress make MORE nuclear power waste sites. Congress must NOT provide funds for so-called “interim” or “temporary” sites that only serve to spread nuclear waste across the country for decades. TAKE ACTION TODAY.
THE GOLDEN RULE IS APPROACHING NEW YORK CITY!
The Golden Rule anti-nuclear sailboat is halfway though its epic voyage of the Great Loop around the eastern United States, having traveled down the center of the US, around Florida, a side trip to Cuba, up the east coast and to Washington DC, Baltimore and Philadelphia.
The little boat that COULD stop the possibility of nuclear war is now on its way to New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. Follow the New Jersey and New York schedule from May 18-26 here.
75 YEARS LATER, ISRAEL BLOCKING PALESTINIAN REFUGEES’ RETURN
Excerpts of article by Omar Shakir
Israel and Palestine Director for Human Rights Watch
May 15 marks the 75th anniversary of Nakba Day, commemorating the more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes, and the more than 400 Palestinian villages destroyed in the events surrounding the establishment of Israel in 1948. As the Palestinian human rights group al-Haq wrote, “the legacy of the Nakba events is that about two-thirds of the Palestinian people became refugees,” while Israel “imposed a system of institutionalized racial discrimination over Palestinians who remained on the land.” Today, there are 5.9 million Palestinian refugees, including the descendants of those who fled or were expelled.
Israeli authorities have, pursuant to discriminatory laws, blocked those refugees and their descendants from returning to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Meanwhile, Israeli law entitles Jewish citizens of other countries to settle in Israel or West Bank settlements and become citizens. That means a Jewish citizen of any country who has never been to Israel can move there and automatically gain citizenship, while a Palestinian expelled from his home in what became Israel and languishing for more than 70 years in a refugee camp, cannot.
International human rights law guarantees refugees and exiles the right to enter the territory they are from, even where sovereignty is contested or has changed hands, and reside in areas where they or their families once lived and have maintained links to. Palestinians should have the freedom to choose among the options of returning to reside in the areas where they or their families are from, local integration, or third-country resettlement.
No matter how many years pass, recognizing and honoring the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland should remain central to the discussion of the future in Israel and Palestine.
THE GAZA 5K – WALK TO SUPPORT PALESTINIAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
The Gaza 5K is an annual family-friendly walk/run fundraiser hosted by UNRWA US in different US cities to help Palestine refugee children and families in the Gaza Strip impacted by mental health. The money raised provides school counseling, group sessions, and even at-home counseling for those in need who are unable to travel. Counseling offers kids in Gaza a safe space to express their emotions and fears and a way to learn valuable coping skills.
WILPF member Arla Ertz is walking again this year in New Mexico to raise funds for psychosocial programs that benefit children in Gaza. Their mental health is so important to the future of Palestine! You can support her effort by cheering her on as she walks on May 20th and by donating to her walk here: https://unrwausa-2023-dc-gaza-5k.funraise.org/fundraiser/arla-ertz?fundraiserPrompt=3128537
Mildred “Millee” Livingston
September 13,1930 – September 9, 2022
Long-time WILPF member and dear friend to many of us. Millee’s legacy of working for peace and social justice will live on in her hometown of Auburn and beyond. Below is an article about her life from Gold Country Media.
Mildred “Millee” Livingston, of Auburn, California passed away peacefully on Friday, September 9, 2022 at Mercy San Juan Hospital, just days before her 92nd birthday. She was born on September 13, 1930 in Atlantic City, New Jersey to Esther and Isadore Levin. Growing up in Atlantic City, after high school Millee moved to Philadelphia, then on to New York, where she met her husband, Duke Livingston, a merchant seaman. In the early 1960s Millee and Duke moved from New York to the San Francisco Bay Area. It was around this time that Millee stepped up her political work, involving herself in local, state and national efforts to advance the causes most dear to her heart – peace, freedom and social justice.
In the 1980s Millee and Duke moved to the Auburn, CA area. She started the first children’s Peace Camp in Auburn in 1987, through the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. It was a one- day program for children, meeting at various locations. In 2010, Peace Camp was renamed Growing Peace Camp when Millee turned over her Peace Camp handbook to the Sierra Foothills Unitarian Universalist Youth Program, to run a week- long summer peace camp.
Millee was one of the first organizers of the Gathering Inn, which provided meals and shelter to the unhoused. Millee was responsible for bringing the community together to celebrate the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. Every year, until 2019, Millee raised funds, participated in the presentations, helped with refreshments, always arranging for a special MLK birthday cake. Millee was a member of Veterans for Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Gold Country Sierra Club (serving as its treasurer), the North Auburn Municipal Advisory Committee to the Board of Supervisors, Auburn Area Democratic Club from 2004 to present. She was a founding member of Indivisible Auburn. She was the recipient of numerous awards, the Eleanor Roosevelt Award from Placer Women Democrats; the Dove Award, from Women in Television and Film from the City of Los Angeles for bringing women’s theater to Auburn; and most recently the Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Activism Award from the Placer County Democratic Party in 2020.
BEFORE ENLISTING VETS PARTICIPATING IN SUMMER PEACE CAMP
