DALLAS/SEATTLE - The Palestine Chronicle is teaming up efforts with the staff at KinderUSA, (www.kinderusa.org) one of the most reputable US charities working in Palestine, to launch a month long fundraising effort, titled: “Project Humanity: Sending Love and Relief to the Children in Palestine”. During this month, we are aiming to raise $20,000.00, to provide food and other basic necessities to needy families during Ramadan.
In referring to the ongoing anguish endured by Palestinians, Dr. Riad Abdelkarim chairman of KinderUSA said, “We must not only consider the humanitarian consequences of this devastation, but also the psychological affect it is having on the children. Our children are our greatest assets and KinderUSA has made a commitment to do all within our means to enable these innocent children to survive.”
Ramzy Baroud, Editor-in-Chief of the highly respected online publication, The Palestine Chronicle emphasized, “Our responsibility toward Palestine and its people has broadened like never before, because the untold suffering experienced by Palestinians has invited equally untold misery,” He continued, stressing, “ This is not an abstract story, nor is it history that merely merits a sigh of regret and reflection. It is the dim reality of today. But it will become bleaker if we do not step in to show solidarity with those in need.”
Suzanne Russ, Managing Editor of the Palestine Chronicle stressed, “With severe attacks just this week in Gaza and Rafah, and the displacement of thousands of people, including hundreds and hundreds of children, the Palestine Chronicle implores all readers and supporters to give generously and expediently to further the work of KinderUSA.”
“Our subsidiary office in Gaza, KinderPAL, has distributed $50 food vouchers for families to shop at local merchants for immediate food and hygiene needs. There are still more families in need, and with the beginning of Ramadan it is imperative that we meet the tremendous demand. “As long as there is one child going to sleep hungry, we consider our work incomplete,” said Dr. Abdelkarim.
Baroud affirmed Dr. Abdelkarim’s words, saying, “Your donation will ease the pain of a child, will comfort the fears and uncertainty of an orphan, and proclaim that you care enough that you refuse to turn your back on the Palestinian people, indeed, on humanity.”
Russ stressed, “We ask everyone to give to KinderUSA, until it hurts, there is simply no time for mediocrity.”
To show their gratitude, The Palestine Chronicle and KinderUSA will send a “Free Palestine” Button, to donors at the $25.00 level, a “Free Palestine” bumper sticker to donors at the $50.00 level, a copy of Ramzy Baroud’s book “Searching Jenin” to donors at the $100.00 level, and a package of all three items to donors at the $150.00 level.
You can send your tax-deductible donation to KinderUSA online at www.kinderusa.org/baform.asp
Please select “Project Humanity” on the pull-down menu!
You can also donate by sending your check to Kinder USA
P.O. Box 224846
Dallas, Texas 75222-9785
U.S.A
Please note “Project Humanity” in the memo line of your check! Thank you!
For further information, contact Dalell Mohammed at 1-888-451-8908, or email her at kinder@kinderusa.org. Inquiries can be faxed to 972-664-1994.
Or you can contact Suzanne Russ at the Palestine Chronicle at russ@palestinechronicle.com. Inquiries can be faxed to 425-778-9237
30th Special Session of the Human Rights Council on the grave human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem
Date posted: May 27, 2021
By MIFTAH
The latest crackdown on Palestinians in ‘48, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and Gaza clearly demonstrates Israel’s institutionalized policy aimed at maintaining its settler colonial and apartheid regime over the Palestinian people as a whole.
Palestinians have been resisting forced displacement, dispossession, and ethnic cleansing in various cities and neighborhoods since 1948. Today, families in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and in Silwan are fighting to save their homes from being stolen by the occupation and Israeli settlers. In Sheik Jarrah and Silwan, around 7,850 Palestinians remain under threat of forced displacement from their homes and land. Forcible transfer of the occupied population is prohibited under international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Nahalat Shimon International, a settler organization based in the United States, filed lawsuits to seize the homes of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah using inherently discriminatory laws, such as the Legal and Administrative Matter Laws and the Absentee Property Law of 1950, to forcibly displace Palestinians and confiscate their land or property and transfer their land to Israeli settlers with the support of the Israeli authorities and the judicial system.
Israeli forces systematically deploy disproportionate and unlawful force to disperse protesters during violent raids on Al Aqsa mosque and Church of the Holy Sepulcher and carry out attacks on peaceful protestors in Sheikh Jarrah and other neighborhoods around Jerusalem. After 30 days of repression, 1,000 Palestinians were injured and more than 600 Palestinians were arrested in Jerusalem alone. The total number of arrests is 2650 including Jerusalem, 1948 territories and the West Bank.
We call on the Council to adopt the resolution establishing the Commission of Inquiry addressing the root causes of Israel’s settler colonialism and apartheid as a first step to accountability and justice.
Signatories:
- The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy- MIFTAH
- Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling
- Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
- Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies (RCHRS)
- The Community Action Center
- Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
Sheikh Jarrah Families Send Letter to the International Criminal Court Calling for Urgent Investigation of their Imminent Forced Displacement, Endorsed by 190 Organisations
Date posted: April 26, 2021
By Al-Haq
On 22 April 2021, representatives of 28 Palestinian families constituting approximately 500 Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, and 191 endorsing organisations, sent a letter to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), calling to urgently include the imminent forced displacement of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah as part of the open investigation within the Situation in the State of Palestine. Specifically, the families called on her Office to include as part of the investigation the related war crimes and crimes against humanity, including forcible transfer, appropriation of property, persecution, apartheid, and other inhumane acts causing great suffering or serious injury to inter alia mental health arising from their forced evictions.
The letter outlines that following the ruling of Israeli courts in favour of eviction lawsuits undertaken by a settler organisation, 87 Palestinians in the neighbourhood are at imminent risk of forced eviction including four families by 2 May 2021 and three other families by 1 August 2021.
Outlining how the current forced evictions would constitute their second or third forced displacement, the Sheikh Jarrah families highlighted their forcible displacement from their homes in Palestinian towns, cities, and villages, during the Nakba, and their ongoing denial of their inalienable right to return to their homes and properties since 1948. They further underscored the coercive environment they are subject to in Jerusalem, which is designed to transform the city’s demographic composition to secure Israeli-Jewish control over Jerusalem and drive ongoing Palestinian displacement.
The Sheikh Jarrah families continue to endure a lengthy, exhausting, and unaffordable legal battle since 1972 in order to confront the eviction lawsuits brought against them by a settler organization before Israeli courts, which unlawfully apply Israeli discriminatory domestic law to the occupied territory. The families are now pursuing accountability before the ICC.
In their letter, the Sheikh Jarrah families called on the Office of the Prosecutor to publicly condemn the imminent forced evictions of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood and urgently investigate this case within the Situation of Palestine and intervene to forestall the displacement of these Palestinian families from their homes. The families are supported in their call by 191 organisations, including Palestinian, Israeli, regional and international human rights organisations; Palestinian coalitions representing over 140 Palestinian civil society organisations; solidarity groups for Palestine; faith-based groups; indigenous groups; racial justice groups; and student groups, including Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, American Muslim Bar Association, the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, Arab Organization for Human Rights, B’Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Grassroots Jerusalem, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), ICAHD (The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions), Jewish Voice for Peace, the National Lawyers Guild, Norwegian People’s Aid, Pax Christi International, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Palestinian NGOs Network, Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC), The Red Nation, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights and War on Want.
To access the letter and the list of endorsing organisations, please click here.
The National Campaign for the Protection of Civic Action
Date posted: March 31, 2021
By MIFTAH
No to the undermining of the Basic Law and Rights System
We, the undersigned civil society institutions and coalitions, express our rejection of any tampering with the legal system on the eve of elections. We consider this a means of manipulation that could undercut these elections and limit spaces for civic action, impacting the freedom of opinion, organization, gathering and expression. It is tantamount to a coup against the Palestinian Basic Law and the Declaration of Independence, both of which constitute a social contract between the various components of the Palestinian people until a constitution for the State of Palestine is written.
We call on President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian government to cancel all laws by decree that infringe on public freedoms and the separation of authorities, particularly the Law by Decree, No. 7 of 2021, which confines and stymies the work of civil society institutions and undermines their role in defending the interests of our people and supporting their steadfastness in the face of ethnic cleansing and forced expulsion, in addition to adopting projects that support Palestinian resolve against Israeli annexation plans and encroachment.
We also express our rejection of the Law by Decree, No. 40 of 2020, which infringes on the principle of separation between the authorities and attaches the judicial authority to the executive authority and all laws by decree that limit the independence and freedom of union work.
We, as civil society, have exhausted all means of dialogue with the government to persuade it to renege on the aforementioned laws by decree, with no meaningful response. In particular, the implementation of the Law by Decree No. 7 of 2021 by the Ministry of Interior and any relevant ministry will render all civil society institutions vulnerable to the arbitrariness of the executive authority. It also exposes its executive teams and boards of directors to legal accountability in accordance with this law by decree that runs contradictory to the Basic Law. Therefore, we declare our boycott of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs conference, to be held on Tuesday, March 30, 2021 under the auspices of Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and suspend our participation in joint activities with the government henceforth until the law by decree is cancelled. We also announce as of the start of this week, we will escalate our activities to overturn this law by decree.
We support the mainstreaming of principles of accountability and good governance in all sectors, in accordance with the law and far removed from arbitrariness, the silencing of voices, stifling of freedoms and destruction of civil society institutions. This is so the system of accountability and integrity is capable of operating with efficiency in the defense of our people’s interests, dignity and status among civilized nations. We call on all components of the executive authority to respect the Basic Law and international obligations of the State of Palestine, for which we seek a respectable standing among counties that honor public freedoms.
*The National campaign for the protection of civic action is comprised of a broad-based alliance of civil society coalitions that reject the Law by Decree No. 7 of 2021.
Carter: US "In Bed" with Israel
Date posted: October 17, 2002
By The Palestine Chronicle
WASHINGTON (PMC) - Former US President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter on Monday voiced a sharp criticism of President George W. Bush’s ongoing policy in the Middle East, saying the current US administration was mistreating Palestinians while being ‘in bed’ with Israel.
“We’re in bed, you might say with the Israelis and we won’t even talk to the leaders of the Palestinians,” Carter said expressing anger at the Bush administration’s consistent attempts to sideline Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
In an interview with Sky Radio Network, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate accused Bush of doing very little to bring peace into the Middle East, especially because of Washington’s unequivocal bias towards its chief ally, Israel.
Winning the Nobel Prize was seen as a rebuke of Bush’s administration for its persistent push for a war on Iraq, threatening to drag the entire region into mayhem.
“We’re doing very little,” Carter said of Bush’s attempts to pacify the situation. “As a matter of fact, this administration has basically abandoned any real effort to bring about reconciliation between the Israelis and the Palestinians.”
Speaking on the day he received his prize, the former President stressed the US cannot be seen as a neutral mediator between Palestinians and Israelis.
“You have to be trusted by both sides…you have to deal equally with both sides, we’re not doing that,” Carter said, lamenting what he said was the end of a nearly 30-year US commitment to the Middle East peace process, AFP reported.
“I hope that eventually we will see the error of this procedure and get back into a real mediation role,” he added.
Carter, who was renowned for his peacemaking during and after his time at the White House, unleashed his harsh wordings prior to a visit by Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to Washington, which previously criticized Israel for its persistent killing of Palestinians and the dire humanitarian situation it is inflicting in the occupied Palestinian Territory.
