Category: Press Releases

PCHR: PCHR Commends UNICEF Stance Against Illegal OPT Settlements

To view original press release from PCHR, click here

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) welcomes the decision of UNICEF to reject any further support from Israeli businessman Lev Leviev, who owns companies actively involved in constructing illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

Lev Leviev, one of the richest men in Israel, had, until just a few days ago, been involved in fundraising for UNICEF, whilst at the same time being directly involved in building homes in illegal settlements across the Occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Companies owned by Lev Leviev have built homes in settlements including Maale Adumim and Har Homa settlements near East Jerusalem, as well as settlements near the West Bank towns of Jayyous and Bil’in. Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) are illegal under International Humanitarian Law, constituting a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention that amounts to a war crime. Leviev’s support for UNICEF therefore represented a major conflict of interest for the agency.

On June 19, 2008, Chris de Bono, UNICEF Senior Communications Advisor confirmed that “UNICEF has concluded it will not consider partnerships – direct or indirect – with Mr. Lev Leviev or any of his corporate entities, and will not accept financial or other support that we know is from him or his corporate entities.” PCHR commends UNICEF’s rejection of any future support from Lev Leviev. The Centre calls upon all other international agencies to ensure they are not receiving financial support, directly or indirectly, from any organizations involved in Israel’s illegal occupation of the OPT. In addition, the Centre calls upon all High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their legal and moral obligations to take measures against individuals and companies involved in the building and expansion of illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

DCI/PS welcomes UNICEF’s rejection of Leviev support

To view original statement made by the Defence for Children International – Palestine section, click here

DCI-Palestine welcomes UNICEF’s decision to reject any further support offered by Israeli businessman Lev Leviev, who owns companies that are responsible for building housing units in several settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), in contravention of international humanitarian law.

Lev Leviev sponsored fundraising events for UNICEF in 2007, while actively promoting the construction in the occupied West Bank of settlements which are not only illegal but also have a profound negative impact on the lives of Palestinian children. Several international and Palestinian groups working to protect Palestinian human rights, spearheaded by New York-based Adalah-NY–The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East, had therefore been calling for UNICEF to publicly renounce connections with Leviev and to stop accepting any kind of support from his companies.

DCI-Palestine played an active role in raising this issue with UNICEF: we sent a letter of concern to UNICEF New York headquarters in April, organised meetings with the UNICEF-oPt Country Representative, and met with the UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa in May. In addition, DCI-Palestine and the Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign coordinated a field visit of UNICEF officials to Jayyous, a Palestinian village which has been severely impacted by the construction of a settlement supported by one of Leviev’s companies.

On Thursday 19 June, a letter to Adalah-NY from the senior communications advisor to UNICEF’s Executive Director, stated: “Yesterday we confirmed that UNICEF has concluded that it will not consider partnerships – direct or indirect – with Mr. Lev Leviev or any of his corporate entities, and will not accept financial or other support that we know is from him or his corporate entities.” (Further information in the Adalah-NY press release)

DCI-Palestine welcomes this decision, and would like to thank Adalah-NY and all the other groups who have worked together to achieve this important step towards improving accountability to principles of international humanitarian and human rights law. We also want to thank residents of the West Bank villages Bil’in and Jayyous, whose children directly suffer from the consequences of settlement and settlement building activities. The presence of Israeli settlements and settlers in the West Bank has a devastating impact on the lives of Palestinian children and adults living nearby. A forthcoming DCI-Palestine violation report will highlight the recent increase in settler attacks against Palestinian children.

UNICEF Rejects Support From Israeli Billionaire Known for Constructing Settlements on Palestinian Lands

Diamond Mogul, Lev Leviev, Facing Increasing Pressure for Human Rights Violations
By Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East
Media Contact: media@adalahny.org

New York, NY, June 19, 2008 – A senior advisor to UNICEF’s Director said in a letter today that UNICEF will reject all partnerships with, or financial support from, Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev. Leviev had previously provided UNICEF with support by sponsoring fundraising events in France. Leviev’s past support for UNICEF is featured in a number of places on his company’s website (www.leviev.com).

UNICEF’s rejection of Leviev’s support followed meetings with Adalah-NY, letters from organizations and Palestinian communities advocating a boycott of Leviev’s companies, and a visit by UNICEF officials to Jayyous, one of the Palestinian communities where a Leviev company is building Israeli settlements. Leviev’s diamond-mining companies in Angola have also been accused of serious human rights abuses.

Abdullah Abu Rahme, a community leader from the West Bank village of Bil’in, said, “We welcome UNICEF’s decision to hold one of the companies that has been building Mattityahu East settlement accountable for attempting to destroy our community. Our village has engaged in a three and a half year nonviolent campaign to save our land, and an international boycott is an important complement to our weekly protests. This is a victory, but we need many more like it.” Leviev’s companies have also recently built homes in the settlements of Maale Adumim and Har Homa, both of which cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank.

A June 19 letter to Adalah-NY from Chris De Bono, senior communications advisor to UNICEF’s Executive Director, stated: “Yesterday we confirmed that UNICEF has concluded that it will not consider partnerships – direct or indirect – with Mr. Lev Leviev or any of his corporate entities, and will not accept financial or other support that we know is from him or his corporate entities. The concerned parts of the UNICEF family, including our national committees, have been advised of this.” (See the full UNICEF letter: http://adalahny.org/images/stories/unicef-leviev.pdf) The letter followed a June 18th meeting at UNICEF’s New York headquarters with representatives from Adalah-NY.

In a previous March 25, 2008 letter to Adalah-NY, UNICEF explained that Leviev had indirectly supported UNICEF three times, “each time as a sponsor of fundraising activities organized by the French magazine Gala in support of UNICEF.” In the same letter UNICEF expressed its support for UN resolutions stating that Israeli settlements violate international law. Then in April, UNICEF received letters demanding that it reject all support from Leviev from Jewish Voice for Peace, Defence for Children International-Palestine, the villages of Jayyous and Bil’in, The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign, and Jews Against the Occupation.

The Mayor of the West Bank village of Jayyous, Mohammed Taher Jaber, commented: “UNICEF officials visited us in May and saw the terrible impacts on our children of the theft of our farmland for the expansion of Zufim settlement by Leviev’s company Leader. We thank UNICEF for upholding international law, and supporting children’s rights, and we call on other organizations to do the same.”

When contacted by Adalah-NY in January, Oxfam International announced publicly that it had not received support from Leviev, contrary to press reports and information on one of Leviev’s websites, and that it would not accept his support in the future due to Leviev’s companies’ settlement construction. Dubai has also recently announced that it would not allow Leviev to open planned jewelry stores in the Emirate following boycott calls issued by Adalah-NY and Palestinian communities.

Israeli forces assault and forcibly deport New Zealand peace activist once kidnapped in Iraq.


Harmeet Sooden. Picture taken in January 2005 on a farm outside Jenin where he was helping to plant olive trees.

Harmeet Sooden, a peace activist from New Zealand, was forcibly deported from Israel on the 18th of June at 1 am, after four days in jail. Sooden was told he was being deported because he was a ‘threat to the security of the State of Israel’. Sooden, along with Tom Fox, Norman Kember, and James Loney, was held in captivity for four months while working with the Christian Peacemaker’s Team (CPT) in Iraq.

“I am still reeling from this experience. It dredged up some old feelings. I told them honestly that I had come to revisit Yad Vashem, visit historic sites and volunteer for ISM. They never disclosed the official reason for denying me, the Ministry of Interior official told me that I was a ‘threat to the security of the State of Israel’,” Sooden said of his time in Israeli captivity.

When Sooden arrived early in the morning on June 14th he was immediately questioned by the authorities, who attempted to deport him the first time that night, without letting him talk to a lawyer. He resisted the first deportation and was transferred to “Unit 9”. Later they attempted to deport him again, assaulting him in the process and dragging him on to the plane. The pilot refused to fly and so he avoided the second deportation attempt. Sooden was later successfully deported with security officers aboard the plane, and will arrive in New Zealand at 2:15 pm on June 20th (Via Bangkok).

Sooden was targetted because of his past involvement with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Sooden was active previously in Nablus and Jenin with ISM and was part of a two week delegation to Iraq which turned into four months of captivity, during which one of his comrades, Tom Fox, was murdered.

ei: Quebec Student Federation Joins International Boycott Movement

To view original article, published in Electronic Intifada, click here

Press release, Tadamon, 9 June 2008

Across the world grassroots movements struggling in opposition to Israeli apartheid are marking the 60th year of the Palestinian Nakba (“catastrophe”) — 60 years of dispossession, ethnic cleansing and exile for Palestinians resulting from the creation of the state of Israel.

A grassroots response in opposition to Israeli apartheid is growing throughout the world sparked by an appeal launched by Palestinian civil-society organizations in 2005 for an international campaign directed at the government in Israel, a campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions. This critical campaign is modeled on a successful international campaign similar in nature that played a critical role in bringing an end to the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Today students in Quebec are now joining the international boycott campaign in large numbers including L’Association pour une Solidarite Syndicale Etudiante (ASSE), an important Quebec-wide student federation representing over 42,000 students.

ASSE voted to support the international campaign against Israeli apartheid at a Quebec-wide level after several local assemblies at university and Cegep campuses across the province voted at a local level within general student assemblies to support the boycott campaign. ASSE’s boycott resolution marks the first time that a major student union in Quebec or Canada has voted to support the international boycott campaign opposing Israeli apartheid.

Throughout the 2007-2008 school year ASSE in collaboration with Tadamon! Montreal, with support from Federation nationale des enseignantes et enseignants du Quebec — Quebec’s largest college level teachers union — and the Quebec Public Interest Research Group organized multiple workshops throughout Quebec at Cegep and university campuses bringing together hundreds of students for popular education workshops outlining the critical importance for Quebec’s student movement to stand against Israeli apartheid.

ASSE represents the grassroots face of Quebec’s powerful student movement, with tens-of-thousands of members and a strong position against privatization and for free post-secondary education in Quebec.

In 2005 ASSE launched and lead a historic student strike across Quebec, with over one-hundred student unions participating at the height of a strike rooted in a demand for a cancellation on all student debt and free post-secondary education in Quebec.

Utilizing mass protest, creative direct actions and grassroots campus-based organizing ASSE has successfully fought against neo-liberal economic policies fronted by the Liberal government of Jean Charest, who upon taking governmental power moved to make important changes to financial aid program for students in Quebec, including a $103 million cut. After major protests lead by ASSE across Quebec the Liberal government was forced to reverse their cuts to student funding, marking one of the only times in Quebec’s recent history that grassroots social mobilization has successfully reversed unpopular government policy.

ASSE represents a grassroots power base within Quebec’s student movement, one that draws parallels between the struggle for accessible and free education in Quebec to larger movements for social justice in the Americas, the Middle East and internationally.

ASSE has now taken an important and courageous stand to support the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions, as a tangible step in solidarity with struggles against Israeli apartheid in Palestine and throughout the Middle East. This resolution marks the growing momentum behind the international movement against Israeli apartheid and a willingness to take action at a local level within progressive student networks in Quebec to challenge Israeli apartheid.

ASSE’s important stand also marks a critical opportunity for grassroots student and social movements in Quebec to challenge the Quebec and Canadian government complicity towards Israeli apartheid and today the outright support towards Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by Canada’s Conservative government.

Today we call on all student and labor unions to join L’Association pour une Solidarite Syndicale Etudiante in creating a strong and effective boycott movement against Israeli apartheid.

View the signatories here

Tadamon! (“Solidarity!” in Arabic) is a Montreal-based collective of social-justice organizers & media activists, working to build relationships of solidarity with grassroots political movements for social and economic justice between Beirut and Montreal.