MADRE

Activities

• MADRE’s publications on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are characterized by extreme distortions in the service of a political agenda, rejecting Israeli security concerns and placing Palestinian terror in the context of the “right to resist military occupation.”
• MADRE was a major participant in the NGO forum of the Durban Conference on Racism in 2001, including a highly biased presentation on the history of Palestinian refugees.
• In November 2025, MADRE endorsed a resolution introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI-12) “recogniz[ing] that the Israeli government has committed the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and calls for the United States to take immediate, concrete action to fulfill its binding legal obligations as a party to the Genocide Convention to prevent and punish the crime of genocide.”
• In October 2025, MADRE Senior Expert in Gender Justice and International Law Wendy Isaack participated in an event titled “Recognizing Apartheid Victims in the UN Draft Treaty on Crimes Against Humanity.” At the event, Isaack raised concerns about the “definition of apartheid,” claiming, “For Palestinian victims to receive recognition and holistic reparations for discriminatory oppression, perpetrators must be held accountable for present injustices as well as for injustices that started well before October 2023. Clarifying that the new treaty’s apartheid provision includes recognition of present-day victims, such as Palestinians, would be an important step forward.”
• In June 2025, following Israeli and American strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites and Iran’s targeting of Israeli population centers, MADRE alleged, “by joining Israel’s latest attack on Iran – after more than 20 months of arming genocide in Gaza – Trump has once again confirmed the US as an enabler and direct participant in Israel’s crimes.” 
• In October 2024, MADRE was a signatory on a joint letter to the US Senate calling to “Block Arms Sales to Israel.”
• In October 2024, MADRE issued a statement claiming that “Long before last October, Palestinians had been living for decades under suffocating conditions of Jim Crow-style racism and military occupation.”
• In May 2024, MADRE declared, “Arms sales and transfers to Israel MUST STOP.”
• In May 2024, following the ICC Prosecutor announcement to seek arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant, MADRE published a press release: “This is a major move by the ICC, representing a significant international effort to seek individual accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity…We call on the ICC to ensure that its investigation includes efforts to seek accountability for crimes committed both before and after October 7.”
• In November 2023, MADRE published a statement claiming, “MADRE has a 40-year history of working alongside partners in conflict zones, including in communities that have faced genocide such as Guatemala and Rwanda…Today, we see this happening again, targeted against Palestinian people…the Israeli government has taken advantage of its people’s desire for justice for the October 7th attacks to divert away from peaceful, lawful responses and to justify its own genocidal campaign of violence.”
• In October 2023, in the aftermath of the brutal Oct. 7th attack, MADRE published a statement: “that true, lasting peace and justice can only come from an end to Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies that have deprived and dehumanized Palestinians for generations… Despite Israel’s apartheid policies, and ongoing attacks against civilians in Gaza.”
• In March 2022, MADRE was a signatory on a statement welcoming then UN Special Rapporteur “on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967” Michael Lynk’s report accusing Israel of apartheid. According to the statement, “We reiterate the need for effective measures to dismantle Israeli apartheid, as put forward by the Special Rapporteur and civil society, including for UN member states to recognize Israeli apartheid against the Palestinian people…It is time to act to adopt effective measures, including sanctions, to end Israeli apartheid.”
• In October 2021, MADRE was a signatory on a joint statement condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the statement, “This unprecedented designation is merely the latest escalation in Israel’s widespread and systematic institutionalized campaign that has aimed to silence and discredit any Palestinian individual or organization that dares seek accountability for Israel’s grave human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity…the international community, especially the European Union and its member states who are key supporters of and donors to Palestinian civil society, should ensure that banks and financial institutions in their jurisdiction are notified Israel’s designation of Palestinian organizations is unfounded and inapplicable.”
• In May 2021, MADRE called for the United States to “stop bankrolling ethnic cleansing” by Israel.
• In May 2021, MADRE published a press release urging the Biden administration to “call for an end to the Israeli occupation and apartheid” and to “Stop selling weapons and providing unconditional military aid to Israel, enabling its violent attack on Palestinians.”
• In 2021, MADRE endorsed US Congresswoman McCollum’s proposed legislation “to prevent United States tax dollars from supporting the Israeli military’s ongoing detention and mistreatment of Palestinian children.” The entirety of the proposed bill is premised on factually inaccurate claims from anti-Israel advocacy NGOs, including direct quotes from DCIP’s “No Way to Treat a Child” 2016 report and website.
• In June 2018, MADRE posted an article commemorating the death of Razan al-Najjar. MADRErepeated the unfounded claim that a 21-year-old female medical volunteer, Razan Najjar, was intentionally killed by an Israeli sniper. MADRE ignored that an New York Times article examining the incident concluded that Najjar was accidentally killed by shrapnel from a ricocheting bullet.
• In May 2016, MADRE joined a coalition of over 100 groups to send a letter to members of the New York Legislature, “urging lawmakers to oppose bills that would effectively create blacklists of individuals and entities that boycott companies based in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territory.”
  • The coalition included Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, Center for Constitutional Rights, Students for Justice in Palestine, WESPAC Foundation, Adalah-NY, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and Palestine Legal.