WRI Exec statement: Solidarity with Jenin Creative Cultural Centre and Wage Peace

In recent weeks we have seen a number of significant acts of violence that have directly impacted WRI affiliates. We want to draw attention to two of them – not to compare them (they are radically different in scale, context and level of brutality), but to highlight the way different manifestations of militarism around the world are interconnected, even when they are being experienced in very different contexts nearly 14,000km apart.

The first instance of violence is that experienced in Jenin, in the West Bank, where our affiliated group the Jenin Creative Cultural Centre is based. The city of Jenin has recently experienced the “longest – and deadliest – Israeli military operation in the area for 20 years”. 21 people have been killed, at least 130 injured, roads destroyed, and energy and water infrastructure damaged. Of course, the recent assault on Jenin sits within a wider context of atrocities carried out by the Israeli state and settler communities in Gaza and the West Bank - which amounts to genocide according to UN's Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories. We send our solidarity and support to the Jenin Cultural Centre, and all those working for a sustainable, long-term peace in Israel/Palestine.

The second is the police violence experienced by members of our affiliate Wage Peace and the anti-arms movement in Melbourne as they attempted to stop the Land Forces Weapons Expo. Riot police used horses, fired tear gas and rubber bullets, and repeatedly attacked nonviolent protesters. At the event, the globes largest arms manufacturers were advertising the weapons, systems and services to military forces from around the world. Many of the protesters chose to centre their actions on the war on Palestine, and highlighted the presence of several Israeli arms companies, including Elbit, at the event. The resistance against these Expos is necessary if we want the violence in other contexts to stop, and we send our solidarity and support to Wage Peace, and all those resisting war and its causes at events such as these. 

What connects these instances is the myriad ways that militarism is experienced and resisted by nonviolent activists and civilians around the world: While some are killed and maimed with militarised violence when their city is occupied by military forces, others are shot at and arrested for resisting the systems and structures that profit from it. Militarism and the drivers of war often span borders, but so too can our solidarity and acts of resistance. We should always remember that war is a crime against humanity. We stand in solidarity with all those experiencing war and violence, and with all those nonviolently resisting the causes of war.