3 December 2020

Middle East

• On 27 November, Al-Haq participated in a Palestinian-Chilean webinar on “The Continuing Struggle for the Decolonization of Palestine: New Obstacles, Same Goal” jointly with the International Observatory of the Foundation for Democracy, discussing challenges to the protection of the Palestinian people’s rights, in light of Israel’s ongoing human rights abuses within the context of the seven decades long “colonization and apartheid”. The webinar featured Shawan Jabarin, General Director of Al-Haq; Ilan Pappé, Director of the European Center for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter; Inès Abdel Razek, Advocacy Director for the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy; and Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement.
• On 27 November, Yesh Din published the report “A Life Exposed: Military invasions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank”, the product of a joint project launched in 2018 by
  Yesh Din, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) and Breaking the Silence. Based on 158 testimonies from Palestinian men and women who experienced such invasions and 45 interviews with Israeli soldiers and officers, the report describes the practice and impact of raiding Palestinian homes in the West Bank (except in East Jerusalem). The report also offers an outline of the provisions within military legislation that regulate and enable it. This legal outline provides the basis for an analysis of home invasions in light of international law, which defines Israel’s obligations as the occupying Power in the West Bank.
• On 24 November, HaMoket – Center for the Defence of the Individual issued a report highlighting hundreds of cases of Palestinian teenagers arrested in the middle of the night by the Israeli military, instead of summoning them to interrogation. Based on the findings, HaMoked petitioned the HCJ.

North America

• On 3 December, the Foundation for Middle East Peace held the webinar “Palestinian Refugees Beyond the Trump Era” with Matthias Schmale, UNRWA Director of field operations in Gaza; Dalya Al Masri, Palestinian-Canadian journalist and human rights advocate; and Raed Jarrar, Palestinian-American architect, blogger, and political advocate.
• On 3 December, The Jerusalem Fund held the virtual event “The Middle East: No Longer As Important as it Used to Be?” with Aaron David Miller, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator in Republican and Democratic Administrations.
• On 1 and 2 December, the Columbia University Center for Palestine Studies screened the film “My Grandfather’s Path” by documentarian Nizar Hassan, in which, based on an old audio recording, he follows the footsteps of his grandfather traveling from one end of Palestine to another. The result is an odyssey of visual and visceral recollection reclaiming Palestine from beneath the political radar of occupation and dispossession.
• On 19 November, Amnesty International USA issued a statement in response to the United States Department of State announcement designating the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as antisemitic and planning to identify organizations supporting BDS with a view to reviewing and halting their funding. The statement condemns the new policy, saying that “The Department of State’s targeting of groups advocating for using peaceful means, such as boycotts, to end human rights violations against Palestinians as antisemitic violates freedom of expression and is a gift to those who seek to silence, harass, intimidate and oppress those standing up for human rights around the world.”

United Nations

• On 1 December, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People observed the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People for 2020 to commemorate the adoption by the Assembly, on 29 November 1947, of Resolution 181, which provided for the partition of Palestine into two States. The observance is held annually at United Nations Headquarters, the United Nations Offices at Geneva and in Vienna and elsewhere. At the Special Meeting in New York (held virtually) the President of the General Assembly, the Presidency of the Security Council, the UN Secretary General, the Chair of the Palestinian Rights Committee and the Permanent Observer of Palestine delivered remarks. Also speaking were representatives of the African Union, the League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Non‑Aligned Movement and global Civil Society.
• On 2 December, the UN General Assembly held its annual debate on the question of Palestine, in which it renewed the mandates of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the Division for Palestinian Rights of the UN Secretariat, the Special Information Programme on the Question of Palestine of the UN Department of Global Communications, and also reaffirmed the annual resolution on the “Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine”.
• On the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued a statement in which he expressed his concerns about the situation on the ground and expressed his hope “that recent developments will encourage Palestinian and Israeli leaders to re-engage in meaningful negotiations, with the support of the international community, toward a two-State solution and will create opportunities for regional cooperation. Only a two-State solution that realizes the legitimate national aspirations of Palestinians and Israelis can lead to sustainable peace.”
• On 26 November, UNRWA announced that its innovative and unique UNRWA TV YouTube channel was awarded a Golden Play Button, a YouTube Creator trophy granted by Google to the YouTube channels with over one million subscribers. Originally launched in Gaza in 2012 and developed in response to the emergency contexts in Gaza and Syria, UNRWA TV YouTube channel content has registered more than 260 million views and currently averages 150,000 visitors a day.

This newsletter informs about recent and upcoming activities of Civil Society Organizations affiliated with the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. The Committee and the Division for Palestinian Rights of the UN Secretariat provide the information “as is” without warranty of any kind, and do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, or reliability of the information contained in the websites linked in the newsletter.