Category: Press Releases

New Yorkers & Palestinians call on Dubai to boycott Leviev jewelry

New York, NY, April 18 – New York human rights activists, and representatives of the West Bank Palestinian villages of Bil’in and Jayyous called on the government and the people of the United Arab Emirates to boycott the jewelry stores of Israeli billionaire and diamond magnate Lev Leviev over his companies’ construction of Israeli settlements. According to a flurry of recent media reports, Leviev is opening jewelry stores in Dubai during 2008.

“We call on the government and people of the United Arab Emirates to join the growing international campaign to boycott Lev Leviev’s companies due to their construction of Israeli colonial settlements, and their human rights violations in Angola,” declared Daniel
Lang-Levitsky of Jews Against the Occupation-NYC. “A major Israeli violator of Palestinian rights and international law should not be opening jewelry stores in Dubai,” added Adalah-NY spokesperson Issa Ayoub. Adalah-NY has organized eight boycott protests outside Leviev’s new Madison Avenue jewelry store over the last five months.

In the last few days, media have reported that Lev Leviev Diamonds will open two stores in Dubai this year. In the fourth quarter of 2008, construction will begin on a store to be located in the Burj Dubai Mall. The second will open in September in the new Atlantis Hotel on Jumeirah Palm Island. Leviev has already opened one store in Dubai in March, 2008 in the lobby of Al-Qasr Hotel on Madinat Jumeirah.

Leviev’s company Leader is building the settlement of Zufim on the land of the West Bank village of Jayyous. The company Danya Cebus, a subsidiary of Leviev’s Africa-Israel, has also built Israeli settlements on the land of the village of Bil’in, and has built homes in Maale Adumim and Har Homa on Jabal Abu Ghneim, encircling and cutting off East Jerusalem from the West Bank. Israel is building its wall to the east of all these settlements, with the aim of annexing them to Israel. Leviev also donates to the Land Redemption Fund, an Israeli settler organization which has used deceit and strong-arm tactics to secure Israeli-occupied Palestinian land for settlements in villages like Bil’in and Jayyous.

Israeli settlements directly violate international law according to the UN, all major human rights organizations and the International Court of Justice’s 2004 advisory opinion on Israel’s wall. The IJC’s opinion also said that states are responsible for ensuring that Israel complies with international law.

Abdullah Abu-Rahme from Bil’in and Sharif Omar from Jayyous explained, “Leviev’s companies are destroying the olive groves and farms that have sustained our villages for centuries, and are
profiting from human rights abuses.” The growing international movement to boycott Israel has developed in response to the 2005 Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) call by 171 Palestinian civil society organizations (www.bds-palestine.net) asking for “people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to” apartheid South Africa in order to end “Israel’s
persistent violations of international law,” and “colonial and discriminatory policies.”

In Angola, Leviev works closely with the repressive Dos Santos regime to mine and sell the country’s diamonds, and he employs the private security firm K&P Mineira, which has been accused of torturing, sexually abusing and even murdering Angolans. According to the
non-profit watchdog group Partnership Africa Canada, around 10% of the diamonds sold from Angola, including some of Leviev’s, fail to comply with the Kimberley Process which was created to end the trade in “blood diamonds.”

For more information: www.adalahny.org,
info@adalahny.org

CPT: Hebron orphanages and schools for 7,000 children ordered closed

For more information about CPT’s work in Palestine click here

Last night (April 1st 2008) approximately 300 women, including teachers, mothers and students, protested the shut down of their school and orphanages by the Israeli government. This is one of several schools and orphanages serving 7,000 orphans and students in the Hebron area. Internationals, including Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and others committed to non-violence, slept in the school expecting armed Israeli soldiers to come and seal up the doors.

The Israeli High Court have just extended the order by one week. This evening internationals have arrived to stay in the school for the night because no one has seen a copy of the written order. There’s also a presence at one of the boys schools by the men and boys of the community. Sixteen year-old American-born Rabiha Abu Sneineh, an articulate defender of her school and friends who will become
homeless, joined her classmates in last night’s protest. Her descriptive letter to Oprah is below.

Dianne Roe, who works with the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) in Hebron, cried when she was interviewing sixteen-year-old Rabina. Below is a news release distributed by CPT and a letter that Rabina,
who was raised in Houston, Texas, who wrote to Oprah last week.

Sixteen year-old American-born Rabiha Abu Sneineh will join her classmates tonight in facing armed Israeli soldiers if the Israeli army carries out the order effective 1 April closing orphanages and schools funded by Islamic Charities that serves 7,000 children.

Two years ago Rabiha was a teenager in Houston, Texas where she was treasurer of the student council and loved going to the mall with her friends. Her new friends are her classmates at the Girls’ orphanage
school in Hebron. Last year they helped her learn Arabic and integrate into her new surroundings. Now she wants to help them.

Dear Oprah,

My name is Rabiha Abusnineh and I am 16 and a half years old. For the first fifteen years of my life, I have lived in Houston, Texas in the United States of America. I was really happy there because I had everything I wanted. For instance, I had a 3.9 GPA and I had awesome friends and went to a really good school (North Shore High School). But all that changed when I moved to Hebron, Palestine in August of 2006. I didn’t know the Arabic language at all but over time and practice and a lot of repetition I have learned it and become the highest ranking in my class due to endless cooperation from my school.

I go to Al-Shar’iya Secondary School for Girls but it is not just any normal school. It is a school of 650 girls, 500 of them being orphans that depend on the school for a place to study, to eat, to sleep, to
get treated if they’re sick, to get school supplies, and probably every other necessity they need to live. And now for some reason the Israeli Occupation wants to close it down along with its other branches that include a school for orphaned boys and an elementary school for orphaned children. What they do not realize is that if they were to close the Islamic Charitable Society which funds these orphanage schools, they would be kicking some of these orphans into the street with no one to care or to spend on them.

They say that these orphans practice terrorism and due to their false accusations they have confiscated all of the properties and the income that are required to care for the orphans and the buses that transport them from their homes to the school and they’ve closed down the bakery that extends bread to the orphans to sustain their hunger and they’ve stolen all the food in the food pantry that contains canned goods and meats for the orphans and they’ve confiscated the warehouse that contains school supplies and clothes for the orphans. I declare that these are not things used for terrorism so why have they taken them? And now they have given the different orphan schools warning to be closed by April the first.

My school and the Palestinian people have done plenty of things to stop this decision that came out about a month ago. We have marched and protested all with out any result. I ask you Oprah as a last resort to please please please help! I am asking you not for money but to help spread awareness on this situation and to help people see that the students of this school are orphans that have lost their fathers or mothers or both and in that lost their main source of income and their main source of love and care. This is not a political situation but rather it is a humanitarian one. Ever since I was a kindergarten in America I have learned that “All men were created equally” and that the American people have “the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. If we were all created equally then us striving for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness shouldn’t differ between Americans, Palestinians, Africans or any one else.

I have been taught to stand up for what I believe in and what I believe has nothing to do with politics because I’ve always been neutral but Oprah by studying at this school and seeing everything that is provided I can not imagine what life is going to be like if it closes down so I will stand by them to the very end until they get back their rights. I ask you Oprah to please respond to this message as soon as possible because there is roughly a week left until the Israeli Occupation decide to carry out their inhumane and heartless plan. I watch your show about every week day here from Saturday-Wednesday and so does practically every other girl in my school. They see you as a source of kindness and compassion due to your help with building the African Schools and your help with a lot of different things. Please help them see that personally by helping them. Again all I ask for is coverage and awareness and hopefully a visit from you. Your reward will be in heaven. God Bless You for you are surely one of my role models and what I strive to be like when I’m older.

Thank you again for being my role model and for any help that you can offer.

Sincerely,
Rabiha Abusnineh

P.S. Please hurry!! God Bless You and all of your staff and crew!

Israeli Army Invades Marda, Imposes Curfew, Arrests 2

At about 10 AM today, Monday, March 31, 2008, the Israeli army invaded the village of Marda, in the Sulfiet region of the West Bank. After invading, the army immediately announced curfew on the entire village, thus prohibiting all residents from leaving their homes, opening their shops, or leaving the village.

Marda lies at the base of the hill on which the illegal Israeli settlement of Ariel is built. The village has only two entrances, and just one of those is accessible by car. Fences surround Marda on three sides and the fourth side, the one facing Ariel, there is a wall. Marda is further isolated as it is the only Palestinian village to the north of the main road in that area. Due to its proximity to Ariel and its isolation from other villages, Marda has faced an exceptionally high number of military invasions throughout the years.

Today, the Israeli soldiers confiscated the keys to several cars belonging to Marda residents, at least three of these cars were confiscated near the one entrance to the village through which cars are allowed to pass. Residents also report that two people were arrested: a 15-year old boy and a farmer working in his field during the curfew. Their status is currently unknown.

For the first hour of the curfew at least one home in the village was occupied, with soldiers stationed on the roof. Witnesses also report hearing live ammunition fired several times throughout the day: first about twenty minutes after the curfew was imposed and again in the early evening.

At around 3-4 PM residents of the village were walking in the streets and somewhat able to move around. However, soldiers were still stationed at the main entrance to the village, not allowing anyone to enter or exit. At 8:30 PM there were again Israeli military vehicles driving through the streets of Marda, announcing continued curfew. The village has yet to be given a reason for this invasion or any idea as to how long it may last.

UPDATE: International Action in Solidarity with Gaza is stopped by Egyptian authorities

EUROPEAN CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE SIEGE OF GAZA: International Action in Solidarity with Gaza

UPDATE: The demonstration was stopped in the Sinai by Egyptian authorities. As protesters attempted to ‘Walk to Gaza’, they were threatened with arrest before eventually turning back to Cairo. There will be a press conference in Cairo tonight (31st March).

Original press release: End the siege of Gaza!

End the world complicity to the Israeli occupation and crimes against the Palestinian people!

A group of international participants decided to act against our countries’ complicity to the inhumane and devastating siege of the Gaza Strip.

A delegation including participants from the Basque country, Austria, Scotland, Norway, Italy, Netherlands, France, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Palestine, Jordan, America and India intend to reach the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza in order to deliver a truckload of food and medicine and
in protest against the inhuman siege imposed on the people of Gaza, with the complicity of our own governments.

We protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people and condemn the hypocrisy of European and other governments who blatantly violate the democratic will of the Palestinian people and have taken positions in the interest of the Israeli and US agenda of occupation and domination.

We strongly condemn the European Union for backtracking on their responsibility, as stipulated in past agreements, to facilitate and oversee the flow of people through the Rafah border crossing. The European governments are therefore directly complicit in the Israeli-imposed siege of the Palestinian population of Gaza, their confinement to an open air prison and denial of access to the most basic goods and services, resulting in massive suffering and a humanitarian disaster.

Our protest must also be seen in the light of the 60th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba -the massive expulsion and forced flight of the Palestinian people as a result of the Zionist aggression which paved the way for the creation of the state of Israel- as well as the on-going Nakba and Israeli occupation, marked by expansion policies, expropriation and bloodshed.

We emphasize the urgent need to enforce and broaden the global campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli Apartheid State and its policies of occupation and oppression.

Solidarity with the people of Palestine!!!
We call on everyone wishing to participate to join the delegation to Rafah!!!

European Campaign Against the Siege of Gaza

Tulkarm Holds First of Many Actions Commemmorating Land Day

On Thursday the city of Tulkarm began the first of its Land Day demonstrations – a national event held on 30th March each year to commemorate the killing of seven Palestinians citizens of Israel by Israeli soldiers in 1976, during protests over land confiscation.

The city began by replanting trees along Al Khadouri street – once a tree-lined avenue, now barren because the trees were destroyed by Israeli bombing during the first and second Intifadas. Organized by a collaboration of local and national institutions, such as PARC, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Farmer’s Union, the local municipality and Palestine Technical University, around one hundred conifer trees were prepared to rehabilitate the street.

Approximately forty children from local primary schools, internationals, Israelis and local Tulkarm identities such as the mayor, all took part in the planting, which extended from the site where the first tree was destroyed, all the way to the Israeli-owned Geshuri chemical factories that cause enormous pollution and health problems for the residents of Tulkarm. Asme, from the Public Relations department of Palestine Technical University, explained that involving the children in the action by getting them to plant trees helped to “explain to the children the importance of the land; to mark the anniversary of Land Day in an active way. When the child plants the tree, and every day he sees the tree, it will be very good. He will watch it growing.”

Once the street was completely re-lined with trees (identical in species to those destroyed), approximately 150 demonstrators marched the length of the street, in the direction of the Geshuri chemical factories, and then along the compound wall of the factories themselves, to protest against the presence of such dangerously polluting factories in Tulkarm.

The Israeli chemical factories, including factories for ammonia, fertilizers, plastics, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, were originally built within Israel, near Tel Aviv, explains local activist and journalist Abdul Karim. They were forced to shutdown in 1984, however, because of the danger of the pollutants they produce. They were relocated to Tulkarm in 1987, onto land confiscated by the Israeli government, a large percentage of which belonged to the agricultural college of An Najar university. The local residents of Tulkarm are not the only ones concerned about the dangerous pollution that purportedly gives Tulkarm one of the highest rates of cancer in the West Bank (some claim in the world) – Abdul Karim reports that Israelis on the other side of the factories (which border on Israel and are in fact surrounded by the separation wall) protested against the factories also. However, because the location is within the West Bank, Israeli authorities apparently claim that it is out of their jurisdiction. The Israeli’s protests did, however, grant one concession: now every year in May, (the one month in the year when the winds blow from East to West, instead of from West to East) the factories are forced to halt their operations, so that nearby Israeli’s do not suffer from the pollution that is blown across Tulkarm for the other eleven months of the year.

Demonstrators gathered at a disused gas station across from the factories – damaged by Israeli army tanks in 2002, and forcibly abandoned along with all of the other shops and restaurants along this once bustling strip, due to persistent army presence and firing from 2001-2003, when the area became a combat zone.

The owner of the abandoned gas station addressed the crowd, explaining that what happened to his building is reflective of what is occurring across the entire West Bank, and called for the chemical factories to be uprooted. Jamal Said, advisor to the governor of Tulkarm, then spoke of the high cancer rates in Tulkarm, and the general negative effects of the chemical factories on the health of those living in all of Tulkarm, but especially those living close to the factories.

These actions marked the first in a week of Land Day activities for Tulkarm, which include two more demonstrations against the separation wall, as well as photo exhibitions and festivals throughout the city.