Palestinian feminists expose Democrats’ attempt to hijack reproductive justice in New York

The following report was issued on the Palestinian Feminist Collective Facebook page on Oct. 23, 2024. Proposition 1 is a referendum appearing on the Nov. 5, 2024, ballot in New York to support adding abortion rights to the state constitution. 

This past Sunday, Oct. 20, members and friends of the Palestinian Feminist Collective and NYC for Abortion Rights showed up to disrupt a Prop. 1 rally that featured a number of Zionist speakers, including [New York Governor] Kathy Hochul, [Congress member] Jerry Nadler [D-New York], [Congress member] Dan Goldman [D-New York], [Manhattan Borough President] Mark Levine, [New York state Senator] Brad Hoylman-Sigal and others.

We showed up to the rally with Palestinian flags, literature, keffiyehs and signs. Reactions from attendees, who seemed to primarily be campaign volunteers, were mostly negative.

Some attendees hurled insults at us, calling us “antisemites,” “terrorists” and “gang rapists,” telling one of us to “go back to where you came from,” and saying we would be “thrown off a roof” in Palestine. One of us was physically assaulted by a rally participant.

We exposed the cynical attempt from elected officials and imperialist “feminists” of the Democratic party to co-opt reproductive justice while enforcing a racial hierarchy of human life with Palestinian, Arab and Muslim women at the bottom of that hierarchy. Goldman and Nadler, both invited to speak at the rally, have supported sending “aid” to Israel to continue its expansionist, genocidal war.

Electeds at this event have repeated the debunked, false propaganda about Palestinians committing mass sexual violence. Every allegation is a confession, as there are countless documented instances and even video evidence of sexual torture and abuse of Palestinians by the lOF (Israel Occupation Forces). This past year has only fortified the incompatibility between Zionism and feminism.

Zionist settler colonialism is predicated on the racialized logic of elimination by controlling the reproduction and sexuality of Palestinian women. Anyone who enables reproductive genocide in Palestine is no ally to women or reproductive freedom anywhere.