Eye on Palestine: JAI update, July 13, 2015
US only country to oppose UN holding Israel accountable for war crimes, yet
The US was the only country in the world to oppose a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for war crimes, at the 29th regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), held from 15 June to 3 July 2015. The US voted against “ensuring accountability and justice for all violations of international law in” the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).
US protestant churches not yet won over to divestment
After a major US church overwhelmingly voted to divest from companies profiting from Israel’s occupation last week, two others rejected or delayed similar motions. At its national gathering in Cleveland, Ohio, on 30 June the United Church of Christ (UCC) voted to divest by a landslide margin of 508 to 124. Although the resolution had already been approved by 10 regional conferences, signaling broad grassroots support, victory was not guaranteed.
Sources within the UCC reported that many delegates had received personal calls from rabbis in their home communities pressuring them to vote against divestment. The vote itself was held shortly after a keynote address by Rev. Mitri Raheb, the Palestinian pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem.
The Israeli Supreme Court Gives the Green Light to Begin Building the Separation Wall in the Cremisan Valley
The Israeli Supreme Court issued a decision on Monday, the 6th of July 2015, giving the Israeli Ministry of Defense the green light to begin building the separation wall in the Cremisan Valley in Beit Jala. This ruling limits the effect of the Court’s previous decision to stop building the separation wall in Cremisan, whereby the decision to stop building the wall will only be limited to the surroundings of the Salesian Sister’s Convents, represented by the Society of St. Yves.
One year since Israel’s Gaza massacre and ten years since the launch of the BDS movement
One year ago today, Israel launched a brutal military attack on the Palestinian population of the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. More than 2,200 Palestinians were killed, including 551 children, and more than 10,000 people were seriously injured and hundreds of thousands were made homeless, forcibly displaced and trapped inside Gaza. Deliberate attacks on Palestinian civilians of this kind are part and parcel of an Israeli policy that aims to force Palestinians into submission and to thwart the Palestinian people’s exercise of its right to self-determination.