Our Common Wealth 670 and Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian joining The International Women’s Network Against Militarism’s call for feminist genuine security for the people of Palestine, Israel, and the world. 

Executive Director, of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity Rev. Deborah Lee said, "Our efforts as a network has been to try to support each other's struggles, to learn from each other's struggles, and also to come together as a united voice, to put together, put forward a feminist understanding of what genuine security is -- genuine security in contrast to military security."

Co-President of International Peace Bureau Corazon Fabros said, "Any struggle does not come out of the blue. But it is also developed through an important knowledge of what..are known."

Organizations from Hawaii, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and U.S. signed the statement. It said in part, “We express our solidarity and offer a vision for genuine security in the face of the humanitarian crisis in Palestine and Israel.” They added, “We have witnessed and documented the fact that women and girls bear the heaviest cost of militarism, military bases and operations, armed conflicts, and wars.” 

Their call includes an immediate ceasefire and an end to US and other military aid to Israel. 

The Marianas for Palestine Collective, comprised of over 20 organizations, also released a statement in solidarity with Palestine this month, and said, “No one is free until we’re all free. Free Palestine.” 

Dr. Theresa Arriola with Our Common Wealth 670 said, "And in our case, with the conflict that's going on, it's directly impacted by the military industrial complex. Right? If we have $3.8 billion annually going to military and missile defense systems in Israel, where does that place us? How are we complicit in the kind of like continued military, continued support of militarization in that particular region?"

Monaeka Flores with Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian added, "If we look at the things that are happening in Guahan, in the Northern Marianas, and in the long history of U.S. militarization and occupation, here we can see all of the evidence that proves that increased militarization actually doesn't keep us safe. It makes us more insecure.,"

She said, "When we're talking about things like food security, water security -- we're talking about, you know, cultural sovereignty and the protection of our cultural practices and our ancestral burials, our sacred sites. These are a lot of the issues that we're also seeing compounded in Palestine. You know, with the siege, with people being, you know, under siege and under apartheid, not having access to water and food right now with the electricity being cut off. These are really horrible atrocities that are taking place. And, you know, we felt the need, our organizations felt the need to join the statement. Being silent is being complicit to these atrocities."