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Current Activism and Civil Resistance Movements (8)
The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund is a registered non-political, non-profit organization that was established in 1991 by concerned people in the U.S. to address the medical and humanitarian crisis facing Palestinian youths in the Middle East. 
It has since expanded to help suffering children from the region, based only on their medical needs. They don´t not discriminate based on religion, gender, nationality or sect.
The primary objective of the PCRF is to identify and treat every child in the Middle East in need of specialized surgery not available to them locally. They locate, sponsor and run volunteer medical missions to the Middle East in pediatric cardiac surgery, pediatric cardiology, plastic and reconstructive surgery, maxillofacial surgery, pediatric urology, ophthalmology, vascular surgery, pediatric orthopedic surgery, Pediatric urology and pediatric surgery as well as many other specialties.
They also locate abroad free medical care for children who cannot be adequately treated in the Middle East. The PCRF is the main organization regularly sending injured and sick Arab children to North and South America, the Middle East and Europe for free care that is not available to them there. Since 1991 over 1,000 children have been abroad for millions of dollars of donated care through the PCRF. The PCRF also helps to improve the quality of medical care in the Middle East by sending medical equipment and supplies to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as training local Palestinian medical personnel to improve the quality of care and services within the public sector.
PSC is an independent, non-governmental and non-party political organisation with members from many communities across Britain, and increasingly throughout the world.
It was founded in 1982 during the build-up to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, and was incorporated in the UK in 2004 as Palestine Solidarity Campaign Ltd.
PSC represents people in Britain from all faiths and political parties, who have come together to work for justice for the Palestinian people. PSC was established to campaign for Palestinian rights, including the right to self-determination and the right of return, and to oppose Israel’s occupation and violations of international law.
PSC is opposed to all forms of racism, including anti-Jewish prejudice and Islamophobia.
The PSC has an executive committee consisting of 20 members (plus two members representing the PSC’s Trade Union Advisory Committee), who are elected at the Annual General Meeting by PSC members. Its headquarters are in London. There are four staff members. The organisation relies on volunteers to perform many tasks, such as running campaigns and managing branch offices.
One of the PSC’s founders, Tony Greenstein, is also a founder of Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and the author of a number of articles about Palestine and related subjects, many of which are freely available online.
Most of PSC’s directors have not been of Palestinian or Middle Eastern descent. Its current Chair is Hugh Lanning and its current Director is Sarah Colborne.
The PSC has about 40 branches in England, Scotland and Wales, a list of which is kept on its website. The organisation’s activity in Scotland is co-ordinated by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign is a separate organization that was set up in late 2001 by a group of established Irish human rights and community activists.
PSC works with students, faith groups, trade unions and many other campaigning, cultural and political organisations in Britain, Europe and worldwide.
PSC is established to campaign:
- for the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people
- for the right of return of the Palestinian people
- for the immediate withdrawal of the Israeli state from the occupied territories
- against the oppression and dispossession suffered by the Palestinian people
- in support of the rights of the Palestinian people and their struggle to achieve these rights
- to promote Palestinian civil society in the interests of democratic rights and social justice
- to oppose Israel’s occupation and its aggression against neighbouring states
- in opposition to racism, including anti-Jewish prejudice and Islamophobia, and the apartheid and Zionist nature of the Israeli state
To know more about PSC click here
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the long-entrenched and systematic oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian population, using non-violent, direct-action methods and principles.
Founded in August 2001, ISM aims to support and strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance by being immediately alongside Palestinians in olive groves, on school runs, at demonstrations, within villages being attacked, by houses being demolished or where Palestinians are subject to consistent harassment or attacks from soldiers and settlers as well as numerous other situations.
The global movement for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights was initiated by Palestinian civil society in 2005, and is coordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), established in 2007. 
BDS is a strategy that allows people of conscience to play an effective role in the Palestinian struggle for justice.
For decades, Israel has denied Palestinians their fundamental rights of freedom, equality, and self-determination through ethnic cleansing, colonization, racial discrimination, and military occupation. Despite abundant condemnation of Israeli policies by the UN, other international bodies, and preeminent human rights organisations, the world community has failed to hold Israel accountable and enforce compliance with basic principles of law. Israel’s crimes have continued with impunity.
In view of this continued failure, Palestinian civil society called for a global citizens’ response. On July 9 2005, a year after the International Court of Justice’s historic advisory opinion on the illegality of Israel’s Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), a clear majority of Palestinian civil society called upon their counterparts and people of conscience all over the world to launch broad boycotts, implement divestment initiatives, and to demand sanctions against Israel, until Palestinian rights are recognised in full compliance with international law.
The campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) is shaped by a rights-based approach and highlights the three broad sections of the Palestinian people: the refugees, those under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Palestinians in Israel.
The One Million Tree Campaigns (MTC), launched by APN founders in 2001, involves replanting trees on Palestinian lands razed by Israeli bulldozers in areas where Jewish settlements and bypass roads have been built or expanded in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Thousands of acres of Palestinian agricultural land has been razed over the years by Israeli bulldozers, families have been displaced and vital transportation routes disconnected in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as Israeli occupation authorities continue to build and expand Jewish settlements and bypass roads. Nearly 1,500,000 trees were uprooted between the years 2001-2007, and most of these were olive trees: a vital source of food, income and culture for the Palestinian people. Israel’s building of the separation (Apartheid) Wall in the occupied West Bank in recent years has swallowed and destroyed significant acreage of Palestinian agricultural land. The MTC Campaign has been supported or adopted by many local, regional, and international institutions and civil society organizations, such as the Qatari Red Crescent, Eitilf al-Khair Charitable Organization, the War and Globalization Conference and the Students’ Committee at the British Leeds University.
Open Bethlehem is an international campaign that works to promote global engagement with Bethlehem as a real and contemporary city in the Middle East.
It does so by supporting the distribution of communication tools about Bethlehem to boost international interest and awareness and by promoting visits to Bethlehem through established and specialized tour operators. The campaign also works to develop a network of passionate ambassadors for the city through the Bethlehem Passport Program.
Open Bethlehem’s vision is to support a lasting peace settlement between Palestine and Israel using Bethlehem as a doorway for global engagement. As an iconic city, and a Palestinian city, Bethlehem has both power and responsibility to act and use its global outreach to promote positive change.
Over the next two years, Open Bethlehem will focus on the distribution of a documentary that chronicles events from the last decade of life in the city, creating a portrait of Bethlehem as it has never been seen before. The film screenings will be accompanied by an audience outreach campaign that will promote visits to Bethlehem and invite people around the world to become ambassadors for our city.
Posted on: January 2013
By Ola Anan
As part of the popular resistance movement in Palestine, a group of about 250 Palestinian activists established the new village of Bab Al Shams or “The Gate of the Sun”, on a piece of confiscated land in Eastern Jerusalem, referred by Israeli authorities as “Area E1“.
A Press releasewas published on the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee website earlier today, describing the reasons behind the establishment of Bab Al Shams. In their Press release, they said:
For decades, Israel has established facts on the ground as the International community remained silent in response to these violations. The time has come now to change the rules of the game, for us to establish facts on the ground – our own land.
In addition to the Press release, the Palestinian activists used Twitter to declare their movement, and provide updates and photographs from the ground.
Activist Abir Kopty was among the first few to declare the establishment of Bab Al Shams as she tweets:
@AbirKopty: We a group of #Palestinian women and men have established the new village of #BabAlShams on Palestinian land on what Israel refers to as #E1
She also clarifies:
@AbirKopty: #BabAlShams is a new village, not one revived but it symbolizes a lot of things including return to our land.
This movement could be considered as the first initiative to take an effective reaction to the confiscation of Palestinian land by the Israeli army, and its declaration that this area will soon be built into an Israeli settlement, which is illegal under international law.
Palestinian Pal_1948 explains [ar]:
@Pal_1948: The Israeli government recently announced the construction of 4,000 residential units and hotel rooms, and an industrial zone in the region [E1], so a group of 300 young Palestinians established the Village of Bab Al Shams.
He adds:
@Pal_1948: So far, 25 tents have been erected, with an equipped medical clinic, where there is a doctor on call and in the coming hours about 50 tents will be set up.
A few hours later, the Israeli army surrounded the area, closed the checkpoints leading to Bab Al Shams, and handed the activists an administrative eviction notice to evacuate the village. Interestingly, the Israeli supreme court issued a suspending order, which states that the village cannot be evicted for 6 days.
Fadi Arouri explains with a photo of the eviction notice:
@farouri: The [Israeli] army delivers immediate evacuation notice of Village Bab Alshams, despite the Supreme Court’s decision to prevent eviction by 6 days.
Abir kopty wasn’t surprised by the Israeli notice, and tweeted:
@AbirKopty: We were ready to the eviction order so along with building #BabAlShams we went to the court & got suspending order! We are using their tolos.
Despite the Israeli notice of evacuation and the cold weather, the Palestinian activists decided that they will stay the night at their tents in the new village. Keep following updates on Twitter on the hashtag #BabAlshams for further developments.
Source:
https://globalvoicesonline.org
osted on: January 25, 2013
By Irene Nasser
‘What made Bab Al-Shams significant was the fact that it asserted that Palestinian activists would not simply react to injustices the occupation laid at our doorstep, but that we were determined to create our own realities on the ground.’
Last week, I witnessed a remarkable victory for Palestinian unarmed civil resistance. Over a frigid January weekend, I joined hundreds of Palestinians in establishing Bab Al-Shams (literally ‘Gate of the Sun’), a new Palestinian village, erected on private Palestinian land near Jerusalem in the territory known as E1, which Israel has controversially slated for future settlement growth.
The planning, coordination and discipline that went into this action were extraordinary. The exact plans were kept as a closely guarded secret until the last moment, when they were revealed to activists who gathered for a supposed planning camp in Jericho. Those who opted to participate boarded buses and began work on constructing the village. When we arrived at the site, tents were quickly erected, electricity connected, and a media center and clinic set up. On the owners’ behalf, lawyers obtained an injunction from Israel’s High Court barring our immediate evacuation. We held discussions and strategy sessions, as Bab Al-Shams provided the rare opportunity for Palestinian women and men from throughout Palestine to meet face to face. Before long, we were met by others who had run for miles through the hills, bypassing an Israeli cordon to join us.
Forty-eight hours later, in the middle of the night, after the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office argued before the court that we posed an extreme security threat, hundreds of Israeli Police special forces arrived to evict Bab Al-Shams – proving that acts of unarmed civil resistance are often the most disquieting to those bent on domination and intimidation.
Throughout our time in Bab Al-Shams, local and international media covered our story intensively, recognizing it for the act of creative, strategic nonviolence that it was, while numerous messages of support poured in through social media, phone calls and text messages. Seeing how Bab Al-Shams brought a new sense of optimism and hope to people around the world helped us endure the bitterly cold nights and violent evacuation by the Israeli forces.
But it was not just the level of organization and discipline that set Bab Al-Shams apart, nor the media interest that catapulted our story into headlines around the world. What made Bab Al-Shams significant was the fact that it asserted that we, as Palestinian activists, would not simply react to injustices the occupation laid at our doorstep, but that we were determined to create our own realities on the ground. With our own hands, we would lay the foundation for a society that is not rooted in strength of arms or coercion, but in partnership, equality and moral determination. Though Bab Al-Shams was evacuated and destroyed within days, it was a milestone in Palestinians’ efforts to take control of their own destiny.
Sadly, we did not have long to celebrate those achievements. Two days after Bab Al-Shams was evacuated, we received word from the West Bank village of Budrus, a bastion of the unarmed struggle against Israel’s Separation Barrier, that 16-year-old resident Samir Awad had been shot and killed by the Israeli army. He was hit from behind with three live bullets, though he was unarmed and by all accounts posed no threat to the soldiers. He was the fourth unarmed Palestinian to be shot and killed by the Israeli military in five days. In the blink of an eye, the triumphant protest songs filling the air in Bab Al-Shams were replaced by cries of anguish in Budrus, a community shattered by the loss of one of its sons.
Such extreme transitions are commonplace for those who live here. All too often, the promise of a fresh idea is swept away in a torrent of blood and tears. Yet even at the height of his community’s anguish, one of Budrus’s most resilient organizers, Ayed Morrar, told me that the village remains committed to using nonviolence to resist the occupation. Moved by messages of support and condolences that came in from around the world, Ayed asserted that the people of Budrus would not allow the violence visited upon their community to taint the way they raise their children.
Whether popular resistance ultimately succeeds in bringing about a better future in the region depends on our ability to follow the lead of remarkable communities like Budrus. It will be determined, in the end, by our capacity to emerge from the inevitable setbacks and tragedies we encounter with renewed commitment to steel ourselves and try something new.
But that future will come more quickly and with less blood spilled if those around the world, and particularly those in Palestinian and Israeli society who believe in the causes of human freedom and equal rights, pay attention to our actions. That partnership and moral sustenance from afar will help us remain steadfast in the wake of each horrendous death, each crippling injury, or each day spent in a dark and filthy cell. It will allow new forms of creative resistance to take root and flourish, rather than wither in the face of public indifference. And it will help make the sum of our actions something more than a succession of minor headlines about yet another series of “clashes” in an unspecified town in the West Bank.
The residents of Bab Al-Shams have been evacuated, its tents removed. Those of Bab Al-Karameh (‘Gate of Dignity’), a second protest village founded in its wake, are now gone too. What remains is our reinforced conviction, that despite everything, civil resistance can pierce through the hard layers of indifference and animosity that prevail here. That perhaps the occupation can end without a bloodbath after all. Like so many others who have trodden this path before us, we do not know if we will succeed, through efforts like Bab Al-Shams, in beginning the process that finally delivers freedom and dignity to all who live here. But we know we must try.
Irene Nasser is a Jerusalem-based activist and multimedia producer with Just Vision.
Source:
http://972mag.com/
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