Vermont Healthcare Workers for Palestine Rally in Burlington, June 2024
“We could ask, what is health in the face of genocide? What is care in the context of occupation and systemic, systematic annihilation”
Samia, a Palestinian mental healthcare worker
Salam. Thank you for being here and thank you to the organizers with Vermont Healthcare Workers for Palestine for making this rally happen. As was stated earlier, I am Palestinian, and I am a therapist in community mental health. I work with youth, and this is important to me because I see youth as the carriers of the inter-generational struggle for liberation. We’ve certainly seen that in the context of Palestine, with the student uprising/or intifada that began this spring.
I work in mental health so a lot of what I see and experience is people's internal suffering. But I am also a practitioner of liberation psychology, which tells us that our internal self-hood, and our ability to be well in the world, is inextricably tied to the collective, to our connections with others and with the systems that we are embedded in.
When I start working with a youth, I am accustomed to asking them and exploring with them “What do you dream about? What do you see for yourself in the future? What’s your vision of wellness? Awhile back after the start of this genocide, I heard a terrible piece of data quoted in a news story that when asked about their mental health, children in Gaza said “We have no dreams. We used to have dreams. We have no dreams. We cannot imagine that our lives will ever go back to normal.”
I want to talk about two things today - one is some framing about what is happening in Gaza, in Rafah, and what the systemic infrastructure of apartheid and occupation has to do with health and public health. The second thing is what we can do, as healthcare workers and community members in Vermont, across all of our networks, to step in together and collectively further the cause of Palestinian liberation. Palestine is as much a local issue as a global one, and it has become a rallying cry for all of us, everywhere, fighting for an end to US imperialism, western hegemony, and settler colonialism. Taking the word healthcare, we can break it down. Health - what does health look like in Gaza today? We could ask, what is health in the face of genocide? What is care in the context of occupation and systemic, systematic annihilation?
This is a snapshot of what health looks like in Gaza today:
More than 35,400 people, two thirds of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza so far and another 500 people have been killed in the West Bank. Over 1.7 million people, more than 75% of Gaza’s population, have been displaced. Since May 6, the UN estimates that around 640,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced from Rafah.
Israel has consistently, since the very start of this genocide, blocked necessary aid from getting to the people who need it. In fact, there is a bill introduced in the Israeli parliament just earlier this week that would designate UNRWA as a terrorist organization.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, many of them children, are at risk of death, starvation, and lifelong illness due to the living conditions - if you can call them that - that are intentionally being enforced by the Zionist occupiers. UNICEF estimates that a thousand children have lost limbs, many of them injuries that at one point would have been reconstructible. But malnourishment is keeping wounds from healing. Experts are decrying that EVEN IF proper aid entered tomorrow and got to the people who need it, the damage to their bodies is lifelong.
Meanwhile, the United States and Genocide Joe have shown that there are no red lines when it comes to Gaza. A State Department report in May falsified its findings to absolve Israel of responsibility for blocking humanitarian aid, against the advice of its own experts and even though the report ALSO found that it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel has used US weapons to commit war crimes.
Stacy Gilbert, a senior advisor in the state department, resigned because of the report, naming a pattern of obstruction that includes blocking visas for aid workers and stopping trucks to be unloaded because of a single “dual-use” item.” - things as small and innocuous as tent poles, flashlights, surgical scissors. Also this month, Alex Smith, a USAID contractor, resigned in protest over the Biden administration’s active facilitation of the genocide. In his letter of resignation, he wrote:
“In Ukraine, we call for legal redress when people are victimized, and name perpetrators of violence. We even work with human rights organizations collecting evidence for international prosecution. … When it comes to Palestinians, however, we avoid saying anything about their right to statehood, the abuses they’re currently suffering, or which powers have been violating their basic rights to freedom, self-determination, livelihoods, and clean water.”
This systematic destruction of health infrastructure in Gaza has been called the “triad of death” - through famine, bombs, and injuries that victims cannot recover from. This triad of horror speeds up the killing machine of the settler colonialist project and aids through collateral damage the ongoing death and destruction of Palestinians. The denial of the United States that it is wrong, or that it is even happening, adds another treacherous level to the horror show.
So let us speak the truth today:
Zionism is a health crisis.
Settler colonialism is a health crisis.
Capitalism is a health crisis.
Racism is a health crisis.
Occupation is a health crisis.
Apartheid is a health crisis.
Genocide is a health crisis.
Our statewide coalition is focusing its efforts on the Apartheid Free Campaign. This campaign offers us real, tangible actions that we can take in our cities and towns and locales across Vermont. There are two main pieces of the campaign - one is to get as many organizations as possible in Vermont to sign the Apartheid Free pledge, which organizers have here today. This pledge is a commitment to resist apartheid and racism, to withdraw all support of the Israeli apartheid state, and to be in collective struggle against it.
The other is to create a swath of ballot measures in March of next year that will push towns and cities across our state towards becoming apartheid-free and cutting ties to Israeli apartheid. In Burlington, that means organizers are gathering hundreds of signatures to bring BACK the referendum to the city, and you can sign your name today and also volunteer to get signatures.
Finally - there’s a nationwide call for people to show up in DC on Saturday, June 8 to wear red and circle the White House and be the red line that Biden and his administration has failed to keep. We’re sending a bus from Vermont, and you can be on that bus. It’s a big push, but this is a time to make sacrifices and do what we can to show up for Palestine. If you’re not able to be there yourself, you can buy a solidarity seat for someone else.
Together, we will create a strong, steadfast statewide network in Vermont that stands against apartheid, and stands in solidarity with Palestine. We are the political will of this country, and we must be its moral compass.
The AFC language, and the actions that stem from it, is our weapon against oppression. We the people stand for solidarity with Palestine, and for liberation of all oppressed people, a right to dream of liberated futures, healthcare for all, an end to the prison state, clean water and air, and for socialist futures where we can be well and whole and free. Where we can dream.
In closing, I offer you these words said at the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit a couple of weeks ago: Each of us is not one - we are hundreds. We are building a movement of humankind.
“Never again means nothing if it does not include Palestinians”
Kate, a nursing student and member of Jewish Voice for Peace
My name is Kate, I was raised in Burlington, I am a nursing student, and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace Vermont/New Hampshire. I organize with JVP, in support of the liberation of Palestine and against Zionism because, as a Jewish person, my conscience and my ancestors compel me to. I am here in total support of Vermont Healthcare Workers for Palestine’s work towards Apartheid Free Communities and an end to U.S. aid to Israel.
As a former Emergency Center Tech and EMT, I’ve watched in horror as Israeli bombs obliterate hospitals, murdering healthcare workers and their patients trying to heal and shelter inside. I cannot imagine the fear of Gazan nurses as Israeli soldiers storm their ICUs. I am in awe of the Gazan doctors’ bravery to perform life saving procedures - C-sections, amputations - on patients without necessary medication.
The U.S. and Israel claim that killing over 36,000 people in Gaza is necessary for Jewish safety. They claim Israel’s 75 year history of occupying, displacing and kidnapping millions of Palestinians is all necessary for Jewish safety. This is a perverse weaponization of Jewish traumas.
The murder of my entire grandfather’s family, shot in the streets of Vilnius during the Holocaust, does not permit unspeakable violence on Palestinians. We can never allow historical pain of a people to be used as a weapon of war.
Anti Semitism, what keeps Jews unsafe, is bred by the fascist, white supremacist conflation of Zionism and Judaism. As long as leaders from a local to an international level wield this dangerous conflation, I have an obligation to vocally reject it.
In fact, it is to honor our ancestors' suffering and resilience to speak and act out against this injustice: not in our name. Never again means never again for anyone. Never again means nothing if it does not include Palestinians. Never again is now.
If you are a Jewish person feeling isolated from your Jewish institutions, know that you are not alone. There is a vibrant, justice-driven community at JVP ready to welcome you home into the work of liberation.
And as an aspiring nurse, I have a duty to my colleagues in Palestine. I have a duty to learn from their courage and act with it alongside my fellow workers to ensure that within our lifetimes, Palestine will be free.
"The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world."
Dr. Amalia Kane, a family medicine doctor
Thank you for taking the time to be here. I'm Dr. Amalia Kane. I studied global health at Middlebury College, then went to medical school at Mount Sinai in NYC, before coming back to Vermont for residency at UVM in Family Medicine. I am now a primary care provider in our community.
To my neighbors and healthcare colleagues here - we all have experience with a strained healthcare system - clinics closed to new patients, a hospital that needs to push discharges to make space. This work isn't easy!
Now close your eyes and imagine ...
Taking away reliable electricity, sufficient antibiotic and anesthetic supplies, clean water, enough food. Add in internally displaced persons sheltering, frequent violent raids, fear for the safety of your family and your own life. The healthcare system in Gaza has been decimated through systematic attacks from the IDF since October.
UNICEF documents 442 attacks on health care in Gaza. Mass graves have been found at hospitals. According to a recent report by The Healthcare Workers Watch – Palestine, more than 500 healthcare workers have been killed. Most recent attacks include the bombing of an emergency room in Rafah. Those hospitals still running are so overwhelmed with patients with conflict-induced trauma injuries, that there is no capacity to manage chronic care needs.
In the face of deliberate attacks on healthcare, we cannot remain silent. In the words of Desmond Tutu "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."
Our colleagues are practicing in impossible conditions right now. Dr. Hammam Alloh, a nephrologist at Al Shifa hospital, was asked in an interview on October 31st why he wouldn't evacuate with his wife and 2 children in the face of increasing danger: "And if I go, who treats our patients? We are not animals. We have the right to receive proper health care. You think I went to medical school and my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients? ...Do you think this is the reason I went to medical school, to only think about my life?". Two weeks later he was killed in an Israeli airstrike. Dr. Alloh died because he refused to believe that his life was worth more than his patients.
An icon in the global health world, Paul Farmer, wrote, "The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world." It is shameful that our country is providing weapons for these attacks and that our medical system has remained silent.
I am also a new mom of a wonderful 10 month old. Motherhood has been the most amazing experience of my life, it feels true to me that your heart is now outside of yourself. I think about her needs and safety constantly. How do you parent when you can't find safety?
Just last week Israel bombed a tent camp housing displaced Palestinians in a designated safe zone in Rafah. 45 people were killed, most of them women and children.
In a country where acute malnutrition was previously unseen, MSF has recorded an alarming upward trend in the number of children, pregnant women and new mothers with acute malnutrition. Rafah is experiencing catastrophic food insecurity. Unsanitary living conditions also speed the spread of infectious disease, which are felt more severely when bodies are already weak. A malnourished new mother cannot produce milk to breastfeed. Without formula and clean water infants are starting their lives starving. This harm will have long lasting effects.
MSF report “Gaza’s health system stands shattered; rebuilding will span years, if not decades. For humanity to prevail, policymakers must understand the human cost of destroying an entire healthcare system... This must stop now.”
And in the big picture, the way to rebuild is not just through donations, medical missions, or foreign aid work. It is through Palestinian self-determination and liberation. There can be no peace without freedom, justice, and the right to self-determination.
“If we want to convince the world that Palestinians are human beings, the first step is to make sure we continue to recognize that ourselves.”
Hamza, a medical student and organizer with Medical Students for Justice in Palestine
240 days. After 240 days, there isn't much left to say. We've spent 240 days, and beyond that, decades upon decades, trying to get people to understand that Palestinians are human beings who deserve to live in dignity in their own land, trying to convince people that genocide and ethnic cleansing are wrong and should be stopped. We've re-phrased our horror and objections and commitment to resistance in thousands of eloquent and passionate ways.
And I'm sure there will be many more today and at every gathering we have in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, in all of Palestine, and around the world. Because we will not stop. Not until Palestine is free, until Sudan is free, until the Congo is free, until people everywhere are free. We are in the imperial core, the heart of the Death Star, so we have a responsibility to use that proximity, to maintain our momentum, and to keep hope. [Quick aside, I saw a video a few weeks ago of Zionist counter-protestors literally playing Darth Vader's theme song, the Imperial March. You can't make this stuff up.]
Now, before we introduce the next speaker, I want us all to take a moment to remember who we are doing this for. 2 million in Gaza, 1.4 million in Rafah, 40,000 dead, 80,000 injured. These are not just numbers to be thrown into a news article, not just images on your feed. Each one is an individual, unique, precious human life. Going forward, I hope that we can remember not just the numbers, but the people they represent.
Think about the people that really impacted you, that hit you in your core, that gave you hope, that filled you with rage, that made you cry, and intentionally encoded that memory, that emotion in your heart. For me, it's the medical student also named Hamza who was killed around November, the little girl who was planning her birthday party in the fall and was murdered by Israel before, the video of children singing with a girl, the skin on her face had been burned off. So when you think about Gaza, when you see those numbers, when you attend these actions, recall that memory. If we want to convince the world that Palestinians are human beings, the first step is to make sure we continue to recognize that ourselves. Free Palestine.
“I don't want to be a part of a system where the company that you're paying to do your IT is also funding the bombing of tens of thousands of people!”
Crystal (she/her), Vermont Workers' Center, Healthcare as a Human Right Campaign
We talk about the system. More so than just being a part of it, we [as healthcare workers] are also COMPLICIT. UVM hospital, for example, has retirement funds invested in Blackrock and Vanguard, companies that invest heavily in Israel and the war profiteering companies that sell to it.
On a more local and personal note for me, as a transgender woman, the company that has helped me and my community (Planned Parenthood) by offering us hormones, sends millions a year to Raytheon for IT. I don't want to be a part of a system where the company that you're paying to do your IT is also funding the bombing of tens of thousands of people!
I also think it's particularly hypocritical for a company like Planned Parenthood to claim they fight for reproductive justice and rights here in America, but then invest in companies that bomb pregnant women, destroy hospitals, keep women from giving safe birth, and kill gynecologists. These actions all keep women in Gaza from having reproductive care. That's not reproductive justice at all.
