ALT What is happening now? Where is Greta and the Freedom Flotilla crew? pt 2. The crew of the Madleen were kidnapped and arrested by Israel on international waters and brought to Israel against their will. The crew had to choose to leave or stay. 4 people, including Greta left. 8 people intentionally chose to stay to bring more visibility to the issue. Greta chose to leave the country so she could continue to advocate for the situation.

ALT Who was aboard the Madleen and what happened to them? Sergio Toribio (Spain)

ALT Why does this all matter? The disability community is global, and arbitrary lines between countries decide what experience you have living there. Disability Divest, Greta Thunberg, and many other people with disabilities are in solidarity with Palestine and Palestinians because Palestinians are being actively debilitated and disabled by Israel’s genocide. Fighting for people with disabilities means fighting for ALL people with disabilities.

ALT All eyes on Palestine. Follow the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and the work as they work to break the siege. Disability Justice is Palestinian Justice. Palestinian Justice is Disability Justice.

ALT Palestine, Disability Justice, Greta, & the Freedom Flotilla A picture of Greta Thunberg

ALT Have you ever wondered ‘What happened to Greta Thunberg?’ If you have, you’re not alone. Despite her rise to global fame as a child as one the most famous young climate justice activists, her name has not shown up as much in recent years. While Greta is a reliable and respected activist, people view her as they do most disabled people, someone to move their hearts and feel inspired by, but not serious enough to enact real change or be worthy of legitimacy. The act of her speaking out against injustice as an autistic person with selective mutism was viewed as a wonder rather than what she wanted, to be heard for the dire situation the world is in.

ALT So, why has Greta disappeared from the mainstream spotlight? It’s quite simple. Greta Thunberg is unapologetically anti-imperialist and pro-Palestine. Once nondisbled privileged people in power realized she would continuously challenge them to do something, they discarded her and her activism. Greta also recognizes that genocide and climate change are linked: “We cannot have climate justice without social justice. The reason why I am a climate activist is not because I want to protect trees. I’m a climate activist because I care about human and planetary well-being, and those are extremely interlinked.”

ALT What is happening now? Where is Greta and the Freedom Flotilla crew? Pt 1. Greta was on a boat called the Madleen or Freedom Flotilla. It had a crew of 12 activists including Rima Hassan, a French-Palestinian Member of the European Parliament The boat was going to Palestine to bring aid to the people living there who are trying to survive. This is because Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians and decimating the country of Palestine. The boat never made it to Palestine because Israel stopped it.

ALT Article titled There is no disability justice without a Free Palestine by Dom Kelly. From Mondoweiss: News and Opinion about Palestine, Israel, and the United States. Read article in this post or at TinyURL.com/yrnjxh35 or by taking a screenshot of the QR code. Image: Palestinian child Mustafa Nasr, 11 years old, is being cared for by his family in the Al-Nazla area in Jabalia in Gaza City, February 2025. His legs were amputated in an Israeli airstrike that targeted his family’s home during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip. A group of his family members were also martyred. Photo by Omar Ashtawy/apaimages

ALT Two news articles. The first article is from The Intercept. Title reads: Fetterman Went to Israel on NYC Mental Health Nonprofit’s Dime. Subtitle reads: The Pennsylvania senator has come under fire for skipping votes and town halls — but he had time for a first-class trip to Israel in March. Written by Georgia Gee on May 28 2024. A photo of Fetterman, a tall white man with a beard wearing a white hoodie, riding up an escalator. The second article is from Save the Children. Title reads: “Complete psychological destruction”: Children in Gaza have suffered “relentless mental harm” during five months of war. Published from occupied Palestinian territory on March 12, 2024.

ALT It repulsive and hypocritical that an organization supposedly dedicated to mental health and wellness sends someone to a country with a government that is actively committing a genocide that has destroyed the mental health of all Palestinians, including children. Caring about those with mental health and psychiatric disabilities means caring about anyone navigating these disabilities or conditions, not just a select few.

ALT A Ceasefire Deal Has Been Reached. Our Work Continues. Disability Divest.

ALT On Wednesday, January 15, 2025, it was announced that a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza has been reached and will take effect on Sunday, January 19. We are encouraged by this news and support our Palestinian peers in their joy and relief. This is an important step in ending Israel’s genocidal onslaught on Palestine. But we know that as allies in the so-called “United States,” our work continues. We demand accountability for our government’s role in facilitating this genocide, its participation in war crimes, and its use of American tax dollars to murder Palestinian children and adults. We continue to demand that the U.S. disability establishment end its relationships with war profiteers. Disability rights cannot be built upon partnerships with weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

ALT For over 466 days, U.S. disability establishment organizations have continued to accept sponsorships from war profiteers and have encouraged disabled workers to become part of the U.S. war machine through employment with companies that profit off genocide. At the same time, U.S. disability establishment organizations and “leaders” have remained silent as our disabled peers in Palestine have been bombed, shot, starved, and frozen to death. They have prioritized their connections to war profiteers and the Biden Administration over the safety and liberation of disabled people. They have been silent and complicit. They do not represent us.

ALT We call on disabled people who believe in disability justice to support Palestinian liberation. Continue to speak up, protest, boycott, and donate to the survival funds of disabled Palestinians. There is no disability justice without a free Palestine.

ALT Alt text: A graph of the spike in covid cases overlaid a picture of the 2024 White House disability pride and A D A celebration. Graph title reads: US Covid 19 Transmission the Past 12 Months and Forecast. August 10: 1.33 million daily infections. August 24: 1.32 million daily infections. September 9: 1.16 million daily infections. Source: P M C 19 dot com forward slash data.

ALT Brittany Broski meme of her looking disgusted, then relieved and interested. The disgusted face coincides with an invite to the White House’s disability pride event. The interest face goes along with the event info for our vigil honoring disabled Palestinians.

ALT Event flyer for a vigil. Text reads: Vigil. Bearing Witness and Showing Solidarity with Disabled Palestinians. When: Monday, September 9, 2024 from 4:30 - 6:00 PM/ Location: The White House (Pennsylvania Ave Side). Accessibility information in caption. Hosted by Disability Divest In Partnership with The Vigil for Palestine. Logo for Disability Divest, a person using a wheelchair and the wheel is a watermelon slice symbolizing Palestine with the neurodiversity infinity symbol on it.

ALT Screenshot of Google Maps showing the area around the White House to show where to go for vigil. Pin location icon placed on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. The road is between the White House and Lafayette Square.

ALT Fake invite to the White House. Cursive text reads: The President and Dr. Biden request the pleasure of your manufactured consent for the government’s full support of Israel’s illegal occupation, mass disablement, and genocide of Palestinians, normalizing apathy and ignorance towards our global disability community to be held at The White House on Monday, September 9, 2024 at five o’clock.

ALT Fake invite from slide 1 in san serif font - cursive from slide 1 difficult to read.

ALT And Much more It is important to note that there is much more wrong and significant that happened at the DNC this year - including the lack of trans speakers, no health care platform or plan, the reduction of disabled people to the worth based on their ability to work, and much more. We invite you to share other take aways in the comments/replies and discuss what we haven’t further elaborated upon in this post. Our shared collective knowledge is bountiful.

ALT The indoor DNC convention center filled with people and large tv screens with a red photo filter. Text reads: Disability Divest on the DNC

ALT Photos of Disability Divest activists Jen and Ezra. Jen has light skin, dark shoulder length hair, glasses, and wears turquoise earrings and shirt. Ezra has light skin, short brown hair, and wears glasses and a black shirt with butterflies on it.

ALT Why Airbnb. An Airbnb listing in Sde Boaz invited guests for “a personalized experience of Israel,” “amidst vineyards, orchards, and natural springs,” “catering especially for couples and offering arts and crafts workshops.” Sde Boaz is an illegal Israeli outpost established in 2002 without formal permits on land privately owned by Palestinians and seized by Israeli settlers. The Israeli host of a campground in Neve Erez, land privately owned by Palestinians, has declared that they would return land to a living owner, “but no such owner exists.” Speaking to Human Rights Watch, they claim “history and archaeology prove that this area has been ours for thousands of years. There is scientific proof that this area is Jewish, Israeli.”

ALT Why Intel. Tech company Intel is the largest private employer in Israel, and its exports constitute 1.75% of Israel’s entire GDP and 5.5% of all Israeli tech exports. Its main facility is located in Kiryat Gat, an Israeli settlement built on the ruins of the ethnically cleansed Palestinian villge of Iraq al-Manshiyya. (BDS) Israel has committed to buying $16.6 billion worth of Israeli goods and services over the next decade. Although it recently halted the construction of a new $25 billion factory in Israel, Intel has stated that “Israel continues to be one of our key global manufacturing and R&D sites, and we remain fully committed to the region.” (Middle East Monitor) In December 2023, Intel’s CEO spoke of a conversation with Israeli President Yizhak Herzog, saying “we will support them, we believe so deeply in what they’ve done, but we’re also supporting humanitarian efforts across the region.” (BDS)

ALT Why Toyota. Toyota manufactures the pickup trucks used by the Israeli military as the basis for the David Urban Light Armored Vehicle, produced by Israeli company MDT Armor. The David Urban Light Armored Vehicle is “the standard patrol and reconnaissance vehicle used by the Israeli military and routinely used in human rights violations in the West Bank.” On November 14, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) posted evidence of the Israeli military using two David armored vehicles to block an ambulance carrying a wounded Palestinian to the Tulkarm Refugee Camp. The same day, the Israeli military used a David vehicle to attack Palestinian youth at the Zaatara military checkpoint near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus. A shipment of David vehicles was rushed to Israel in October 2023. Info from AFSC.org

ALT Demand the IPC cut ties with Airbnb, Intel, and Toyota. Flood the IPC's social media: tag, comment, and DM demands @Paralympics on Instagram and Twitter. #Paralympics #Paris2024

ALT Disability Divest logo, a wheelchair user icon, but the wheel of the wheelchair is the inside slice of a watermelon. At the center of the watermelon is the rainbow neurodivergence infinity sign.

ALT Demand AAPD cut ties with Northrup Grumman and Wells Fargo! Flood AAPD’s social media: tag, comment, and DM demands Instagram: AAPD official Twitter: AAPD

ALT What is the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD)? This Disability Wrath Month, we are exposing the disability establishment’s complicity with genocide, violence, and mass global disablement.