November 29: The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

To mark Nov. 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace – Boston, Democratic Socialists of America – Boston and Mass Peace Action held a rally in Downtown Crossing and then marched to the JFK Building in Government Center to deliver this letter to the offices of Senators Warren and Markey.  The letter was endorsed by 28 MA-based organizations.                                                     

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MASSACHUSETTS CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION

Two decades of ruinous wars in the Middle East have killed up to a million people and extracted more than $6 trillion from US taxpayers, while military contractors have reaped colossal profits.  The end of the Afghanistan war has not stopped the Senate Appropriations Committee from proposing a $29 billion increase to the Pentagon’s budget, bringing it to some $726 billion.  Included in this amount is $1 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome.

This additional $1 billion is on top of the annual $3.8 billion in military aid the US gives every year to Israel, a country that ranks in the world’s top 20 economies, with a per capita GDP well above that of the UK, Japan and France.  Most of those funds are used to purchase US armaments, further inflating the wealth and power of the ‘military-industrial complex’ that President Eisenhower warned the nation about 60 years ago.

What do these tax dollars mean for Massachusetts?

The proportional share of the yearly $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel shouldered by Massachusetts taxpayers amounts to approximately $130 million annually, a sum that could be applied to addressing urgent needs within the Commonwealth that have been intensified by the pandemic.  

It is difficult to imagine residents favoring more funding for the bloated US arms industry – in this case Massachusetts-based Raytheon - the builder of the Iron Dome whose head reaped $19,397,106 in total compensation in 2020 – at a time when so many Massachusetts residents are struggling to feed themselves and their families, to avoid eviction, to help their children make up for a lost year of schooling, to find affordable child care and cope with rising health care costs.  Hit the hardest are communities of color that have played such crucial ‘front line’ roles since the pandemic began. 

What would taxpayers prefer – to give $130 million to Israel for weapons purchases or use it to improve schools and support a thousand teachers, or provide 85,000 people with food assistance?  

What do these tax dollars mean for Palestinians?

The more Americans know about how the military aid given Israel is used to kill and oppress Palestinians, the more likely they are to oppose it.  It helps sustain a discriminatory Apartheid system, as detailed by the Israel human rights group B’tselem, Human Rights Watch and two former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa, Ilan Baruch and Alon Liel, among many others.  

While Israel’s illegal settlements are being expanded throughout the West Bank, Palestinians are being driven into small enclaves surrounded by walls and checkpoints, as growing numbers lose their land, livelihoods and homes.  The Gaza Strip, blockaded from the world for 14 years, has been called an open air prison and a lab to try out advanced US weapons.  

On a 2017 visit, Mandla Mandela, the grandson of Nelson Mandela, stated in an interview that “what we have experienced in South Africa is a fraction of what the Palestinians are experiencing.  We were oppressed in order to serve the white minority.  The Palestinians are being eliminated off their land…and this is a total human-rights violation.  I think it is a total disgrace that the world is able to sit back while such atrocities are being carried out by Apartheid Israel.”   

What should the US Congress do?

• Congress should stop giving Israel everything it wants and start enforcing its own laws.  The pass given to Israel over the decades to exempt it from the human rights protections in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 and the Leahy Laws must be brought to an end.  This would be in line with the wishes of a considerable majority of Democratic Party voters, who are against giving Israel unrestricted military aid if it continues its settlement expansion, according to a May 2021 Arab American Institute poll.

• Massachusetts Representatives should stand with Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Rep. Stephen Lynch as co-sponsors of H.R. 2590, ‘Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living under Israeli Military Occupation Act.’   This bill provides a sorely needed measure of transparency on how the aid the US gives Israel is used by requiring the Secretary of State to certify that none of the funds support Israel’s military detention and abuse of Palestinian children, seizure of Palestinian property and displacement.  Senators Markey and Warren should sponsor a Senate version of H.R. 2590.  

• The Massachusetts delegation should reject an additional $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome if this provision is in the final version of the FY22 Defense Appropriations Act.  This weapon is not, as argued, ‘purely defensive’ but rather is part of Israel’s system of domination, shielding it as it carries out massive military assaults on what is essentially a captive and defenseless population in the Gaza Strip.  Israel is a country whose per capita GDP exceeds $43,000.   If it considers the purchase of Iron Dome receptors from Raytheon to be an urgent matter, Israeli taxpayers can pay for it.  US taxpayer funds are urgently needed at home!

November 29, 2021, the 44th anniversary of the  

UN-declared International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

This letter is endorsed by:

1for3.org

Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia

Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine

American Friends Service Committee

BDS Boston

Brookline Peace Works

Cambridge Bethlehem People to People Project

Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security

City Life/Vida Urbana

Democratic Socialists of America - Boston

Dorchester People for Peace

Grassroots International

GreenRoots, Chelsea MA

Human Rights Awareness: Palestine Israel

If Not Now

Jewish Voice for Peace – Boston

KAIROS West MA/UCC

Massachusetts Peace Action

MIT Students in the Coalition Against Apartheid

Peace and Social Justice Committee of Friends Meeting at Cambridge

Smedley Butler Brigade, Chapter 9 Veterans for Peace

Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East, Harvard MA

Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East – MA chapter

United American Indians of New England

UMass Boston Students for Justice in Palestine

UMass Boston Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine

Visualizing Palestine

Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice and the Environment

Bi-Weekly Brief for November 29, 2021

Bi-Weekly Brief for November 29, 2021

A one page digest of Israel’s ongoing dispossession of Palestinian land and livelihoods, and Palestinian resistance. 

What will it take to curb Israel’s appetite for Palestinian land?

In the build up to November 29, the day designated by the UN in Dec. 1977 as an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the General Assembly affirmed Palestinian sovereignty over its natural resources, including land and water.  The vote was typically lopsided, with 157 countries in support and 7 opposing – the US, Israel, Canada, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, and Palau. While the US is unwilling to back the international consensus at the UN, American behind-the-scenes pressure appears to have one achievement:  on Nov. 25 Israel told the US it would shelve the plan to build 9,000 settlement unitsapproved by the Jerusalem Municipality for the Atarot airport site that had been long reserved for Palestinian housing.  Meanwhile on Nov. 24,  Belgium – following a ruling in 2019 by the EU’s top court – said it would be labeling products made in Israel settlements.  In response the visiting Israeli deputy foreign minister scrapped his diplomatic meetings.

Despite outcry and lack of evidence Israel remains intent on silencing Palestinian civil society

International outrage has not to date induced Israel to rescind its Oct. designation of prominent Palestinian human rights groups as ‘terrorist organizations.’ On Nov. 16, an Israeli military court dismissed an allegation put forward as ‘evidence’ of the groups’ ties to the PFLP.  Unlike the EU and some Members of Congress, including MA Reps. Pressley and McGovern, the Biden administration had little to say for a month.  Finally, on Nov. 20, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield declared: “We support Palestinian NGOs’ role monitoring human rights abuses wherever they occur.” 

Settler thugs, soldiers and bureaucracy combine forces to drive Palestinians off their land

Rampant violence, which has enabled settler outposts to seize control of 50,000 acres (200,000 dunums) of Palestinian land, has met with some hand-wringing on the part of Foreign Minister Gantz and criticism by visiting Members of Congress, but little concrete action.   With the olive harvest winding down, settlers have opened fire on Palestinian homes, stoned drivers on roads, smashed windows and slashed car tires, while soldiers uprooted hundreds of olive trees in Salfit and injured scores in anti-settlement protests. According to the report ‘Creeping Dispossession’ by the Israeli group Hamoked, over the last 8 years many Palestinians have been forced to abandon agriculture because of increasingly draconian bureaucratic methods preventing them from accessing the 9.4% of the West Bank that is on the wrong side of Israel’s ‘separation barrier.’ 

No end to collective punishment inflicted on the Gaza Strip

On Nov. 22, bulldozers and tanks moved into the Gaza Strip to level agricultural land. Israel continues to ban the entry of 62 types of what it calls ‘dual use items,’ including those essential to repair the 56,000 homes and the water, sanitation and electricity infrastructure damaged in the May 2021 offensive.  With reconstruction delayed, winter rains have flooded the damaged homes. 

Water Fact

On Nov. 22, Israel, Jordan and the UAE signed a deal in Dubai under which a large solar farm would be constructed by an Emirati company in the Jordanian desert to supply 2% of Israel’s energy needs by 2030.  In return, Israel has agreed to more than double the amount of water it sells to water-starved Jordan. US climate czar John Kerry attended the signing ceremony, which was presented as a product of the Abraham Accords,  praised as ‘a Green Blue Deal for the Middle East’ and opposed by thousands of Jordanians who took to the streets in opposition.  On the same day as the water-for-energy agreement was signed, Israeli soldiers ordered a halt on construction of a water well near Tubas in the West Bank which would have supplied the irrigation needs of the village of Atuf.  

Compiled by The Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine

Banner design by Paul Normandia of Red Sun Press

This Monday, November 22~

This MONDAY, 11/22 at 9pm Eastern time:

Our friend Gary Anderson, a Colorado-based water engineer who spent years working on water projects in Palestine and throughout the Middle East, will be interviewed on YouTube. He will discuss how Israel diverts most water in the West Bank to Israeli settlements and how this critical resource plays into Israel’s broader policy in the Occupied Territories.

Watch on YouTube

Over 100 Global Foundations & Donors Pledge Solidarity

Over 100 Global Foundations and Donors Pledge Solidarity With Palestinian Civil Society Following Israel’s Ban on Six Leading Human Rights Organizations 

Philanthropic Leaders Urge Governments to Uphold Democracy and Human Rights by Protecting Civil Society Against Repressive Policies

NOV. 16, 2021 — More than 100 global foundations and donors, most of them U.S.-based, have signed on to an open letter expressing solidarity with Palestinian civil society after six leading human rights organizations were designated as so-called “terrorist organizations” by Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Gantz. The list of signatories includes foundations and funder networks across the U.S. and Europe that support environmental justice, feminist movements, and human rights -- all areas that the six banned nonprofit organizations focus on.

“The cynical weaponization of anti-terrorism laws poses an existential threat both for Palestinian human rights defenders and those defending human rights globally,” said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a philanthropic organization that promotes a just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “The breadth of signers of this letter underscores funders’ shared recognition of the urgency of challenging this dangerous tactic, and of the moral obligation to defend partners on the ground who, in essence, have been singled out for attack because they have done their work defending human and civil rights too well.” 

The six targeted organizations provide essential services for more than five million Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation. The list includes Addameer, Al-Haq, Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International - Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees. 

“The philanthropic community must not be silent,” said Latanya Mapp Frett, Global Fund for Women President and CEO. “Palestinian women, girls, and gender diverse and nonconforming people face multiple sources of violence—from the Israeli military occupation to a society dominated by patriarchy. The groups targeted by the Israeli government as ‘terrorists’ are activists. Women human rights defenders are fighting worldwide to end the widespread impunity for violence against women, sexual and gender-based violence, and femicide. We are honored to be part of a group of philanthropists who recognize their role in supporting movement leaders on the forefront of social justice.”

International human rights and intergovernmental bodies rely on the targeted groups for documentation of Israeli rights violations, such as the government’s plan to construct more than 3,100 new illegal settlement units on Palestinian lands, announced just days after the six organizations were banned.  

"The exposure of illegal spying on peaceful Palestinian human rights defenders, coming on top of baseless terrorism claims against internationally respected human rights organizations, underscores how important it is that the international community continue supporting their legitimate work," said Andrew Anderson, executive director of Front Line Defenders, which protects human rights defenders at risk globally. "Surely this episode will serve as a stark warning against any deployment of the term 'terrorist' against human rights defenders anywhere in the world, and renew efforts to rein in the use of spyware against human rights defenders, journalists and other civil society activists."

The philanthropy open letter urges the U.S. government, European Union, and other governments around the world to protect Palestinian civil society by taking the following actions:  

• Denounce all smear campaigns against Palestinian civil society organizations and press the Israeli government to immediately and fully rescind Gantz’s designation of “terrorist organization”against the six prominent Palestinian human rights organizations;

• Hold the Israeli government accountable to adhere to international law and human rights standards; and;

• Ensure that any philanthropic funds designated toward civil society organizations in Palestine reach them without interference by the Israeli government or financial institutions.

“These designations mark a crescendo, not an opening salvo, in the Israeli government’s long-standing campaign to suppress Palestinian civil society,” said Kay Guinane, founder and senior advisor at the Charity & Security Network, a resource and advocacy center that protects the ability of nonprofits to carry out peacebuilding, humanitarian, and human rights missions. “For over a decade, Israel has been working with a network of legal outfits and disinformation groups to distract, defund, and delegitimize organizations in Palestine and internationally that work to support Palestinian needs and end Israel’s human rights abuses. Now, in addition to supporting disinformation and spurious lawsuits, the Israeli government is simply outlawing those who stand up to its abuses.” 

Pamela Kohlberg, who sits on the board of the Radical Imagination Family Foundation, added: “It is especially important for us, as Jews, to stand up for the human rights of the Palestinian community. Uniting as progressive funders to protest the targeting of these important civil society groups is critical. Future work for stability in the region will require relationships and cooperation with these organizations.”

The full text of the letter and latest list of signatories may be found here.

For interviews or further information, please contact philanthropyforpalestine@gmail.com.