Ninth Annual Israeli Apartheid Week (February – March 2013)
We are excited to announce the upcoming 9th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) starting late February in Europe and moving to various countries through the month of March.
Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is an annual international series of events (including rallies, lectures, cultural performances, film screenings, multimedia displays and boycott of Israel actions) held in cities and campuses across the globe. Last year’s IAW was incredibly successful with over 215 cities participating worldwide.
IAW seeks to raise awareness about Israel’s apartheid policies towards the Palestinians and to build support for the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel campaign.
To accommodate various university schedules and cities from around the world, IAW will take place in slightly different weeks but all in the months of February and March. Here is a list of dates for regions confirmed so far:
Europe: February 25 – March 10
Palestine: 8 – 15 March
United States: March 4 – 8
Canada: March 4 – 8
South Africa: March 11 – 17
If you would like to organize and be part of Israeli Apartheid Week on your campus or in your city please get in touch with us at iawinfo@apartheidweek.org. Also find us on Facebook and Twitter.
HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED DURING IAW
IAW offers ordinary people around the world an opportunity to partake in something truly global. If you would like to get involved and organize your own IAW event or action let us know so that we can share with you the IAW Basis of Unity and organizing principles. Here are some ways that you can actively get involved:
1. Organize a film screening
Consider hosting a film. For more info or for suggestions contact us at iawinfo@apartheidweek.org
2. Arrange a lecture, workshop, rally or protest
There are many speakers ranging from academics, politicians, trade unionists and cultural activists that we can suggest for you to host. Be in touch with us and we can put you in contact.
3. Organize a BDS action
Organize with others a practical boycott of Israel action or have a BDS motion tabled at your relevant student council, municipality etc.
4. Join us online
Help us spread the word online. Israeli Apartheid Week
5. Be creative
Be creative! Draw attention to Israeli apartheid with a Mock Israeli Apartheid Wall or Checkpoint, a flash mob, a concert or poetry reading, street theater, protest etc.
Update on 24 Jan: Army demolished an emergency tent and two animal barracks this morning in Al Maleh saying that any new [even emergency] structures will be demolished again. Breaking: 10 am – reports of bulldozers on the way to Jiftlik (Jordan Valley). This Friday expected demolitions in Fasay’il al Wusta (Jordan Valley).
20 January 2013 | Jordan Valley Solidarity
On 17th January the Israeli military destroyed 55 homes and animal shelters in Al Maleh, northern Jordan Valley. As of 19th January the entire village has been declared a Closed Military Zone and the road to the village has been closed. The army have confiscated the possessions of those made homeless and 18 red cross tents, which were donated after the demolitions. The residents are now sleeping out in the fields with no shelter. When international activists and journalists tried to access the area via the Tayasir and Al Hamra checkpoints and Mehola junction off road 90 they were refused entry.
Brihgton Jordan Valley Solidarity (JVS) is concerned that this is a tactic to make the residents of Al Maleh leave the area, and one which could spread to other areas in the Jordan Valley.
The demolitions are part of a long campaign against residents of Area C in the Jordan Valley. Palestinian residents of Area C, designated as under control of the Israeli administration during the Oslo Accords, are banned from building permanent structures or infrastructure and even prohibited from renovating their homes.
Brighton Jordan Valley Solidarity is calling for international solidarity activists to contact their political representatives to call for the lifting of the Closed Military Zone and for aid agencies to be able to provide assistance to the residents of Al Maleh
TAKE ACTION
Please act and put pressures on the Israeli military to lift the Closed Military Zone. Contact your political representatives and call for the lifting of the Closed Military Zone and for aid agencies to be able to provide assistance to the residents of Al Maleh. Have your representatives raise the issue with the relevant Israeli Ambassador or politicians in Israel.
Commander of the IDF – West Bank
Major-General Nitzan Alon
GOC Central Command
Military Post 01149
Battalion 877
Israel Defense Forces, Israel
Fax: +972 2 530 5724
Brighton Jordan Valley Solidarity is also calling on international community to take action in line with the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (see http://www.bdsmovement.net/) against Volvo, which provided the buses which transported the army to the demolitions and JCB which manufactured the bulldozers used in the demolitions (http://corporateoccupation.org/jcb-and-volvo-machines-used-in-demolitions-in-al-maleh-and-al-mayta-17113/).
Background information
At around nine in the morning on January 17th, a demolition order imposed on the village of Hamamat Al-Maleh, which includes the community of Al-Mayta, was carried out by the Israeli army and police. The demolition crew also included an unidentifiable group of balaclava-clad workers. Residents were given forty days notice of the demolition order. In Hamamat Al-Maleh, twenty-five houses were destroyed, including eighteen in al-Mayta, displacing seventeen families. Another 33 structures used for keeping livestock, and therefore the livelihood of these communities, were demolished. 130 people live in al-Mayta, with around 37 families in demolished areas of Al-Maleh.
In the southern West Bank (oPt), in the South Hebron Hills, there exists an area called Masafer Yatta. The area encompasses some 1000 inhabitants and twelve Palestinian villages: Tuba, al-Mufaqarah, Isfey, Maghayir al Abeed, al-Majaz, at-Tabban, al-Fakheit, Halaweh, Mirkez, Jinba, Kharoubeh and Sarura. According to the Oslo Accord this is defined as Area C, under complete civil and military control of Israel. . However, already in the early 1970s. Israel declared the area as ‘Firing Zone 918’, a closed military zone.
In 1999 Israeli military forces, accompanied by Civil Administration officials, expelled the inhabitants living within Firing Zone 918, destroying Palestinian-owned private property in the process. The residents petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice, which issued a temporary injunction allowing people to return back to their homes and forbidding the state to expel them until a final decision in the matter was rendered. Notwithstanding, life for Palestinian communities in the area worsened because of settlement expansion in the area and ongoing settler violence. Moreover, Israel’s military and civil administrations carried out demolition orders and delivered stop working orders to area residents, preventing the construction of new houses and the renovation of existing ones.
In April 2012 the Israeli High Court resumed deliberations in the case. On 19 July 2012 the state, following instructions from the Ministry of Defense, submitted a detailed notification to the Court claiming the Petitioners are not “permanent residents” of the firing zone area and hence have no right to live there. On 7 August 2012 the High Court ruled that the state’s announcement constituted “a change in the normative situation” and consequently the specific petitions “were no longer relevant” and thus dismissed. A new petition was then submitted by Palestinian residents of the area and on 16 December the High Court of Justice will render a decision. If the Court rejects this new petition, residents of eight of the twelve villages in Firing Zone 918 will be evacuated and their homes and villages demolished.
Israel claimed that following the 2006 Lebanon War, its security needs increased and that troops now require additional ongoing training and more firing zones are needed, including Firing Zone 918 in the Masafer Yatta area.
However, this Israeli military requirement has no direct relation with the occupation because it refers to general army trainings; as such and according to international law, it is not a ‘military necessity. This means that the planned Israeli measures of eviction and demolition of eight villages within Firing Zone 918 would be unlawful; They are not permitted under the Hague Regulations and would constitute grave breaches of the IV Geneva Convention as according to international law, ‘military general training’ cannot for any reason be considered as a military need.
Moreover if a firing zone for general military trainings is established under International Humanitarian Law (IHL), in no case could expropriations and movement restrictions be justified in the twelve villages located within Firing Zone 918. According to Article 46 of the Hague Regulation, private property must be respected and cannot be confiscated, which includes the destruction of private property for establishment of a firing zone. Under these circumstances, Israel’s planned destruction of the villages with the purpose of using Firing Zone 918 would constitute a clear violation of the Article. 53 of the IV Geneva Convention and would amount to a grave breach according to Article 147. Finally, in the matter of prohibition of forcible transfer, IHL does not differentiate between permanent and non-permanent residents as the Israeli legislation does. Forcibly displacing any of the inhabitants or any community of the twelve villages (either for general military trainings or for their purported lack of building permits) is a violation of Article 49 of the IV Geneva Convention and constitutes another grave breach to Article 147. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), since 1967 Israel has designated about 18% of the West Bank as a closed military zone for the purposes of military training (not including the closed military areas around Israeli settlements, all the lands located between the Separation Wall and the Green Line), rendering the areas effectively off limits for Palestinians.
Firing Zone 918 violates fundamental basic human rights. Its abolition would be a step toward promoting access by Palestinian inhabitants of the area to:
the right of a dignified life;
freedom of movement;
right to private property;
right to education;
right to work;
right to medical care;
freedom of worship.
Given these circumstances, we strongly demand:
Annulment of the Israeli Ministry of Defence decision to evacuate the area;
Abolition of the entire Firing Zone 918;
Respect for the rights and dignity of Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills.
Promoters
Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
South Hebron Hills Popular Committee
Operation Dove – Nonviolent Peace Corps of Association “Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII”
ISM – International Solidarity Movement
CPT – Christian Peacemaker Teams
Ta’ayush
Alternative Information Center
Comet-ME
Join the Palestinian call urging EU citizens to act for justice for Palestine.
EU representatives have expressed numerous concerns about Israeli violations towards Palestine, however, witnessing ever-increasing violations, words are not enough. Ask your representatives to act and call for suspension of EU’s trade agreements with Israel, until it complies with international law. Stop EU’s complicity in these crimes now. Read the full text of the call below.
Take Action: Write to your Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. Then write to your Members or European Parliament (MEPs).
1) WRITE TO YOUR PRIME MINISTER AND FOREIGN MINISTER:
Time For Justice – A call from Palestine to EU citizens
Ask your governments and EMPs to suspend EU-Israel Association Agreement and ACAA, stand up for human rights and end the occupation
Representatives of European governments have expressed grave concerns over Israel’s plan to build another 3000 settlement units in the West Bank. The EU High Representative Catherine Ashton reiterated that “all settlement construction is illegal under international law and constitutes an obstacle to peace.”
While statements of concern regarding Israeli war crimes and international law violations are welcome, in practice Israel’s military occupation and apartheid policies including its settlement project in the West Bank, the continued siege and assault on the Gaza Strip, the ongoing demolition of Palestinian homes, the illegal annexation of occupied East Jerusalem, Arbitrary arrests and torture of adults and children, severe restrictions on freedom of movement and access to resources and other illegal military operations, receive direct and concrete support from Europe.
European support is expressed in the preferential conditions that Israel receives under its Trade and Association Agreements with Europe. The association agreement stipulates that “relations between the parties, as well as all the provisions of the agreement itself shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles”, and that this “constitutes an essential element of this agreement”.
To date the European union state-members have chosen to ignore their obligation to suspend the agreement due to Israel’s ongoing severe human rights violations. It is time to end European complicity with Israeli war crimes.
Tell your Prime Minister, your Foreign Minister and your representatives to the European Parliament that the time has come to take action and suspend Europe’s trade agreements with Israel as well as end trade with companies operating in settlements on occupied territories until Israel fulfils its obligations under international law: Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall; Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194. Tell your representatives to act for justice now.
Dear Prime Minister, Dear Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dear MEP,
I am gravely concerned with the complicity of European Union countries in war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. While the recent statements of concern issued by European representatives regarding Israeli unilateral actions such as Israel’s settlement project in the West Bank, the continued siege and assault on the Gaza Strip, the ongoing demolition of Palestinian homes, the illegal annexation of occupied East Jerusalem, the arbitrary arrest and torture of Adults and children, the severe restrictions on freedom of movement and access to resources and other illegal military operations, are welcome, they are not enough.
It is past time that we fulfil our obligations and stop support of trade with companies associated with settlements, and implement the Human rights clause in our Trade and Association Agreements with Israel and suspend the agreements due to Israel’s ongoing severe human rights violations.
I call on you to take immediate action and suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement, ACAA and the planned Protocol on the participation of Israel in Community programmes, as well as end trade with companies operating in settlements on occupied territories, until Israel fulfils its obligations under international law: Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall; Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
Sincerely,
Your Signature
For the full text in all European languages click here.
On the fourth anniversary of Israel’s 2008-2009 war on Gaza in which it killed 1400 Palestinians including 300 children, a call urging EU citizens to ask their representatives to suspend the EU’s trade agreements with Israel, until it complies with international law has been issued by grassroots networks and organizations across Palestine.
Titled Time For Justice – A call from Palestine to EU citizens, the call has gone out in the 24 EU languages. It states that while recent “statements of concern regarding Israeli war crimes and international law violations are welcome in practice Israel’s military occupation and apartheid policies receive direct and concrete support from Europe.”
The groups urge EU citizens “to act for justice now” by telling their representatives to “suspend Europe’s trade agreements with Israel as well as end trade with companies operating in settlements on occupied territories until Israel fulfils its obligations under international law; ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall; recognizing the fundamental rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”
We are excited to announce the upcoming 9th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) starting late February in Europe and moving to various countries through the month of March.
