Media Advisory: JAFC urges Israeli & Palestinian leaders to respect human rights to vanquish terrorism & achieve lasting peace

For Immediate Release - March 12, 2011
Contact: Doni Remba, info@jews4change.com

Jewish Alliance for Change Condemns Murder of Israelis in West Bank

Urges Israeli and Palestinian leaders to respect human rights as vital to defeating terrorism and achieving a lasting peace

New York, N.Y. -- The Jewish Alliance for Change (JAFC) unequivocally condemns the horrific massacre of a family of five, including three children, at the West Bank settlement of Itamar. “There is absolutely no moral or legal justification for the murder of innocent men, women and children,” said JAFC Executive Director Doni Remba. “Even if settlements like Itamar violate international law, murderous attacks against civilians living in such settlements are crimes against humanity.”

As every major human rights group, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B’Tselem, has stressed for the last decade, deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians by Palestinians are “a flagrant breach of international humanitarian law.” “Targeting and deliberately killing non-combatants, including children and infants, is terrorism by any definition of the term, no matter what cause the terror claims to serve,” added Mr. Remba. “And we reject the argument that settlements and the occupation legitimize terrorism. Decent human beings reject such methods of warfare in all circumstances. Attacks directed against innocent civilians are always terrorism, and terrorism is always a heinous moral wrong.”

The rabbis of the Talmud taught that “the more justice, the more peace.” “Even a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not end all violence against Israel,” said Mr. Remba. “But it will significantly weaken Arab and Muslim extremists and reduce their ability to recruit and motivate others to engage in acts of terror against Israel.”

The Jewish Alliance for Change urges Israeli and Palestinian leaders not only to redouble their efforts to reach a just peace, but to recognize, through word and deed, the centrality of respect for the human rights of all people in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza to winning the battle against terrorism and securing a lasting peace. Peace without human rights for Israelis and Palestinians cannot stand. Peace without an abiding commitment to the democratic values of equality and human rights on which Israel’s alliance with the US and the West rests will not last.

The Jewish Alliance for Change co-sponsors with Rabbis for Human Rights-North America the Campaign for Bedouin-Jewish Justice in Israel. JAFC is a pro-Israel nonprofit organization that works to foster the American Jewish contribution to a flourishing global Jewish community, an America and a Jewish democratic Israel that respect the dignity of every citizen.

Background

For the last decade, as leaders of the Jewish Alliance for Change, and before that of other pro-Israel Jewish organizations devoted to peace and justice between Arabs and Israelis, we have spoken out forcefully against those who have sought to justify Palestinian terrorism. Starting with the outbreak of the Second Palestinian intifada in 2001, we were among the first, and for many years consistently the most vocal, to call to account the hypocrisy of those who criticized Israeli settlement and occupation policies but failed to condemn as war crimes Palestinian suicide bombings and other murderous attacks against Israeli civilians. (See "Mideast Forgiveness," Chicago Tribune, August 2, 2001; "Trib vs. Tribe," Chicago Reader, March 14, 2002; “Tribune Terrorism: Why Chicago Jews Are Mad as Hell,” March 7, 2002; and “Response to Chicago Tribune Public Editor Don Wycliff on Terrorism,” March 21, 2002.)

We are in complete agreement with this statement released by B’Tselem on March 12, 2011, “strongly condemning the killing of five Israeli civilians in Itamar”:

“Over the past ten years, Palestinian terror attacks perpetrated in Israel and in the Occupied Territories have killed hundreds and injured thousands of Israeli civilians, among them men, women, and children. Attacks aimed at civilians are immoral, inhuman, and illegal. Intentional killing of civilians is a grave breach of international humanitarian law and is considered a war crime that can never be justified, whatever the circumstances.Palestinian organizations seek to justify attacks on Israeli civilians by claiming the attacks are carried out in their struggle against the Israeli occupation. This argument does not justify the attacks and undermines the fundamental principle of international humanitarian law, according to which civilians must remain outside the sphere of hostilities, and therefore a distinction must be made between combatants and civilians and attacks directed at civilians are prohibited.

"These rules are part of international customary law and apply to every state, organization, and person. Some persons speaking on behalf of Palestinians argue that, inasmuch as the settlements are illegal and many settlers belong to Israel's security forces, it is permissible to attack settlers. This argument is groundless: the illegality of the settlements does not affect the civilian status of their residents in the slightest. The settler population is civilian and as such is entitled to all the protections that international law provides to civilians. The use that Israeli security forces make of lands on which settlements were built, or the fact that some settlers are members of Israel's security forces, does not alter the civilian status of the residents who are not members of the security forces, and certainly does not legitimize attacks on them.

"B'Tselem strongly objects to attempts to justify these actions by means of misleading arguments based on a distorted interpretation of international law and demands that the Palestinian Authority do everything within its ability to prevent such attacks.”

For statements by some of our friends and allies, please see:

For substantive statements:

Human Rights Watch: West Bank: No Excuse for Murder of Settler Family

Americans for Peace Now Statement: APN Denounces Murders at Itamar; Urges Leaders to Fight Terrorism and Negotiate Peace

B'stelem strongly condemns killing of five Israeli civilians in Itamar

For brief statements:

Meretz USA outraged by the murders in Itamar

Rabbis For Human Rights strongly condemns the terrible murders in Itamar

J Street Statement on Itamar Massacre

Jewish Voice for Peace condemns killing of settler family in West Bank

New Israel Fund Statement on Itamar Murders

Israeli blogger/journalist Dimi Reider rounds up the statements of various other Israeli human rights groups in "The activist Left must condemn the murder of the Itamar family."

Media Advisory: 18 Israeli & American Jewish Groups Strongly Oppose Court's Failure to Stop Israeli Govt & JNF from Wiping Out Bedouin Village

Media Advisory

18 Israeli and American Jewish groups:

• Strongly oppose Beer Sheva District Court’s failure to grant a permanent injunction preventing Israeli Government and Jewish National Fund (JNF) bulldozers from resuming work to plant a JNF forest over Negev Bedouin village of Al-Arakib
  
• Welcome the court’s recommendation that the Israel Lands Administration (ILA) and JNF refrain from planting trees in Al-Arakib and irreversibly altering the status of the land
  
• Strongly object to Israeli Government and JNF for 9th & 10th Demolitions of Al-Arakib and to ILA announcement yesterday of their intent to ignore Israeli court recommendations in their rush to eliminate the village of Al-Arakib forever
  
• Call on all who care about Israel to join the over 7,500 who have already signed our two petitions of protest to Prime Minister Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Lieberman, Leaders of the Israel Lands Administration and JNF Leaders in Israel and the US

January 25, 2011—The Beer Sheva District Court, which issued a temporary injunction a week ago stopping all further work by the Israel Land Administration (ILA) and the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in the Negev Bedouin village of Al-Arakib, decided on Sunday, Jan. 23, not to extend the injunction, permitting the village to be permanently destroyed and replaced by a JNF forest. Judge Nechama Netzer “recommended” to the JNF not to “rush” the afforestation of Al-Arakib, but failed to order the Israeli Government, the ILA and the JNF to stop their efforts to wipe out the village.

We, a coalition of 18 ideologically diverse Israeli and American Jewish organizations, strongly oppose the court’s decision. This ruling reflects the continued abuse of the law and the courts in Israel to expropriate land from the Bedouin, define their villages as “illegal” and arbitrarily reinterpret Ottoman, British and Israeli law to insure maximum Jewish control over land in Israel, discriminating against non-Jews in its allocation, ownership and use and denying the human and civil rights of Israel’s Bedouin citizens.

By contrast, the Israeli Government has retroactively legalized large Jewish family farms in the Negev, and does little to enforce the law against some 100 Jewish settlement outposts and thousands of settler homes in outposts in the West Bank – which are illegal under Israeli law. Yet the Israeli Government and judicial system perpetuate injustice by continuing to enforce an already discriminatory law against the villages and homes of the Negev Bedouin, just a few miles away. This despite the fact that the Bedouin have lived in the Negev and farmed their lands for centuries, living in villages like Al-Arakib since before the founding of the State of Israel, as the generations-old cemetery at Al-Arakib testifies. Both the Israeli Government and the Israeli courts have systematically used the law, and its highly selective enforcement, to promote Jewish settlement – whether in the West Bank or the nearby Negev – at the expense of the Palestinian and Bedouin Arab residents.

While we welcome Judge Netzer’s recognition of the need for legalizing Bedouin villages and rhetorical opposition to JNF’s attempt to use afforestation to irreversibly change the status of the land at Al-Arakib, we remain deeply concerned by Judge Netzer’s lack of effective legal action and acquiescence in the ILA and JNF’s polices of displacement. Judge Netzer stated that “There is no question that it’s time to solve [the problem of the Bedouin] so that in the future people like the Bedouin of Al-Arakib will be able to build [homes] legally, to establish settlements without suffering the risk that many years later their settlements would be dubbed unrecognized villages.”

Judge Netzer also recognized the insidious logic behind the JNF’s attempt to use tree-planting to permanently replace the village of Al-Arakib with a forest: She stated that “It is doubtful whether planting trees can be considered maintaining the status quo, not only because of the political implications of such planting, but especially in view of the fact that such planting is tied to the ground and the possibility that one day these actions could pave the way for other actions, possibly providing the basis for the claim that the reality on the ground has changed and therefore the situation has become irreversible.”

We remain deeply concerned that Judge Netzer did not see fit to issue a permanent injunction barring the ILA and the JNF from continuing to demolish the village and replace it with a JNF forest. We are deeply disturbed that the ILA has already issued a statement on Jan. 24 (in Hebrew only) making clear their intent to “continue to prepare the ground [in Al-Arakib] for planting” by the JNF.

We urge the Israeli Government, the ILA and the JNF to honor the recommendations of the court. We call on leaders and supporters of JNF in the US, Israel and around the world to urge the organization to suspend this project and to refrain from planting forests on demolished Bedouin villages and on lands claimed by the Bedouin until a just and mutually acceptable solution is found.

Some 500 Israeli Jews and Arabs demonstrated together on Jan. 23 in front of the Beer Sheva District Court calling for an end to the demolition of unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev and for the government to recognize and provide basic services to these villages. (For photos of the demonstration, click here or visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/bedouin-jewishjustice/)

More than 7,500 American Jews and others have signed our newly launched petitions telling Israeli leaders and the leaders of the JNF in the US and in Israel: We will not stand by as you try to wipe out an entire Arab village in Israel! The petitions are at the following sites:

Petition to Prime Minister Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Lieberman and ILA Leaders: End the destruction of Negev Bedouin villages in Israel http://www.change.org/petitions/view/end_the_destruction_of_bedouin_villages_in_israel

Petition to JNF Leaders in the US and Israel: End JNF complicity in displacing Israel's Negev Bedouin
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/equal_rights_sustainability_and_development_for_israels_negev_not_dispossession_of_the_bedouin

Background: A large Israeli police force, accompanied by bulldozers from the Israel Land Administration, demolished the Negev Bedouin village of Al-Arakib for the 9th and 10th times on January 16 and 17th, destroying the temporary homes constructed by the village residents since the previous demolition. The Israeli Police shot unarmed residents with rubber bullets and beat them with batons; eleven people were injured, five of whom required hospitalization. (Photos of the injuries and beatings of residents by the Israel Police are also at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bedouin-jewishjustice/).

The police arrested twelve residents and Israeli human rights activists including Haia Noach, Director of the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality – winner of this year’s Emil Grunzweig Prize for Human Rights from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel – and Tel Aviv University historian Prof. Gadi Algazi. Ms. Noach and three Bedouin residents have since been charged with “disobeying a court order” and “forcibly invading/holding state property;” a fourth resident has been charged with trying to “harm a police officer.” With the help of volunteers, the residents have already begun the reconstruction of the village, and have vowed to keep rebuilding until the Israeli Government recognizes their rights to their land.

ILA Development Department Director Shlomo Zeiser, whose organization dispatched the bulldozers to raze the village, told the Israeli news outlet YNET (1/16/11 – Hebrew edition only) that the ILA is making an effort to find a final solution to what's happening in Al-Arakib. “We are preparing the ground for planting,” he said, clearly implicating the Jewish National Fund (JNF). The JNF last week built a new camp in Al-Arakib (under Israel Police protection) for its bulldozers to cover the demolished village with a forest. This act would prevent the return of the Bedouin to their land forever.

Opposition to the Actions of the Israeli Government, the ILA and the JNF in Al-Arakib: Our coalition of Israeli and American Jewish organizations calls on the Israeli Government, the ILA, the JNF in Israel (KKL) and JNF-US to end their efforts to expel the 300 Bedouin women, men and children of Al-Arakib and to replace their village with a JNF forest. We urge them to negotiate a just and mutually agreeable solution to the plight of the 190,000 Negev Bedouin, Israel’s poorest and most disadvantaged minority – half of whom live in “unrecognized villages” without electricity, running water, sewage disposal, schools or health clinics, and with the constant fear of demolition and expulsion.

We condemn the JNF for its complicity in displacing Bedouin citizens of Israel from their homes and land to make way for forests and new Jewish-only communities in their place. The Bedouin have no comparable opportunities to create new agricultural or livable communities. They are being forced to leave their homes, lands and way of life for overcrowded urban centers plagued by crime, unemployment and despair.

We believe in an Israel where Jews live in partnership and equality with their Bedouin and other Arab and Palestinian neighbors, the basis for trust and peaceful coexistence. The Israel of the JNF, the ILA and the Israeli Government is one where Bedouin Arabs are displaced and discriminated against so that forests and exclusively Jewish communities funded by Jews and Evangelical Christians can be built, preventing Bedouin Israelis from ever returning to their land, forcing them to live in poverty and neglect.

JNF has continued to side-step the concerns we have raised and has responded only with misdirection and misinformation. We again issue this call to JNF for open and honest public discourse on these issues. We call on the Israeli Government and the Jewish National Fund to rededicate themselves to the ideal enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence of equal development for all of Israel’s citizens, regardless of religion, nationality or gender. Until it takes a stand against the demolitions and expulsion of Bedouin citizens, and aligns its forestation and development practices with human rights and the universal values enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, JNF cannot begin to remove the moral stain of complicity in such acts.

Endorsed by:

From Israel:
■ Al-Arakib Village Committee ■ Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality ■ Rabbis for Human Rights ■ Shatil – Leading Social Change, An Initiative of the New Israel Fund ■ Physicians for Human Rights – Israel ■ Hit’habrut-Tarabut – Arab-Jewish Movement for Social and Political Change ■ The Local Committee – Alsira Village ■ Ta’ayush: Arab-Jewish Partnership ■ Recognition Forum ■ Al-Arakib People’s Committee ■ Amnesty International, Israel Section

From the US:
■ Jewish Alliance for Change ■ Rabbis for Human Rights-North America ■ Jewish Voice for Peace ■ The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring ■ Tikkun Community ■ Network of Spiritual Progressives ■ The Shalom Center

The list of organizational endorsers is currently in formation; additional organizations will be added to the online version of the statement here.