Committee Updates: Two Middle East Action Items & Join All-Members Program Committee Meeting TONIGHT!

Des Moines Branch members have staged a protest at the marketing firm LS2 three weeks in a row calling for the company to drop the government of Saudi Arabia as its client.  Photo by Jan Corderman.

May 2021

Two Middle East Action Items & Thanks to New Members!

By Jan Corderman and Odile Hugonot Haber
Middle East Peace & Justice Action Committee

First, we want to thank the new members participating in the Middle East committee:

NADA FARHAT from Lebanon and living in Bethel, Connecticut 
YUSIF BARAKAT from Pinkney, Michigan, 
LYNN SABLEMAN from St Louis, Missouri 
YASMINE ARIZONA from Phoenix
CHARLOTTE DENNETT from Burlington, Vermont
LOUISE LISI from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
THERESA EL-AMIN from Columbus, Georgia
GEORGE FRIDAY from Gastonia, North Carolina

We appreciate your participation and look forward to working together.

The committee has two action items we’re asking WILPFers to do this month.

House Letter Supports US Return to the JCPOA

We welcome the Biden administration's aim to return to mutual compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) together with Iran. We know that a return to the JCPOA would move the US off the path to war and set the stage for further negotiations with Iran.  

Women had made fragile gains in employment, upper management positions, and leadership roles in higher education after the deal passed in 2015. And as things got better for women they also gained increased capacity to seek legal reforms and protections. It’s a sad reality of sanctions – which are intended to punish governments, not women and families – yet they are the ones who bear the burden.  

Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA) & Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) recently led an effort to let President Biden know that they support the US return to the deal. 150 House members signed on with them.

We’re asking WILPF members and branches to thank all of the 150 Lawmakers who signed on and urge those who didn’t sign to do so. The humanitarian impacts of staying out of the JCPOA are just too great.

Find out if your House member was one those who have signed on here.

Tell Marketing Agency LS2group to Drop Saudi Arabia

When Code Pink alerted WILPF US President Darien De Lu about an Iowa firm that was helping the Saudis by creating pro-Saudi Government materials, the Des Moines Branch took it personally! As of the date of this e-news, members have staged a protest at the LS2 office, located in the well-traveled East Des Moines Village, three weeks in a row.  

The firm, a marketing agency, has received funding since 2018 to lobby on behalf of the oil-rich country. The public has become aware that Saudi Arabia has led a brutal war against Yemen and that the blockade they’ve imposed has limited mobility and contributed to dire humanitarian needs as Yemen enters the seventh year of war. We know that their contract for 2020 stipulated that LS2 would receive $1.5 million to “inform the public, government officials and the media about the importance of fostering & promoting strong relations between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”  

WILPF Des Moines Branch members and friends signed and delivered a letter asking LS2 to drop the Saudi government as a client as five other U.S. public relations firms did in the weeks after journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death. The branch reports that last week, LS2 locked their doors and refused to accept the letter.

You can help by signing the petition on Code Pink’s website.  

Join the All-WILPF-Members Program Committee Meeting TONIGHT!

By Darien De Lu
President, WILPF US

All WILPF Members – you’re invited to call in to the Program Committee on Tuesday, May 4. This special “open” Program Committee is a chance to give input, learn more about and get involved in WILPF’s many programs.

The May 4 meeting is open to all WILPF members (preregistration required) at the usual time:  8-10 pm EDT / 5-7 pm PDT.  Also, we’ll continue with the “Before and After Conversations” in the half-hour prior to and after the Program Committee meeting: Before – 7:30-8 pm EDT / 4:30-5 pm PDT and After – 10-10:30 pm EDT / 7-7:30 pm PDT.

“All-WILPF-members-welcome” Program Committee meetings occur only a few times a year. The next one will be sometime after our national WILPF Congress (August 13-15 and 20-22).

To participate, if you haven’t been on a Program Committee call in the last ten months or if you don’t receive the Maestro program reminder 24 hours before the Program call, then you must be sure to preregister here.

We've built in time for you in this meeting agenda. In special a break-out time you’ll be able to meet and talk directly with issue committee leaders to ask questions and share ideas about committee projects. (Beyond the break-outs, as you can see from the agenda, the demands of meeting business will limit opportunities to speak up.)

Also, we'll make the written reports from each of the issue committees available to call participants after the meeting. 

Maintaining this year’s new practice, this Program Committee call will once again feature time for informal conversations before and after.  I invite you to call in (or stay on) – whether for ten minutes or for both half-hours – to converse about our program work and other WILPF topics. This month the before/after conversation is using the same Maestro as for the Program meeting. 

I look forward to many WILPFers joining in on Tuesday, May 4! Remember to preregister if you haven’t been on these calls before.