UCC PIN JUNE E-NEWS
In this issue:
- Defining Refugees and Defending Their Rights by the Rev. Allie Perry
- Upcoming ICAHD-USA Webinars: June 15 & June 22
- Defund Racism Campaign Webinar: July 20th
- Breaking the Stories, curated by the Rev. Loren McGrail
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Follow UCC Palestine Israel Network |
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Defining Refugees and Defending Their Rights
Reflections by the Rev. Allie Perry
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The Return - Laila Shawa, 2019 |
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“On this World Refugee Day 2022, we ask that you support wholeheartedly the right of Palestinians to return to their homes or villages, or to be compensated. In addition, we ask that you stand against any nation or group that denies this fundamental human right guaranteed by international law. Until this day comes, we ask that you continue to demand that our country support the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that supports Palestinian refugees throughout the world.”
The above words come from the UCC PIN worship bulletin insert designed for use this Sunday, June 19, the day before World Refugee Day on the 20th. You can access it here. Created in December 1949, UNRWA was intended as a short-term antidote to Israel’s failure to comply with UN Resolution 194, which established the right of return for the three-quarter of a million Palestinians who became refugees during the Nakba and the violent assaults of Jewish militia in 1948.
Short term has become long-term. With the justice of return yet denied, the UN General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA’s mandate over these 73 years. And what is that mandate? To provide humanitarian support – education, health care, relief and social services – to Palestinian refugees, now numbering close to 6 million, including those internally displaced in UNRWA refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza.
At the outset these refugee camps were just that – camps with refugees living in tents. The housing has long since been ‘hardened’ and the population of refugees and their descendants, now four generations, has exploded. For one example, Dheisheh Camp, located along the main street of Bethlehem, built to serve 3,000 refugees displaced in 1948 from 45 different villages, now has a population of over 15,000, crammed into the same footprint of land, a meager one-third of a square kilometer.
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Overlooking Dheisheh Camp, Bethlehem |
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UNRWA services are critical, a lifeline, for Palestinian refugees. But because the funding is voluntary, coming almost entirely from UN Member States, it is also precarious. In 2018 the Trump administration, for example, delivered a gut punch to Palestinian refugees, suspending its contribution for UNRWA's humanitarian services. The United States had provided close to a third of the funding. |
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US decision to cut UNRWA funding -
by Sabaaneh/ Middle East Monitor
The 2021 General Synod resolution “Declaration for a Just Peace Between Palestine and Israel” called for “full restoration of US funding for UNRWA.” So we applauded when in April 2021, the Biden administration did just that. But as is often true, the devil is in the details. It turns out that along with the restored funding, the Biden Administration signed a two-year Framework for Cooperation plan.
With this plan, according to BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee rights, “UNRWA has effectively transformed itself from a humanitarian agency that provides assistance and relief to Palestinian refugees, to a security agency furthering the security and political agenda of the US, and ultimately Israel.” The plan creates a redefinition of what constitutes a refugee, eliminating those Palestinians presumed to have ties, for example, with Palestinian human rights organizations like Defense of Children International that Israel has called 'terrorist.' Additionally, the Framework calls for UNRWA to monitor “Palestinian curriculum content.” For more details, read Ramzy Baroud’s article, “By redefining UNRWA, Washington destroys the foundation for a just peace in Palestine.”
Such redefining is yet another example of efforts to limit and deny the rights of Palestinian refugees, in this case delegitimating the claim of some to even being a refugee at all. All the while, as we know too well, this redefining is happening in the context of Israel’s unrelenting displacement of Palestinians whether in Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah, the South Hebron Hills, and elsewhere, acts of ethnic cleansing that continue to create more refugees and perpetuate the Nakba.
World Refugee Day is a time to renew our commitment to advocate for the rights of Palestinian refugees, as well as refugees worldwide who yearn to return home. That is their human right.
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Upcoming ICAHD-USA Webinars
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The Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD)-USA is sponsoring two webinars:
"How to think about converting an apartheid regime into a democratic state"
Wednesday, June 15, noon Eastern Time
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This first webinar, co-sponsored by FOSNA and UCC PIN, is a conversation with Jonathan Kuttab, human rights lawyer, Executive Director of Friends of Sabeel North American (FOSNA), and author of Beyond the Two State Solution, published by and available through Nonviolence International https://www.nonviolenceinternational.net/beyond2states.
To register for the June 15th webinar, go here
"Strategies to Advance Palestinian Liberation and Solidarity in the United States Congress"
Wednesday, June 22, 1 p.m. Eastern Time
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This second webinar, co-sponsored by JVP and UCC PIN, is a conversation with Beth Miller, political director Jewish Voice for Peace Action.
To register for the June 22nd webinar, go here
Both conversations will be facilitated by Robert Herbst, civil rights lawyer, co-chair of the ICAHD-USA board, and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and the Westchester, New York, Peace and Action Coalition (WESPAC).
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Defund Racism Campaign:
No more tax-free US $$ for Israeli Settlements and Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians
WEBINAR
Wednesday, July 20, 12 pm ET
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UCC PIN is offering this webinar to introduce the Defund Racism campaign, which targets pro-Israeli organizations disguised as 501c(3) charities that fund Israeli settlements, using tax-deductible donations from the United States. These organizations are therefore complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from places like Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, South Hebron Hills and many other places in Palestine. There are currently groups of activists working on Defund Racism campaigns in NY, FL, and PA exposing this racist funding of Israeli settlements.
Speakers:
● Mahmoud Zwahre a Palestinian grassroots activist and academic from Al Ma’sara village, 10 KM to the south of Bethlehem.
●Jonathan Brenneman, Defund Racism organizer in NY
UCC PIN is sponsoring this webinar along with the Palestinian Christian Alliance For Peace and the Indiana Center for Middle East Peace.
Register in advance for this meeting: here
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Breaking The Stories: May 2022
curated by the Rev. Loren McGrail,
UCC PIN Steering Committee
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A tribute to Naji Al-Ali, the Palestinian cartoonist who created the figure of Handala, by Laila Shawa |
Want to dismantle Israeli apartheid? Start with this law |
People next to a mural showing Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and Jerusalem's Old City, on the separation barrier between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Bethlehem, April 18, 2022. (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90) |
What would it look like to begin dismantling Israeli apartheid? Of all places, the answer came this week from none other than Benjamin Netanyahu. As part of his strategy to sabotage the Bennett-Lapid Coalition that ousted him from power last year, former prime minister and now-opposition leader Netanyahu has instructed his Likud party, along with his right-wing allies, to oppose any and all legislation put forth by the government — even if that means voting against laws that hold together the foundations of his own political vision and legacy.
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U.S. Secretary of State Dismisses Evidence Israel Killed Shireen Abu Akleh |
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Palestine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has handed over the results of its probe into the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to the International Criminal Court. Separate investigations by Al Jazeera, the Associated Press and CNN have all concluded that it was Israeli forces that shot and killed Abu Akleh on May 11 as she covered an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. This week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was confronted by journalist Abby Martin over the Biden administration’s continued support for Israel and Saudi Arabia after the killing of journalists, including Jamal Khashoggi and Shireen Abu Akleh.
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More Resources
‘Our Vision for Liberation’: Book Launch Special with Baroud, Pappe and Karmi Here
Shireen Abu Akleh’s Murder: Palestine Hands ICC Prosecutor Official Probe Results Here
Mark Ruffalo backs petition urging PayPal to end 'discrimination' against Palestinians Here
Letter from Congress calling for an investigation of killing of Shireen Abu Aklen Here
Media Resources
Palestine Remembered - Josh Ruebner (webinar)
Leading human rights groups discuss apartheid in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories (webinar) Here
The Great March of turn by Seve Sabella (paintings)
What’s the story?: Basil al-Adraa in Masafer Yatta (video interview) Here
Webinar: Jerusalem and US Foreign Policy Here
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