Israel/Palestine:
It’s All About Human Rights

CJPIP is promoting specific information about the impact of the Israeli occupation to individuals and groups concerned about peace, racism, women’s rights, workers’ rights. LGBTQ+ rights, and the environment.

Inspired by Jewish Voice for Peace and others’ challenge to the notion that one can be “progressive except Palestine,” we will be using public events and a variety of media to inform people who care deeply about human rights about the situation in Palestine. 

Contact us at cjpip2000@gmail.com for more information.

 

I am a peace activist, so I support Palestinian rights. I believe that

  • targeting civilians with military-style weapons in the US and by Israeli military weapons in Palestine is reprehensible.

  • mass executions and ethnic cleansing are wrong – in Rwanda and in Sabra and Shatila.

  • replacing peace strategies, like diplomacy and addressing structural systemic injustice, with military aid is destructive and morally bankrupt – in Saudi Arabia/Yemen and in Israel/Palestine.

  • forced displacement, home destruction, and occupation create refugee crises – in the Donbas and in Masafer Yatta.

Resource: Principles for a Just and Lasting Peace for Palestinians and Israelis, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)

I am anti-racist, so I support Palestinian rights. I believe that Israel’s

  • apartheid practices, as documented by international and Israeli human rights organizations, are racist.

  • laws and policies which discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel (such as the Nation State Law) are inherently racist.

  • attacking Palestinian protesters with tear gas is wrong, just as using it against African Americans protesting racist policing in Ferguson, MO and other cities is wrong.

Resource: Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians, Amnesty International; This is Apartheid, B'tselem; Nation State Law, Visualizing Palestine.

I am pro-labor, so I support Palestinian rights. I believe that Israeli occupation causes

  • a Palestinian unemployment rate of 25%, with 54% unemployment in Gaza alone.

  • 24% of employed people who live in the West Bank to live at the poverty level.

  • Palestinian workers, who must go through checkpoints to work in Israel or illegal settlements, to have up to 16-hour work and travel days.

Resource: Workers’ Rights in Crisis: Palestinian workers in Israel and the settlements ,  International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)

I am a feminist, so I support Palestinian rights. I believe that Palestinian women

  • have a right to reproductive health and should not be forced to give birth at checkpoints, barred from accessing proper medical attention.

  • should not be subject to sexual harassment, intimidation, and violence in the Israeli prison system.

  • are disproportionately impacted by the displacement and poverty that are a direct result of Israel’s ongoing occupation.

Resources: Palestine is a Feminist Issue, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights; Palestinian Women Allege Sexual Abuse in Israeli Jails, Anadolu Agency; Occupied Lives: Imprisonment of Palestinian Women and Girls, Addameer

I am an environmentalist, so I support Palestinian rights. I believe that Israel’s occupation

  • dumps waste and raw sewage throughout the Occupied Territories resulting in poisoned water supplies.

  • confiscates Palestinian land - eliminating appropriate agricultural traditions that honor and nurture the soil.

  • creates ongoing airstrikes in Gaza, creating severe environmental harm to the land, rendering the land and its soil dangerous to its people due to harmful toxins.

Resource:  What is environmental injustice and how does it affect Palestine? , Friends of the Earth, UK

I am queer, so I support Palestinian rights. I believe that

  • Israel’s use of ‘pinkwashing’ (explicit branding itself as a queer haven and sexually liberated society) to distract attention from the war crimes committed against Palestinians is unacceptable.

  • Israel's "Queer Oases" (e.g., Tel Aviv) are built on top of Palestinian villages and owe their existence to the forced expulsion of Palestinians.

  • Sending trans women to men’s military prisons for refusing to serve in the Israeli military and violate international law threatens their safety and denies them their identity.

Resources: Israel’s Gay Propaganda War, The Guardian; Israel and Pinkwashing, New York Times; Trans-forming oppression: A transgender Israeli refuses injustice, American Friends Service Committee