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Raed’s last message to the IFSW

The letter below has just been mailed by Raed Amira, a Palestinian social worker, to challenge the neutral stance of the IFSW with regard to the genocide of Gazan civilians. Raed is based in Bethlehem and is a representative of the Human Rights Commission for the Asia Pacific Region, a member of the Palestinian Union of Social Workers and Psychologists, and a member of the Arab Federation of Social Workers. Raed wrote this as the death toll in the 2023 Israel-Gaza war approached 9,000, two-thirds of whom were women and children: these are not just statistics; they are loving family members lost, ambitions broken and dreams destroyed.

At the same time, in his community in Bethlehem in the West Bank, Raed’s colleagues, friends and families are being shot at by settlers and detained and tortured by the Israeli occupation forces.

The Reimaging Social Work collective stands shoulder to shoulder with our Palestinian brothers and sisters and we condemn the IFSW for its neutrality and complicity with Israel’s settler colonial war crimes.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

Bishop Desmon Tutu

I fear not execution

Not torture and not hate

Not death from rifle barrels or

The shadows on the gates

I fear not restless nights with

Shooting stars of streaking pain

I fear but blindness from a world

Indifferent and insane.

Halfdan Rasmussam

My colleagues in IFSW,


I hope you are doing well. This will be my last message to you. Today, I will be more frank with you. I will share this message with our colleagues around the world.

First of all, it is not permissible for anyone in this world, especially when he calls for human rights, to equate the victim with the executioner, the oppressor with the oppressed. You are human rights advocates, and you are the ones who taught us that social work is about resistance, that social work is about sacrifice, giving, and freedom.


You are the ones who told us that you are committed to the United Nations and its institutions, the Security Council and its resolutions, human rights, international law, and so on, which all call for the illegality of the occupation and the Palestinian rights to self-determination and resistance.

Raed Amira, Palestinian social worker.


Today, you are called be the owners of a real cause and to take a clear position, otherwise, there is no need for your words and sermons. The truth is clear to you, and you know it very well. Many of you spoke to me and admitted that these are atrocities and crimes and that the occupation is criminal and brutal. Many of you tell the truth but cannot say it publicly. Who would have expected that in the year 2023, in which the world imagined flying cars, we would instead witness a genocide live on social media and in front of silent mouths?

You and your administration know that members of the Israeli Union of Social Workers participate in the killing of Palestinians because they, like most Israelis, carry a conscription ID, and support the terrorism of their government and their settlers among us. Yet, you still embrace this fascist, racist, and Zionist institution. This was acknowledged by the president of the Israeli Union of Social Workers in Dublin in 2018, where she said frankly and proudly that the members of the Israeli Union participate in the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), killing and arresting Palestinians. Including the repeated arrests of Palestinian social workers who were supposed to have received international immunity from you. The whole world knows that Israel kills doctors, paramedics, journalists, and children, yet no one acts to deter them?

Currently, the Arab Union of Social Workers are waiting for our opinion regarding your shameful and neutral statements. There is anger among social workers, not only in Palestine but also in many countries. We are waiting for your response. By the way, there are many social workers in Gaza. I wish we could communicate with them and be reassured they are still alive. But, the policy of collective punishment imposed on Gaza, cut both the electricity supply and the Internet. I do not know anything about my fellow specialists in Gaza. I do know that one of my colleagues was injured and lost her family in the frenzied Israeli bombing.

Nor should we forget the many Palestinian social workers locked up in Israeli prisons, sentenced to administrative detention and held without charge. I keep them in my prayers and supplications. The situation here in the West Bank is deteriorating every day, and one of our colleagues, Riad Arar (a well-known social worker) and his son have just been brutally arrested by the occupation forces.


For the sake of all this, do not be silent. For the sake of all the blood and the pain, do not be silent. Otherwise, I am ashamed to be a member of this union.

Free Palestine!

Best Regards

Raed

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Genocide in Gaza

It’s hard to believe that we are here again. Watching helplessly as Israeli planes drop American-funded bombs on civilians in the crowded Gaza Strip. Home to 2.3 million Palestinians subject to a brutal blockade by Israel for 16 years and now victims of a total siege starving the population of food, water and medical supplies. In just twelve days, the death toll exceeded that of the horrifying 90-day 2014 war on Gaza . Unless we stop it, what is unfolding is nothing short of a genocide.

Anyone who watches Al Jazeera News can see with their own eyes the daily demolitions of family homes, apartment blocks, refugee camps, schools and hospitals. Of course, as social workers, we condemn all acts of violence against civilians and the taking of civilian hostages, but we also understand the root causes of violence that lie in 75 years of violent displacement, 56 years of military occupation, a cruel system of apartheid fences, walls and checkpoints and the endless humiliation of armed Israeli settlers evicting Palestinians from their homes and murdering their whānau (under the watchful and complicit eyes of the occupation forces).

Across Aotearoa and the world, people are protesting, rallying and marching in solidarity with Palestinian people. Don’t let anyone tell you that this is too complicated or that this is a religious war. There are many progressive Jewish people overseas, and here in Aotearoa who refuse to be complicit in Israel’s war crimes, they call for a ceasefire now, and an end to the occupation.

The Reimagining Social Work collective stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people and with our brothers and sisters in the Palestinian Union of Social Workers and Psychologists. We also support the call issued by the Palestine-Global Mental Health Network.

Green Party MPs outside the US Embassy with activists from Justice for Palestine

In the coming days and weeks, please take time to look beyond mainstream media and take what action you can to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

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Why we should care about Roe v Wade and what we should do

In this podcast episode Neil Ballantyne talks to Professor Liz Beddoe about the topic of reproductive justice and the implications of the recent decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn the famous 1973 court ruling of Roe v Wade. 

Liz also highlights some of the actions that social workers and social work educators can take to promote an awareness of reproductive rights.

Beddoe, L. (2022). Reproductive justice, abortion rights and social work, Critical and Radical Social Work, 10(1), 7-22. Retrieved Jul 26, 2022, from https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/crsw/10/1/article-p7.xml

Photo by Aiden Frazier on Unsplash

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Palestine, the IASSW and the academic boycott of Israel: A call to action.

Those of us involved in the movement for Palestinian rights are very used to the twists and turns of the Israeli state and its accomplices abroad. They act together to silence and smear the movement for the liberation of Palestine. The Israelis refer to this as hasbara or advocacy for Israel. In reality, hasbara consists of well-funded campaigns of misinformation that work to delegitimise and demonise any criticism of the seemingly endless military occupation of Palestinian land. Israel even has an army of social media trolls that can be mustered at a moments notice to intervene in any social media critique of the Israeli state. False allegations of antisemitism are usually enough to chill the debate.

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Student welfare at the neoliberal university.

Reblogged from Wellington Socialists.


Victoria University of Wellington has been in the news of late. Firstly, due to a controversial rebranding exercise that will see the University spend thousands of dollars on the removal of Victoria from its name, and secondly for the eviction of a student on her return to the halls of residence following a suicide attempt. I had to read that last point several times myself, the eviction of a student from the halls of residence following a suicide attempt.