Tesneem Shraiteh
Template:TOCnestleft Tesneem Shraiteh is a J.D. Candidate at University of Miami School of Law.
Democrat
Senior Fellow Florida Democratic Party May 2016 – Nov 2016, West Palm Beach.
IWD
By Chrisley Carpio Gainesville, FL - On March 18, University of Florida Students for Justice in Palestine, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization/FightBack! (FRSO) filled a room with about two dozen students and community members to celebrate International Women's Day. They hosted an educational panel titled, “Celebrating Women's Solidarity and Palestinian Activism," which addressed the history of the holiday, the Palestinian women’s movement, and the trumped-up immigration charges against Palestinian women's rights activist Rasmea Odeh.
Farah Khan of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) opened the panel with a summary of the history of International Women's Day. She traced back its roots to the socialist movements of the early 1900s and spoke of the huge 1917 strike in czarist Russia.
Another SJP member, Tesneem Shraiteh, then connected International Women's Day to the crucial role played by women's organizations in the Palestinian liberation movement. She pointed out the existence of feminists who deny the oppression of women in countries occupied by the U.S. or its imperialist agents, such as Israel, and characterized their feminism as limited and damaging: "You have some Israeli women who identify as feminists and want equal rights for women, but not if you're Palestinian. Some feminists don't understand the imperialist borders around the women's movement, dividing women against each other along lines of class and race. But there can be no equality for women without equality for all."
Michela Martinazzi, of University of Florida SDS, then presented the case of Rasmea Odeh, the Chicago Palestinian leader who is a long-time organizer for ending the occupation of Palestine. She was arrested last year and charged for immigration fraud, but she is only one of a long line of Arab, Muslim, or anti-war organizers facing political repression from the U.S. government.[1]