Stop the JNF and Prawer Plan
IJAN UK is a founding member of the Stop the JNF Campaign and helped to prepare a submission (in consultation with lawyers working pro-bono) to the Charity Commissioners in the UK and making the case for the commission to investigate the Jewish National Fund’s charitable status in the UK.
IJAN UK joined the London protest against the Prawer Plan – a bill going through the Israeli Parliament to forcibly transfer tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouin from their homes. The UN Committee on the Elimination for Racial Discrimination and the European Parliament have called on Israel to stop the Prawer Plan.
Israel’s Worldwide Role in Repression
In March, at the invitation of the Palestine Society, Balliol College, Oxford University, IJAN UK launched the IJAN pamphlet “Israel’s Worldwide Role in Repression” with a well-attended public meeting.
BDS
IJAN UK has participated in several events including as a keynote speaker at the London School of Economics Palestine Society meeting, Confronting Zionism in November 2012 and chairing the BDS session of the Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (JBIG) conference in March 2013, and contributing to the discussion at War on Want / SOAS Palestine Society’s July 2013 launch of Generation Palestine: Voices from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, edited by Rich Wiles with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Palestinian prisoners
IJAN UK has been very active in alerting the public to the human rights abuses faced by Palestinian prisoners, women, men and children illegally detained in Israeli jails, and mobilizing support for prisoners on prolonged hunger strike by circulating their demands and statements. In May, IJAN UK provided a public platform for one of the most famous Palestinian prisoners and hunger strikers, former member of the Palestinian national football (soccer) team, 26-year old Mahmoud Sarsak, after his release.
In addition, IJAN UK participated in numerous protests and vigils, for example outside G4S Headquarters. G4S is the largest security corporation in the world and a BDS target, which is not only responsible for the death of the UK refugee, Jimmy Mubenga, but also runs jails in Israel.
IJAN UK has also attended meetings about Palestinian child prisoners and publicised the shocking cruelty towards them: being painfully shackled for hours on end, in solitary confinement, kicked, beaten, sexually abused and threatened until they provide confessions, some written in Hebrew, a language they do not speak or understand. 12% of Palestinian children in Israeli custody were threatened with sexual assault and 4% actually sexually assaulted (Defence for Children International – Palestine Section).
Once sentenced, the children were mostly imprisoned inside Israel, in breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, where they can receive few family visits and little or no education. The UN Committee Against Torture has expressed ‘deep concern’ at reports of the abuse of Palestinian children.
