Demolitions surge; S Sizer petition; Wednesday's webinar

February 2023 Actions Bulletin * Respond to Demolition & Displacement news * Discover MP & Peer support for Masafer Yatta * Sign petition regarding Stephen Sizer penalty * Attend our February webinar featuring Tent of Nations * See news from MEMO conference * Join the 2023 study tour to Palestine/Israel * Add these dates to your diary

January Demolition and Displacement Report

Photo: OCHA - Jabal al Mukabbur, East Jerusalem

The statistics from January are shocking as they reveal the intensifying of Israel’s brutal policy of making life so difficult for Palestinians that they are forced to leave their homes. An average of four demolitions occurred each day of the month with East Jerusalem and the Hebron district being the prime areas targeted as more land is cleared for Israel’s illegal settlement expansion.

Eight families were forced to demolish their beloved homes themselves after Israel put them in an impossible situation, threatening high unaffordable fines should the Israeli bulldozers carry out the demolition. Palestinians can’t afford to pay thousands of dollars for the fines and the fee they are landed with once Israel carries out the demolition. In Sept 2022, the UN reported that overall, 36% of Palestinians live below the poverty line while the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies reported in 2020 that 58% or Palestinian children in Jerusalem live below the poverty line.

Israel only rarely grants building permits to the Palestinians even on land they own that has been in the family for generations unlike the ease afforded to Israelis for home construction, even within the illegal settlements that continue to mushroom within the occupied Palestinian Territory. To witness your home being demolished or to be forced to demolish it yourself deeply wounds each member of the family, intensifying the ongoing trauma from the apartheid policies that all Palestinians experience. The sight of the bulldozers arriving to your locality along with members of the Israeli army and police is terrifying.

During January agricultural and other structures vital for living were also destroyed. Two artesian wells in the Qalqilya area were demolished denying 9,255 Palestinians of their easy and reliable source of water. The village of Al-Araqib in the Naqab was demolished for the 212^th time since July 2010. Please continue to write to your political representatives about these gross violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention. For more background on demolitions go here. Within the UK contact your MPs here .

There has been a little more coverage of Palestine/Israel in the media though most is not within the context of Israel’s settler colonial regime and apartheid policies. Whenever the reality for Palestinians is addressed, do write responding with thanks to encourage more honest reporting

Read the full letter and see signatories here .

Background information about Masafer Yatta is available here (https://icahd.org/2023/01/03/israel-plans-forced-displacement-of-palestinians-within-days/ ) . Petition in support of Rev Dr Stephen Sizer The Bishop of Winchester announced a 12-year ban on Rev Dr Stephen Sizer participating in ministry following a charge of antisemitism

Within the Church of England, the Bishop’s Disciplinary Tribunal for the Diocese of Winchester held a tribunal concerning The Revd Dr Stephen Sizer between Monday 23 - Friday 27 May 2022, due to a complaint made by the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD) against the Revd Dr Sizer in 2018. The result of the Tribunal was given on 6th December which concluded that Stephen Sizer had engaged in “conduct unbecoming the office and work of a clerk in Holy Orders,” and his penalty was announced on 30^th January. The twelve-year ban means that he is not allowed to conduct worship services, officiate at weddings, or perform other duties associated with a pastor’s role.

Following the news of the 12-year ban, Antony Lerman, British writer who specializes in the study of antisemitism, responded stating that “this disgraceful miscarriage of justice against someone who has never uttered a word of hate against Jews will be a permanent stain on the Church of England and the Board of Deputies.”

Read the full article and follow the link to the petition here https://icahd.org/2023/02/07/january-2023-demolition-and-displacement-report/ ICAHD UK's February Webinar The Tent of Nations' Struggle for Justice

Photo – S Hannington - Daoud Nasser

Tent of Nations is an educational and ecological farm that is located on a hilltop between Hebron and Bethlehem. Surrounded by five settlements ever creeping closer, the Israeli government claims ownership of the land which the Nasser family has challenged at a cost of $200,000 in legal fees. Their case has been sent from Israel’s Supreme Court to the military court and they hope it can be re-registered as private land and not state land. Reg (https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcuc-ygqz4uGNQI-mH3nKkMx25yJYhYRXMf ) ister for this webinar here (https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcuc-ygqz4uGNQI-mH3nKkMx25yJYhYRXMf ) MEMO conference in brief

Photo: Catherine Charrett introduces Jeff Halper (centre). On the right is Jose Ramon Cabanas Rodriguez

ICAHD’s Jeff Halper spoke at Middle East Monitor’s London conference on Saturday, 4^th February. Entitled ‘International Perspectives on Apartheid and Decolonization in Palestine', seven presentations were given under the themes of settler-colonialism: past and present; apartheid as a prelude to genocidal practices; and resistance and liberation. In addition, the opening address was by Prof Joseph Massad who provided an historical overview on Zionism and colonization. The keynote address was given by Prof Michael Lynk who for six years served as the UN’s Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. He was clear about Israel’s apartheid policies and said that neither population is going anywhere. He sees no hope for a two-state solution instead with the way ahead being one democratic state.

Jeff Halper was the final speaker and the only one to lay out what a political solution could look like. He shared work that has been done by the One Democratic State Campaign and stated that it is the Palestinians who will dictate what its programme will be. Some Palestinians in the audience found it difficult to hear Jeff, an Israeli Jew, speak because for them they only see Jeff as a “Jewish settler”. Yet at the end of the conference several young Palestinians approached Jeff with more questions and expressed an openness to what he shared. Join the 2023 study tour to Palestine/Israel Photo - S Hannington - Chicken market area in Hebron's H-2 area where there are many closed shops

Applications are being received for participation in the next 11-day issued-based study tour to Palestine/Israel that will include thirty encounters with leading voices in ’48 and in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Don’t delay in applying because there is much interest in the tour scheduled for autumn 2023. “We were promised that we’d hear a variety of voices on the tour – and we did! I have lived and volunteered in the West Bank a few times and am very aware of the oppression the Palestinians suffer. However, my knowledge was simultaneously widened and deepened by listening to people giving different views both in Palestine and Israel. The tour group itself came from contrasting backgrounds and had different experiences of the Occupation but we all benefited from our tour leader’s skilled management so we could learn from each other. Each of us returned motivated to do more for the Palestinians in their search for human rights and self-determination.”

Gill Knight, leader of the PSC group in Hastings – Nov 2022

Wednesday 22 March 2023 - ICAHD UK Webinar - Details to be announced

Saturday 13 May 2023 - National Demonstration commemorating 75 years of Nakba. Central London. Details to follow.

Saturday 30 September 2023 - ICAHD UK Annual Conference - Amnesty International UK, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA - Times and programme to be confirmed

From all at ICAHD UK. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Israeli-Committee-Against-House-Demolitions-UK/366423593418140 Facebook https://www.twitter.com/ICAHDUK/ Twitter http://icahduk.org Website mailto:info@icahduk.org Email