Winning Lawsuit Against Major Israeli Newspaper

We just won a defamation case against a major Israeli newspaper!
We made Israel Hayom retract its lies!

This is a rare success of holding Israeli tabloids accountable for their publications of lies about Palestinians.

The newspaper had published obvious lies against Palestinian Human Rights Defender Issa Amro after his play “How To Make A Revolution” opened in Tel Aviv. The play was centered around his trial in military court and was directed by Israeli playwright Einat Weizman in coordination with Issa himself.

Israel Hayom (“Israel Today” in English) is a right-wing Israeli tabloid owned by the family of Sheldon Adelson and is a publication friendly of ex-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In 2016, it formally endorsed the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. It has a circulation of around 250,000 readers.

The civil lawsuit forced the newspaper to retract their claims and issue a formal correction, seen below in Hebrew. The newspaper had published lies that Issa was charged or convicted of security offenses, had spent time in prison and that his cousin was the murderer of an Israeli baby. All of this is false and Israel Hayom withdrew these lies after losing the lawsuit and issued a correction that Issa is recognized as a Hebron activist committed to nonviolence and opposed to the occupation.

Justice is usually absent for Palestinians in the Israeli legal system, especially in the separate military court system.

Israel Hayom’s lies were the same lies about Issa that have often been perpetrated by the Israeli settlers in Hebron who terrorize the local Palestinian population on a daily basis in the city. These lies show that the newspaper had gotten used to publishing slander promoted by settler populations about Palestinians without any consequences, promoting these narratives without any actual journalistic standards or investigation.

Few Palestinians have the ability to mobilize a lawsuit, leaving no consequences for lies.

How many more direct lies have gone unnoticed?

Meanwhile the violations in Hebron continue. On August 9th, Israeli soldiers shot two 16-year-old Palestinian boys, wounding one and killing the other.

The soldiers dragged away the boy who survived after they shot him and left him to cry and scream behind the checkpoint without any medical care for more than half and hour.

Five days ago, soldiers were also seen conducting military drills inside inhabited Palestinian neighborhoods.

Friends of Hebron has a U.S.-registered IRS 501(c)3 charity status. Donations are tax-deductible.

With peace,

Friends of Hebron
Working for Peace and Justice

During these tense times, please consider supporting our work on the ground in Hebron by donating. Friends of Hebron is a U.S.-registered IRS 501(c)3 charity. Donations are tax-deductible.

Aug 26, 2022
Madison Peace Walk: Lisa Masri on Palestine


A Madison Peace Walk on July 15. Peng Her gave a marvelous talk about Laos and the Vietnam War.

    Friday evening, August 26
    Yahara Place Park [Map]
    6:00 pm
    Walk following to Tenney Park

Lisa Masri is going to speak about her 14 years of accompaniment work in Palestine.

Before coming to Madison Lisa lived in Palestine for 14 years, doing education and nonviolent accompaniment work with Project Hope and the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme. Her peace work there was with youth, adults, and international volunteers in the West Bank, and included being an international presence in hot spots and teaching English, French, drama, and circus arts. Lisa will share about her work and answer your questions.


Madison Peace Walks is a small group of activists who have been doing weekly Peace Walks for Ukraine and the World. Details are posted each week here. Our speakers have experience related to US military involvement in other parts of the world. We have planned 3 special events in August as part of Madison Peace Walks for Ukraine and the World. Can you join us? Check here for updates.

    Other Peace Walk Events:
    Sunday, Aug 7 – Lanterns for Peace
    Friday, Aug 19 at 6 pm – Special speaker Zubeir Haroun

August 7 – Lanterns for Peace. We’ll peace walk to this family friendly event to commemorate the lives lost in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings 77 years ago and make sure that such nuclear attacks never again take place. Details here from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR).

August 19 – Zubeir Haroun on Libya. Zubeir was born in Tripoli, Libya and lived there until 2007. He will explain the situation in Libya after the so-called Arab spring, a rare event in which Libyans could have had a chance for prosperity but instead it slipped into a nightmare and chaos. He’ll talk about the negative role of NATO, and how the US could have helped better. He’ll present a brief history of Libya, the formation of Libya, and how we got here. Zubeir recently moved with his family to Madison and they have participated in Madison Peace Walks.

World Beyond War put on an amazing international conference this month called NoWar2022 Resistance & Regeneration. Here are the recordings of all the conference sessions. We watched one of the sessions at our peace walk on July 8 – Ukrainian pacifist Yurii Sheliazhenko. Lots of great peace work from all around the world!

No evidence from Israel that Palestinian NGOs are ‘terrorist organizations’

“In the absence of such evidence, we will continue our cooperation and strong support for the civil society in the occupied Palestinian Territories”


BREAKING: 200+ Palestinians, Israelis, and American Jews protest to #SaveMasaferYatta


Growing up, I was told over and over: “You need to take responsibility for Israel. It’s your responsibility as a Jew.”

Now, I would say: “It’s unconscionable what’s happening in my name in Israel/Palestine, and as an American Jew, I am uniquely positioned to do something about it.”

That’s why I’ve spent the past week in the West Bank, meeting and working with Palestinians who are persevering to stay on their land and in their homes. I’m on a delegation with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, an organization building networks of solidarity and co-resistance with Palestinians.

We’ve been working with community leaders in Masafer Yatta, a region south of Hebron where more than 1,500 Palestinians are facing expulsion from their homes. This would be the largest mass expulsion of Palestinians in sixty years.

Click for more via Instagram or Email

As I’ve traveled from community to community, alongside our Palestinian partners, I’ve heard two things over and over again:

One: Work with us. A young Palestinian organizer, Tariq, told me this:

“The fact that Palestinians and Jews are working together – that scares them. It threatens the forces that maintain occupation.”

Two: Share our stories. As one community leader put it:

“We need you to come here to hear our stories, and we need you to go home to share them.”

Today, I saw firsthand how Jews and Palestinians working together threatens this violent system.

But before I tell you what happened today, I need you to take one step to help Palestinians struggling to stay on their land. If enough of us are paying attention and speaking out, 1,500 people could remain in their homes.

If you have Instagram, follow the fight to #SaveMasaferYatta here via Instagram, or here via email.

This morning, I joined a Palestinian led-protest of over 200 Palestinians, Israelis, and diaspora Jews – including IfNotNow members – working together to re-open a road illegally blocked by settlers. The plan was to roll aside the massive boulders that settlers had put in place, which had cut Palestinians off from vital travel.

When settlers harassed us, the soldiers stood by and watched. They even detained Israeli activists and released them next to the settlers, who threw stones at them, broke their car window, and injured the activists inside.

When our group of nonviolent protesters tried to clear the road, the army responded with tear gas & stun grenades.

Now, I need you to spread this story. Follow along on Instagram, or sign up for email updates about what’s happening in Masafer Yatta.

Onwards,
Ari

Continue reading

If Not Now on Masafer Yatta

On Sunday, we saw Jewish supremacists march through the streets of Jerusalem, shouting racist chants like “Death to the Arabs” and “May your village burn.” We saw protesters spit on and pepper spray an elderly Palestinian woman. We saw violence against journalists – by marchers and police alike. From Jerusalem to the West Bank to Gaza, Palestinians face the endless, dehumanizing violence of occupation and apartheid.

It is our moral obligation to condemn this violent system, and to stand in its way wherever we can.

In a few days, I’ll be joining other IfNotNow members on a delegation of 50 diaspora Jews will arrive in the West Bank – to join with Palestinians who are working to save their homes from being demolished.

Masafer Yatta, a region in the West Bank that’s home to thousands of Palestinians, is facing an imminent threat to its existence, as the Israeli government prepares to enact the largest mass expulsion of Palestinians in six decades. Now is the time to get in the way – through co-resistance and disruptive action with Palestinians leading this effort to #SaveMasaferYatta.

What can you do? Amplify the delegation’s co-resistance work.

This trip is taking place through the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, an organization building networks of solidarity and co-resistance with Palestinians.

Sign up for updates and you’ll receive dispatches from the trip that you can share via email or social media.

Across the land, Palestinians are resisting – persevering to stay in their homes and on their land, fighting to live with dignity. They’re calling on us to show up and support their resistance.

We’re heeding the call. Will you?

In solidarity,
Elias Newman
IfNotNow

A Palestinian shepherd peacefully resisted the Israeli occupation. And now he’s dead.

Ali Velshi, MSNBC, Jan. 22, 2022

Al Haj Suleiman al-Hathaleen was a shepherd in the West Bank and a well-known anti-occupation activist. Suleiman was a small man with no weapons. He resisted the occupation through civil disobedience. While Israeli bulldozers destroyed the homes in his neighborhood, he stood in peaceful defiance with a Palestinian flag and his shepherd’s staff. Ali Velshi met Haj Suleiman on his last trip to Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank at the end of 2019.

Two weeks ago, Israeli forces entered Haj Suleiman’s village of Umm Al-Khair and began confiscating unregistered Palestinian cars. Haj Suleiman did what he had done for decades: he peacefully resisted. Then he was run over by a tow truck, under contract to the Israeli police. Witnesses say the tow truck driver and their police escort simply fled the rural village. They did not render aid to Haj Suleiman. They did not even call for an ambulance. Al Haj Suleiman al-Hathaleen never emerged from his coma, and died of his injuries this week.

Suleiman was a man with little to his name, except for his land, his village, and his ability to stand up to an illegal occupation. This small man with just his words and his staff, was a thorn in the side of the Israeli occupation, because he had become a symbol of the resistance, and an emblem of the Israeli occupation.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Subsequent to their initial statement about the incident, Israeli Police released a second statement that counters what eyewitnesses reported. Here is the second statement in full:

“During enforcement activity against mashtuba (unregistered) vehicles, carried out by police forces together with a tow truck in the service of the police, near the village of Umm Daraj, a violent disturbance by rioters who are local residents broke out against the forces.

The movement of the tow truck and of the police vehicle was blocked, and stones were thrown at the police officer and at the tow truck driver in a way that endangered the force.

In response, an IDF fighter who was posted in the police vehicle fired into the air. As the forces moved to leave while stones were being thrown at them, one of the rioters jumped on the tow truck, fell to the ground and was hurt. In the situation that was created, in which a militant mob concretely tried to harm the force in question, it was impossible to stop and assist the injured person.

The Israel Police and the IDF take a very grave view of this attempt to harm the security forces and hamper routine activity, and will act with determination to impose governance.”

December 6, 2021
Webinar: “Teaching Hard Truths”

Black and Palestinian Perspectives on
the Power of Education and Action

via Zoom

Who: Dr. Ronda Taylor Bullock, Co-Founder and Executive Director of we are (working to extend anti-racist education), and Dr. Iymen Chehade, History professor at Columbia College, Chicago, and human rights activist

When: December 6, 7:00 PM (Eastern Time Zone)

Dr. Chehade and Dr. Bullock, each from their distinctive perspectives, will share insights from their work in educating for a future of liberation and equity. They will explore the critical value of a structural analysis of oppression, whether that be systemic racism in the American context or systematic oppression in Palestine/Israel. In addition to naming what creates injustice, destruction, and death, they also dream and envision creative possibilities of the life that can be. Join us for an enlightening and inspiring conversation!

Register in advance for this meeting

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Watch My Neighbourhood, the story of Sheikh Jarrah

A remarkable, nonviolent struggle against settlement expansion in East Jerusalem

Mohammed El Kurd is a Palestinian boy growing up in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in the heart of East Jerusalem. When Mohammed turns 11, his family is forced to give up part of their home to Israeli settlers, who are leading a campaign of court-sanctioned evictions to guarantee Jewish control of the area.

Shortly after their displacement, Mohammed’s family and other residents begin holding unarmed protests against the evictions, determined not to lose their homes for good. In a surprising turn, they are quickly joined by scores of Israeli supporters who are horrified to see what is being done in their name. Among them is Jewish West Jerusalem resident Zvi Benninga and his sister Sara, who develop a strong relationship with Mohammed and his family as they take on a leading role in organizing the protests.

Through their personal stories, My Neighbourhood goes beyond the sensational headlines that normally dominate discussions of Jerusalem and captures voices rarely heard, of those striving for a future of equality and pluralism in the city.

My Neighbourhood follows Mohammed as he comes of age in the midst of unrelenting tension and remarkable cooperation in his backyard. Highlighting Mohammed’s own reactions to the highly volatile situation, reflections from family members and other evicted residents, accounts of Israeli protesters and interviews with Israeli settlers, the film chronicles the resolve of a neighbourhood and the support it receives from the most unexpected of places.

My Neighbourhood is directed and produced by Rebekah Wingert-Jabi, who documented Mohammed’s story over two years, and acclaimed filmmaker Julia Bacha. It is the latest production by Just Vision, an award-winning team of Palestinian, Israeli, North and South American filmmakers, journalists and human rights advocates dedicated to telling the stories of Israelis and Palestinians working nonviolently to achieve freedom, dignity, equality and human security in the region.

Israeli Prison Denies Release For Daughter’s Funeral

Addameer, July 13, 2021

On 12 July 2021, following several communications submitted to the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) for the temporary humanitarian release of Palestinian political prisoner Khalida Jarrar to attend her recently deceased daughter’s funeral, the Israeli Prison Service denied Khalida’s release on political grounds, citing the alleged “security threat” she poses due to her “[negative] leadership role” inside and out of prison. The denial of Khalida Jarrar’s release to mourn the sudden death of her daughter and participate in burial rights stands in stark violation of protected recognition of human dignity and family rights under international law.

Khalida Jarrar’s daughter, Suha Jarrar, was unexpectedly found dead in her apartment in Ramallah on 11 July 2021. Suha, a 30-year-old human rights defender, served as a Research and Advocacy officer for Al-Haq, working with United Nations treaty bodies and the Human Rights Council, specializing in gender, environment, and climate change. In response to Suha’s sudden and tragic death, regional human rights organizations began mobilizing international instruments and advocacy, calling for Khalida’s immediate and unconditional release, on humanitarian grounds, to attend her daughter’s funeral, scheduled for 13 June 2021, and mourn in human dignity. Addameer’s lawyers, representing Khalida, sent forth legal communications with the relevant local occupation authorities appealing for her temporary release. Nevertheless, the Israeli Prison Service responded to the communication, firmly denying the request and any possibility of further entreaty with an index of justifications that allegedly mark Khalida as a “security threat” ineligible for humanitarian considerations.

On 31 October 2019, Khalida Jarrar was detained once again by IOF and held in detention for months before her sentence on 1 March 2021 to 24 months in prison and a fine of 4,000 NIS. During the hearing session, the military prosecutor amended Khalida’s indictment, limiting it solely to her political role and work with the Palestinian Authority, thus establishing no charges against her in affiliation with any military, financial nor organizational activities.[1] Despite the sentence relating to her political activities, the IPS characterized Khalida Jarrar as a “security inmate,” thus falling under a category prohibited from temporary humanitarian release under the Israeli Prison Ordinance No. 03.02.00. In establishing her as a “security inmate”—constituting a “security threat” to the region, the IPS explicitly notes Khalida’s leadership role as a Palestinian Legislative Council member and former director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. Her classification as a “security inmate” automatically sets her under more stringent rules and allows for greater violations and restrictions on her basic rights. Moreover, the IPS notes Khalida Jarrar’s “negative influence” inside and outside of prison, coupled with her previous arrests and administrative detention, further confirming the “security threat” she poses if temporarily released. In a base “humanitarian” gesture, the IPS allowed for one short phone call between Khalida Jarrar and her bereaved family.

In listing the purported grounds for the denial of the request for Khalida Jarrar’s humanitarian release to bury her daughter, the Israeli occupation regime explicitly relies on criminalizing Khalida’s political work and human rights activism as a means of establishing her “security threat,” thus depriving her of any inherent human dignity and humanitarian considerations. Furthermore, Israeli occupation authorities cement their determinations by citing her previous arrests and administrative detention, her systematic harassment and targeting by the Israeli occupation regime, never minding the lack of evidentiary grounds for her administrative detention or her most recent sentencing solely addressing her political activities.

Throughout Khalida’s work as a Palestinian civil society leader, former General Director of Addameer, Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member, and role in the formulation of Palestine’s application to the ICC, she has been systematically harassed and targeted by the Israeli occupation regime. These efforts come as part of an ongoing Israeli effort to suppress Palestinians’ exercise of political sovereignty and self-determination. Khalida has been detained by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) three times between 2015 and 2019 for an accumulated period of 59 months. Furthermore, Khalida was issued a travel ban in 1998, which was only lifted once in 2010 to receive medical treatment.

The denial of the humanitarian request by the Israeli occupation regime violates the essence of human dignity and family rights protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the Fourth Geneva Conventions mandated upon Israel as the Occupying Power. The act confirms the retaliatory and punitive nature of the occupation regime, which denies the most basic humanity to Palestinians and where political activities, affiliation, and leadership are prohibitively taken against their rights and dignity.

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association mourns the sudden death of Suha Jarrar and the tragic reality of Israeli military occupation that denies a mother the chance to mourn her daughter and participate in her burial. Notwithstanding, Addameer will continue to call for the immediate release of Khalida Jarrar and is committed to advocating for the actualization of the dignity and rights of Palestinian prisoners.


[1] Addameer, “Continued Targeting of PLC Member Khalida Jarrar,” 1 March 2021, available at: https://www.addameer.org/news/press-release/en/khalidajarra 

ADDAMEER (Arabic for conscience) Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association is a Palestinian non-governmental, civil institution that works to support Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli and Palestinian prisons.

Free Sami Huraini

Palestine Partners started this petition to United Nations Secretary General António Guterres and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’.

Palestinian human rights activist Sami Huraini was arrested by Israeli forces during a pre-dawn raid on his home in the West Bank village of At-Tuwani on January 9.  The arrest occurred just hours after Sami’s participation in a nonviolent demonstration in the neighboring village of Al Rakeez, where Israeli soldiers shot and paralyzed an unarmed Palestinian man on New Year’s day. Despite a complete lack of evidence and the peaceful nature of the protests, Mr Huraini has been charged with obstructing the peace and assaulting an Israeli soldier.  

Mr Huraini is a leading human rights activist in the Masafer Yatta (South Hebron Hills) area. Residents of At Tuwani believe that his arrest is part of an effort to target him for his effectiveness as a community organizer and leadership of the nonviolent protests that have followed the January 1 shooting in nearby Al Rakeez. His arrest is an example of the widespread targeting of activists by the Israeli military courts. The Israeli practice of trying Palestinians in Israeli military courts results a conviction rate of over 99 percent and cannot be defended as just or democratic. 

We ask that you call on the Israeli government to drop the politically-motivated charges against Sami Huraini so that he can continue his work to protect human rights.

Sign this petition