Hi Labourist,
Issa Amro is a Palestinian living in Hebron who has helped us in our campaign against the IHRA definition and needs our support. You may recognise him from the back of the flyer promoting this petition. He gave me a statement for the Sewage Sunday event we held at TUC HQ last month. He has seen settler shit close up, as a victim.
I first came across Issa at Labour Conference when my friend Jack, who I met through this petition, had arranged for him to come to Labour Conference to speak alongside Israeli Jew Miko Peled. Jack and I had decided to work together to publicise each of our causes– my petition on one side of the flyer; Jack’s event with Issa and Miko on the reverse. Here is Issa on Wikipedia.
Both Issa and Miko are remarkable men who fight for peace in the Middle East. But Issa did not show up; we learned that Israeli border guards had prevented him from leaving the country, even though Jack had bought him a plane ticket and he had a passport. They knew he was coming to the UK Labour Conference to campaign for peace.
The reason he needs our help now is because he faces jail on ridiculous charges. Just before Xmas he had his final day in court in front of the prosecution; hearings have dragged on for over two and a half years since March 2016, he has just a short time left to make his defence. But all Palestinians living in the occupied territories cannot go to civil court – that is just for Jews; they must attend a military court, which has a 99.7% conviction rate. He faces at least two years in jail. On account of 18 charges, almost all relating to his political activity and nonviolent activism, some dating back to 2010. Amnesty say the charges “do not stand up to scrutiny”.
His real crime? He is a prominent activist and founding member of Youth Against Settlements in Hebron, who work peacefully against Israeli occupation of the West Bank? How? He tools up young people with cameras to document settler and military abuses. Palestinians in the West Bank, where he lives, face daily harassment from settlers. To get some idea of life there, here is his Sewage Sunday statement:
“A few days ago was the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, and the week before was Universal Children’s Day. As Israeli settlers flood the Azzun Beit Amin School with sewage, we see yet another case of Palestinian children being a prime target for the Israeli occupation. In my own city Hebron, children are routinely stopped and searched by Israeli soldiers and harassed and attacked by settlers, who have occupied the very center of the city. Israeli settlers block the path to school, attempt to drive into young students with their cars, or physically assault them. Children have to pass through military security checkpoints every morning, and Israeli soldiers shoot tear gas toward the children on a near-day basis. Meanwhile, settlers continue to dump trash and sewage water onto the shopkeepers in the souq of the Old City.
Israeli settlements are a clear violation of international law, yet settlers have the military protection of the Israeli state. The Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked considered the labeling of settlement products to be “anti-Jewish,” while she herself has advocated for killing Palestinian women. The Israeli state tries to silence any opposition to its human rights violations. Nonviolent Palestinian activists are targets. I myself have been arrested countless times, brutally beaten and mistreated, and now I face a trial in Israeli military court – a kangaroo court that has a conviction rate of more than 99.7%. My next day in court is coming up on the 17th of December.
We need the international community to take action. Yet international activists standing up for Palestine are sabotaged and labeled as anti-semitic. Therefore I would like to thank our international friends for continuing to stand with us through our struggle. I know that you also pay a price.
Issa Amro, Human Rights Denfebder , Director of Hebron Freedom Fund NGO"
One reason the Israelis want to bang Issa up is because he is becoming well-known. He won the One World media award in 2009 for his involvement in B’Tselem’s “Shooting Back” project, which provides media training and distributes cameras to Palestinians. Issa’s work led his being awarded UN OHCHR ‘Human Rights Defender of the Year in Palestine’ in 2010.
Such glory days are long behind Issa; just after Xmas his home was attacked by settlers. See the 972 article on how the settlers also beat his friends up.
Please help Issa by sending an email calling for charges to be dropped. The Amnesty information sheet is out of date by a year [eg the Defence Minister has gone], but gives an idea of what they were thinking a year ago about Issa's case. I have tried since the beginning of December to get Amnesty interested in resurrecting Issa’s case by a new round of letter-writing, with no luck. Hence we need to do it ourselves. You can see more about his situation and see a video with him at 972 Magazine here.
Please tell the Israelis to drop charges- to do that, just click here to generate an email. It will go to the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; the Military Judge Advocate General, Brigadier General Sharon Afek; the Israeli ambassador to UK, Mark Regev; the letters editor at Haaretz newspaper with a blind copy to Issa and me.
Add your details and anything you’d like to say and - bingo - off it goes. It will take 2 minutes. And if enough of us act, it will keep Issa out of jail. The Israelis can't bear to think of themselves as oppressors; let's help them see the majority of them are in danger of becoming seen as such. That's why copying in Haaretz matters. It's clear Netanyahu won't act, but hopefully Haaretz will. And that would really help. As Wikipedia says of the paper: "Haaretz is considered the most influential and respected [of all Israeli newspapers] for both its news coverage and its commentary"
Happy new year
Pete