Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/641/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=12069

From November 14-21, Israel killed at least 182 Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, including 47 children, according to the World Health Organization. In addition, 6 Israelis were killed by Palestinian rockets.

Israel's attacks against the Gaza Strip were committed with U.S. weapons given to Israel as military aid by the U.S. taxpayer. These weapons were misused by Israel in violation of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act to commit grave human rights abuses of Palestinians.

For example, Israel used a U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter jet to kill 4-year-old Mahmoud Sadallah, who died of shrapnel wounds from missiles fired from this aircraft.

Mohammed Omer wrote in The Nation that Mahmoud “was playing on the stoop of his home, well away from the main street” when he was killed.

“With emergency services strained, in a panic the young boy’s mother scooped him up and ran through the smoke-enshrouded streets, dodging dust and flames, screaming hysterically for help as blood poured out of Mahmoud’s head.”

Now the Obama administration is proposing to deliver 6,900 Joint Direct Attack Munitions tail kitsand more than 10,000 bombs--weapons valued at $647 million--to replenish Israel's arsenal for its F-16 fighter jets.

Our taxes should not be funding Israel’s human rights abuses of Palestinians in violation of U.S. law. Sign this petition to the State Department to investigate Israel’s violations of the Arms Export Control Act, hold it accountable for killing Palestinians like Mahmoud in our name, and prevent the delivery of more weapons to Israel.


Dear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,

Last month, Israel killed at least 182 Palestinians, including 47 children, in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip with U.S. weapons paid for by U.S. taxpayers in violation of U.S. law.

Rather than replenishing Israel's arsenal of Joint Direct Attack Munitions and bombs for its U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets, the State Department instead must investigate Israel's violations of the Arms Export Control Act and hold Israel accountable for killing Palestinians in our name by ending U.S. military aid to Israel.

[Note: The Israel Project listed below has a board of advisers that includes Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, a staunch zionist]

Most Jewish foundations support the equivalent of Bubbeh’s chicken soup: Israel, synagogues, youth groups, Jewish education, Jewish studies programs, etc.  But over the past ten years or so, as the ideological battle within Israel has intensified with a rightward nationalist drift, a number of foundations have led a drive toward the increasing politicization of Jewish philanthropy.  Three of the most radical in their funding objectives are located in the west: the Koret Foundation in San Francisco, which is based on the fortune amassed by a successful Jewish clothing manufacturer, with a reported $473-million in assets and $19-million in grants in its latest IRS filing.  The Fairbrook Foundation, based on the $1-billion technology fortune of Aubrey and Joyce Chernick, is based in Los Angeles and had $50-million in assets and $5-million in grants in its last available 2010 IRS filing. The Irving Moskowitz Foundation, which had assets of $48-million and grants $5-million, supports the radical settler vision of its namesake, whose fortune was made buying and selling hospitals and in running a Southern California bingo-parlor.


[Photo: Irving Moskowitz surrounded by settlers and security as they ethnically cleanse East Jerusalem Palestinian home (Awad Awad/AFP)]

These foundations are major funders of the most extreme of Jewish groups and individuals including David Horowitz, Pam Geller, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, The Israel Project, MEMRI, and many others.  The agenda of these funders is decidedly Islamophobic and contributes enormously to the current hostile atmosphere toward Muslims in the U.S. and Israel.  They funded Geller’s “Ground Zero Mosque” jihad, her NY subway ads. They helped Daniel Pipes create and fund his lawfare campaign called The Legal Project, which provided free legal representation to leading Dutch Islamophobe politician, Geert Wilders; and for MEK official, Hassan Daioeslam, in defense of his libel suit with the National Iranian American Council.

The main problem with Jewish Islamophobia is that it turns the Israeli-Arab conflict into a religious holy war when it’s really a battle over political power.  Injecting religion as these radical ideologues do, makes resolving differences almost impossible.  Finally, in smearing the religion of most of those living in the Middle East, it almost guarantees that no Muslim will be able to tolerate a Jewish presence there as well.

Similarly, these radical philanthropists fund the most extreme of the settler movement.  Those who not just espouse violence and hate against Palestinians, but engage in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.

Because so much of the activism of the radical Jewish right is shrouded in obscurity, I like to debunk this periodically by showing you the money: who has it, where it’s going, and what it’s doing.

* The following is a list, by Foundation, of some of the most radical of these groups and how much they’ve received. I last bloggedabout the Fairbrook Foundation’s 2008 IRS 990. The following is from the 2010 report:
Read more: Jewish Foundations Support Islamophobia at Home, Settler Triumphalism Abroad

Prominent members of ruling party urge annexation of 'Area C' as battle for rightwing votes intensifies before general election

Moshe Feiglin, who proposed that Israel should pay Palestinian families to leave the West Bank. Photograph: Jim Hollander/EPA
Prominent members of Israel's ruling Likud party have proposed the annexation of part of the West Bank as the battle for rightwing votes intensifies before the general election in less than three weeks.

Government minister Yuli Edelstein told a conference in Jerusalem that the lack of Israeli sovereignty over Area C – the 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli military control in which all settlements are situated – "strengthens the international community's demand for a withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines".

Ze'ev Elkin, the chairman of the governing coalition, said Israel should adopt a "salami" approach to annexation: "We will try to apply sovereignty over as much as we can at any given moment."

A third Likud member, extreme rightwing settler Moshe Feiglin, proposed that the state of Israel should pay Palestinian families to leave the West Bank, using funds earmarked for security measures. "We can give every family in Judea and Samaria [the biblical term for the West Bank] $500,000 [£300,000] to encourage [them] to emigrate … This is the perfect solution for us," he said.
Read more: Likud members call for Israeli annexation of West Bank territories

Israel/Gaza: Unlawful Israeli Attacks on Palestinian Media

Missiles Kill Two Media Workers, Toddler; 10 Wounded

December 20, 2012

(Gaza City) – Four Israeli attacks on journalists and media facilities in Gaza during the November 2012 fighting violated the laws of war by targeting civilians and civilian objects that were making no apparent contribution to Palestinian military operations.

The attacks killed two Palestinian cameramen, wounded at least 10 media workers, and badly damaged four media offices, as well as the offices of four private companies. One of the attacks killed a two-year-old boy who lived across the street from a targeted building.

The Israeli government asserted that each of the four attacks was on a legitimate military target but provided no specific information to support its claims. After examining the attack sites and interviewing witnesses, Human Rights Watch found no indications that these targets were valid military objectives.

“Just because Israel says a journalist was a fighter or a TV station was a command center does not make it so,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Journalists who praise Hamas and TV stations that applaud attacks on Israel may be propagandists, but that does not make them legitimate targets under the laws of war.” Read more: HRW cites Israel for war crimes