What Can We as UCLA Students Do?

Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA November 5, 2013 University investments in human rights violations
The University of California currently invests funds (including student tuition) in companies that enable and prot from violations of Palestinian human rights. Some of these companies include HewlettPackard, General Electric, Cement Roadstones Holdings, and Caterpillar.

Hewlett-Packard
HP has supported restricting the freedom of movement of the Palestinian peoples within the West Bank by providing biometric identication systems used in the Israeli military checkpoints.

General Electric
GE manufactures and supplies engines for A64 Apache Helicopters, systematically used by the Israeli military; in attacks on Palestinian civilians which constitute severe human rights violations and war crimes

Cement Roadstones Holdings

Cement Roadstones Holding (CRH) has also contributed to the construction of military checkpoints, the wall, and the settlement enterprise by providing cement and other building material.

Caterpillar
Caterpillar sells Israel armored D-9 bulldozers which are used to demolish Palestinian homes and olive trees in the West Bank and Gaza, and to plow land for the construction of the wall and settlements. 1

Do we want our university to invest in companies that prot from violations of human rights?
We have the power to change our universitys investment behavior and stop putting our tuition funds into these companies. This will send a strong moral message as well as produce a small nancial penalty for corporate behavior that we do not approve of. This, we

You can visit www.whoprots.org to nd out more about all of these companies. Who Prots is an Israeli research project documenting corporate support for the occupation.

what can we as ucla students do ?

hope, will increase the incentives for companies to stop providing Israel with the tools it needs to violate Palestinian rights, and might hasten the pressure to end those violations. There is a long history of students using university investments as a means of pressure for social justice. In the 1980s, UCLA was among the rst universities to pass a divestment bill, pressuring the university to end its investments in companies that supported the apartheid2 government in South Africa. We can do this again, and students at other universities have already started. In 2010, students at UC Berkeley passed a divestment bill that was vetoed by the student body president. But in 2012, students at UC Irvine passed a divestment bill by a margin of 16-0 in their student government.3 It is time for our university to join the growing consensus around Palestinian rights by taking similar actions.

The government in South Africa had set up a two-tiered system of rights for white and blacks that is similar in many ways to the system that Palestinians live under.
3

See www.irvinedivest.org for the bill and more information.

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) is a set of tactics that can be used to put non-violent pressure on the Israeli government, corporations, and institutions to change their behavior.4 In 2005, Palestinian civil society issued a call for its international supporters to engage in these efforts. The movement is centered around gaining rights rather than determining a political solution (1 state or 2, etc). Those rights are: 1. The right not to live under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip 2. The right to full equality for Palestinian Citizens of Israel 3. The right of Palestinian refugees (under International law) to return to the communities that they were ethnically cleansed from in 19485

BDS is not targetted at individuals.

How does one participate in the BDS Movement?

Boycott campaigns focus on companies like Ahava and SodaStream, which locate their factories on stolen land in the West Bank and steal Palestinian resources to make their products. Divestment campaigns include university resolutions and pressure on other investment institutions to cease putting funds into occupation-related venues. Sanctions are applied by governments as punishment for the ongoing failure to abide by international law.

You can nd the full text of the Palestinian call at www.bdsmovement.net and www.pacbi.org.

Gaza Strip
Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA November 5, 2013 Siege and Blockade
The Gaza Strip is located on the southern coast of Israel, and is home to 1.5 million Palestinians. Since the early 1990s, Israel has restricted passage to and from Gaza, but in 2006, following Hamas victory in Palestinian elections, Israel tightened its restrictions severely and imposed a total naval blockade on the tiny coastal enclave. Israel continues to maintain control over Gazas borders and airspace. Israels siege and naval blockade of Gaza are acts of collective punishment, which is illegal under international law, and is considered as such by the United Nations and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International. A 2009 Amnesty International report following Operation Cast Lead, Israels devastating military assault on Gaza in the winter of 2008-9, stated:
The prolonged blockade of Gaza, which had already been in place for some 18 months before the current ghting began, amounts to collective punishment of its entire population. The Fourth Geneva Convention specically prohibits collective punishment. Its Article 33 provides: No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.1

Israeli ofcials have admitted that the siege is not motivated primarily by security concerns, but is part of a strategy of "economic warfare" against the people of Gaza. In 2006, senior advisor to thenPrime Minister Ehud Olmert, Dov Weisglass, said the goal of the Gaza siege was to put the 1.6 million people of Gaza on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.2

See the Amnesty report entitled, The Conict in Gaza: A Brieng on Applicable Law, Investigations and Accountability.

Economic Strangulation
Export of Palestinian goods, the import of raw materials and access to Gazas natural resources have been severely restricted, devastating Gazan businesses and the ability of the region to be self-sufcient, thereby rendering it dependent on international aid. Economic output has fallen sharply, imports and exports are restricted, and as a result unemployment has skyrocketed as Gazans are unable to sell goods on a world market or import needed supplies.

See Weisglasss comments in The Guardians article, Gaza on brink of implosion as aid cut-off starts to bite.

gaza strip

Humanitarian Crisis
As a result of the blockade and economic strangulation of Gaza: 38 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and 54 percent of households face food insecurity Gazas hospitals are at "zero stock levels" for 178 of 480 essential medications, with another 69 at low stock. Of 700 essential medical supplies, 190 are at "zero stock levels" and another 70 at low stock. Due to lack of fuel, the Gaza Power Plant runs at 45 percent capacity, leading to daily blackouts of eight to twelve hours. 95 percent of water sources are unt for drinking. Water-borne diseases cause 26 percent of illnesses in Gaza. 3
3

Operations Cast Lead and Pillar of Cloud

Cast Lead
On December 27, 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a massive, 22-day military assault on the Gaza Strip. The ferocity of the attack was unprecedented in the more than six-decade-old conict between Israelis and Palestinians, killing some 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians. In the aftermath of the offensive, a UN-appointed fact nding mission found strong evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by both the Israeli military and Palestinian militias.4 Investigations by human rights groups such as Amnesty International5 and Human Rights Watch6 came to the same conclusion. Some examples of possible war crimes include destruction of civilian infrastructure, use of banned weapons on civilian populaitons, failure to distinguish between military and civilian targets, killing civilians who were waving white ags, and knowingly targetting civilians.

See the IMEUs factsheet on Gaza for detailed citations on the economic and humanitarian impacts of the blockade: http://imeu.net/news/article0019136.shtml

See the Goldstone Report at the UN Ofce of the High Commissioner for Human Rights website.
5

Find Amnestys report entitled Operation "Cast Lead": 22 Days of Death and Destruction. 6 See HRWs ndings in its 2010 Country report for Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Pillar of Cloud
In November of 2012, Israel broke a ceasere with Hamas, returning the area to its largest conict since Operation Cast Lead. By the end of the operation, 160 Palestinians had died, 105 of whom were civilians, and 30 of whom were children. 971 Palestinians were wounded. 6 Israelis (4 civilian) were killed during the ghting.7 Israel has repeatedly violated the November 21 ceasere that ended ths conict, killing and injuring several Gazans. Human Rights Watch again accused Israel of committing possible war crimes through the knowing targetting of civilians and civilian infrastructure.8

See the Palestinian Center for Human Rights - Gaza for more information.

See the HRW article: Israel/Gaza: Israeli Airstrike on Home Unlawful

US Aid to Israel
Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA November 5, 2013 Military and Political Aid
Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. aid since World War II. Since 1985, it has received an average of $3 billion in grants annually, about two-thirds of it for military aid. In recent years, a plan to reduce Israels economic dependence on foreign aid has led to gradual reductions in the proportion of economic to military aid. In 2005, for example, military grants amounted to $2.63 billion, and economic aid to $360 million.1 Unlike any other U.S. aid recipient, Israel receives all of its aid in the rst thirty days of the scal year, instead of quarterly installments. And unlike any other recipient of U.S. aid, Israel is not required to account for its expenditures. Israel, thus, is free to spend U.S. aid as it sees t, including in ways that contradict U.S. policies as in the building of settlements in the Occupied Territories. The U.S. Department of State regularly reports serious human rights abuses committed by Israeli troops in the Occupied Territories, implicating such U.S. domestic legislation as the Arms Export Control Act, which bars arms transfers to human rights abusers. Yet neither Congress nor the President have ever taken serious steps to ensure that U.S. arms are employed by Israel in a manner consistent with U.S. law. Beyond this military and economic aid, Israel has also received support for special military research and development projects (such as $625 million to develop the Arrow missile), and for other special needs. Israeli ofcials have announced that they will seek $2.2 billion from the U.S. to support the redeployment of its army outside of the Gaza Strip, part of its "Gaza Disengagement Plan". In addition to the above aid, the U.S. government has provided Israel with over $9 billion in loan guarantees since 1992. These guarantees are worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Israel as they allow the Israeli government to borrow money from commercial lenders at more favorable rates and terms. In addition to this nancial and military aid, Israel has also bene- tted from political protection at bodies such as the United Nations. Since 1972, the United States has issued 40 vetoes that protected Israels violations of Palestinian rights from scrutiny and accountability.2

The Congressional Research Service publishes reports on assistance to Israel. See one here: http://www.adc.org/IB85066.pdf

See Jadaliyyas report, A Quick Listing of The United States Record of Veto Use at the United Nations (UN): 19722011

A Timeline of Censorship at the UC

Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA November 5, 2013
Find the full timeline and graphics online at Mondoweiss.net January 2009 A panel hosted by UCLAs Center for Near Eastern Studies titled Human Rights & Gaza features four professors speaking on Operation Cast Lead, the massive Israeli invasion of Gaza. Although not deemed newsworthy at the time, the event is later labeled as disruptive, anti-Semitic & threatening to the Jewish population in several media outlets. February 2009 - UC Santa Barbaras Academic Senate launches an investigation into Sociology Professor William Robinson and his use of course material referencing the Israeli assault on Gaza in the winter of 2008-9 in his class on global conicts and struggles. June 2009 - The widely criticized investigation of Professor Robinson is dropped after 6 months. Investigators nd that he acted in accord with the principles of academic freedom, especially when teaching a class whose content is the sociology of globalization. February 2010 A speaking engagement by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine is interrupted by 11 students protesting Israeli human rights violations who briey disrupt his speech while walking out. The students, known as the Irvine 11, were arrested and threatened with academic punishments. They also received numerous death threats. March 2010 - UC Berkeleys SJP proposes a motion to the student government seeking to divest from companies nancially involved in the Israeli occupation. Although the motion passes by a large majority (16-4), it is vetoed by the student body president. The UC Regents issue a statement supporting the veto. May 2010 In response to the Irvine 11 protest, UC Irvine suspends the Muslim Student Union (MSU), a religious group that facilitates prayer and communal services for all Muslim students on campus. MSU was suspended even though the organization did not endorse the protest, though students who were members of the organization had been involved in the protest. June 2010 UC President Mark Yudof appoints an Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture and Inclusion, following a number of incidents at UC. September 2010 - The Third World Mural at UC Davis, which includes a Palestinian ag in the shape of a dove, is defaced and painted over with a Star of David. October 2010 The Anti-Defamation League labels Students for Justice in Palestine one of its Top 10 Anti-Israel Groups in America. Other groups on the list include Jewish Voice for Peace and Friends of Sabeel, a Palestinian Christian ecumenical organization that promotes peace and justice for Palestinians. February 2011 - Just under a year after the protest, the Orange County District Attorney charges the Irvine 11 with two misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to disrupt a meeting and disruption of a meeting. March 2011 Tammi Rossman-Benjamin , UC Santa Cruz lecturer and head of AMCHA Initiative, an organization that combats anti-Jewish bigotry on California campuses, petitions the US Department of Education to investigate anti-Israel discourse at UCSC and whether it constitutes a hostile environment for Jewish students. March 2011 Jessica Felber, UC Berkeley student, sues the University of California alleging that the UC abets a hostile climate against Jewish students by allowing SJP to protest Israeli policies on campus. July 2011 Through the Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture and Inclusion, UC President Mark Yudof creates the Campus Climate Investigation. September 2011 - A court nds the Irvine 11 guilty and the students are ordered to do community service. The defendants appeal the verdict.

a timeline of censorship at the uc

November 2011 Felbers lawsuit against the UC is dismissed, but plaintiffs are allowed to re-le. November 2011 In a speech to the Anti-Defamation League, UC President Mark Yudof praises the efforts of UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake to impose additional time, place, and manner restrictions on activists protesting human rights violations in Palestine. Drake had directed that his students move their protest to outside his ofce so that he could personally monitor them. January 2012 - California State Northridge Professor David Klein is targeted by supporters of Israel for petitioning against study abroad programs in Israel maintained by the California State University system. February 2012 - A silent walkout organized by SJP in protest of an event at UC Davis titled IDF Soldiers Speak Out is interrupted by a student not afliated with SJP. Days later, UC President Yudof writes an open letter to the UC system in which he portrays the SJP as responsible for the disruption and without providing evidence, associates the group with other incidents, including the defacing of an Israeli ag and the hanging of a noose at UC San Diego. February 2012 Pro-Israel groups led by Tammi Rossman-Benjamins AMCHA Initiative attempt but fail to shut down a lecture series by Professor Ilan Pappe at California State and UC campuses. March 2012 - The AMCHA Initiative asks the UCLA Academic Senate to investigate Professor David Shorter for referencing the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement in a class about indigenous struggles. Academic Senate Chair Andrew Leuchter violates university policy and publically reprimands Shorter. June 2012 - The California Attorney General declines a petition by the AMCHA Initiative to sue Northridge Professor David Klein for alleged misuse of public resources for hosting online materials about the boycott of Israel using university resources. In declining the petition, the Californias Deputy Attorney General wrote that after carefully considering the complaint his ofce found no basis for any action on our part. July 2012 - The UCLA Academic Senate ofcially clears Professor Shorter of any wrong doing, nding that the investigation was unmerited and that Academic Senate Chair Leuchter acted inappropriately when accepting the complaint of an outside group. July 2012 - The re-led Felber v Yudof case is settled, with the plaintiffs agreeing that the UC was not at any fault, and the UC agreeing to minor changes to campus policies surrounding protests. July 2012 - Lawyers for Jessica Felber in the Felber v Yudof case, Joel Siegal and Neal Sher, initiate a Title VI complaint with the US Dept of Education. The complaint asks the federal government to investigate an alleged climate of hostility against Jewish students on campus stemming from criticism of Israel. July 2012 The UC Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture and Inclusion releases its Campus Climate reports on Jewish and Arab/Muslim experiences on campus. The Jewish Students report recommends broad censorship to reduce criticism of Israel on campus. The Jewish Students report puts forth highly criticized recommendations for banning certain forms of speech on UC campuses that are deemed critical of Israel. August 2012 - In an unprecedented move, the California State Assembly passes HR 35, a non-binding resolution that commends the UC Campus Climate report, conates criticism of Israeli policy as antisemitic, and encourages broad censorship of criticism of Israel on UC campuses. The Center for Constitutional Rights, CAIR, and JVP condemns the report as biased, erroneous, and unconstitutional. While the UC administration opposes the bill when passed, later reporting shows that it had been involved with drafting its early language. August 2012 - The UC Student Association passes a landmark resolution denouncing HR 35 as an attempt to censor SJPs and calling for the University of California to end investments in corporations involved with Israels human rights violations.

Palestinian Refugees
Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA November 5, 2013 The Nakba
While Israelis look back at May 15th, 1948 as a day of independence and take their celebrations to the streets, Palestinians look back at that very same day and see an entirely different story. 65 years ago, approximately 750,000 Palestinians lost their homes and most of their possessions, their land and their businesses, and watched as their towns and villages were erased off the map by Israeli forces. Jewish militias seeking to create a state with a Jewish majority in Palestine, and later, the Israeli army, drove out nearly a million Palestinians and moved Jews into the newly-emptied Palestinian homes. Al-Nakba, or The Catastrophe, will be remembered by Palestinians as the day their society was destroyed and their homeland was taken over, creating the refugee crisis that persists today.1

The Right of Return

All refugees have a right to return to areas from which they have ed or were forced, to receive compensation for damages, and to either regain their properties or receive compensation and support for voluntary resettlement. This right derives from a number of legal sources, including customary international law, international humanitarian law governing rights of civilians during war, and human rights law. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states in Article 13(2) that "[e]veryone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and return to his own country." This is an individual right and cannot be unilaterally abrogated by third parties. In December 1948, following Israels establishment and the attendant displacement of approximately 750,000 Palestinians from areas that fell within its control, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194, which states, "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible."2

Read about the Nakba at the Institute for Middle East Understandings Nakba FAQ: http://imeu.net/news/article001237.shtml#4 and the Badil Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, www.badil.org.

Read the resolution here: http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/ 0/c758572b78d1cd0085256bcf 0077e51a?OpenDocument

palestinian refugees

The Palestinian right of return has been conrmed repeatedly by the UN General Assembly, including through Resolution 3236, which "Reafrms also the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return."

Facts & Figures

Palestinian refugees are the largest and longest-standing population of displaced persons in the world. Reliable gures on their numbers are hard to nd, as there is no centralized agency or institution charged with maintaining this information. However, a survey released in 2010 by BADIL, the Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, found the refugee and displaced population to be at least 7.1 million, made up of 6.6 million refugees and 427,000 internally displaced persons. It also found that refugees comprised 67% of the Palestinian population as a whole.3 Most Palestinian refugees are Palestinians and their descendants who were expelled from their homes in the parts of historic Palestine that were incorporated into the newly created state of Israel in 1948. Other Palestinian refugee categories include Palestinians who ed their homes but remained internally displaced in areas that became Israel in 1948; Palestinians who were displaced for the rst time after Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the 1967 War; Palestinians who left the occupied territories since 1967 and have been prevented by Israel from returning due to revocation of residency rights, denial of family reunication, or deportation; and Palestinians internally displaced in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip since 1967. Most Palestinian refugees live in camps in the occupied territories and neighboring Arab countries, with 1.9 million in Jordan, 1.1 million in Gaza, some 779,000 in the West Bank, 427,000 in Syria, and 425,000 in Lebanon. Throughout the region, many Palestinians rely on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to survive.

Find the BADIL Centers report entitled Survey of Palestinian Refugees and IDPs (2008-2009)

Palestinian Citizens of Israel

Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA November 5, 2013 Background
Palestinian citizens of Israel are those Palestinians who remained behind in what became the state of Israel following the Nakba, or "catastrophe," when approximately 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and land by Zionist forces in order to make way for a Jewish-majority state. Between 1948 and 1966, Palestinians living in Israel were granted no political rights and were subject to Israeli military rule. After 1966, they were granted the right to vote and other civil rights, but to this day they continue to suffer from widespread, systematic and institutionalized discrimination affecting everything from land ownership and employment opportunities to family reunication rights. Today, there are approximately 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, about 20% of the population.

Institutionalized discrimination
There are more than 30 laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel. directly or indirectly, based solely on their ethnicity, rendering them second or third class citizens in their own homeland.1 93% of the land in Israel is owned either by the state or by quasigovernmental agencies, such as the Jewish National Fund, that discriminate against non-Jews.2 Palestinian citizens of Israel face signicant legal obstacles in gaining access to this land for agriculture, residence, or commercial development. More than seventy Palestinian villages and communities in Israel, some of which pre-date the establishment of the state, are unrecognized by the government, receive no services, and are not even listed on ofcial maps. Many other towns with a majority Palestinian population lack basic services and receive signicantly less government funding than do majority-Jewish towns. Since Israels founding in 1948, more than 600 Jewish municipalities have been established, while not a single new Arab town or community has been recognized by the state. Israeli government resources are disproportionately directed to Jews and not to Arabs, one factor in causing the Palestinians of

See the research center Adalah.org for details.

Read more here http://forward.com/articles/2854/ in-watershed-israel-deems-land-userules-of-zioni/

palestinian citizens of israel

Israel to suffer the lowest living standards in Israeli society by all socio-economic indicators. Government funding for Arab schools is far below that of Jewish schools. According to data published in 2004, the government provides three times as much funding to Jewish students than it does to Arab students.3 According to the 2009 US State Department International Religious Freedom Report, Many of the national and municipal policies in Jerusalem were designed to limit or diminish the non-Jewish population of Jerusalem.4 In the Spring of 2011, Jerusalem city councilman Yakir Segev stated: We will not allow residents of the eastern [occupied Palestinian] part of the city to build as much as they need... At the end of the day, however politically incorrect it may be to say, we will also look at the demographic situation in Jerusalem to make sure that in another 20 years we dont wake up in an Arab city. The Nationality and Entry into Israel Law prevents Palestinians from the occupied territories who are married to Palestinian citizens of Israel from gaining residency or citizenship status. The law forces thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel to either leave Israel or live apart from their families. In October 2010, the Knesset approved a bill allowing smaller Israeli towns to reject residents who do not suit "the communitys fundamental outlook", based on sex, religion, and socioeconomic status. Critics slammed the move as an attempt to allow Jewish towns to keep Arabs and other non-Jews out.5 The so-called "Nakba Bill" bans state funding for groups that commemorate the tragedy that befell Palestinians during Israels creation in 1948, when approx. 750,000 Palestinian Arabs were ethnically cleansed to make way for a Jewish majority state.6 The British Mandate-era Land (Acquisition for Public Purposes) Ordinance law allows the Finance Minster to conscate land for "public purposes. The state has used this law extensively, in conjunction with other laws such as the Land Acquisition Law and the Absentees Property Law, to conscate Palestinian land in Israel. A new amendment, which was adopted in February 2010, conrms state ownership of land conscated under this law, even where it has not been used to serve the original conscation purpose. The amendment was designed to prevent Arab citizens from submitting lawsuits to reclaim conscated land.

See Adalah.orgs The Inequality Report, March 2011

Read the State Department report at: http://www.state.gov/j/drl/ rls/irf/2009/127349.htm

See reporting by Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/ knesset-panel-approves-controversialbill -allowing-towns-to-reject-residents1.321433

6

See +972 Magazines report: http://972mag.com/nakba-law-insidepandoras-box/

The West Bank, Part 1

Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA November 5, 2013 Settlements
As of 2012, there are more than half a million Israeli settlers living in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Of those, upwards of 300,000 live in the expanded boundaries of East Jerusalem. In addition, approximately 20,000 settlers live in settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Settlements are illegal under international law.1 As of 2012 there were some 130 ofcial settlements and more than 110 outposts (nascent settlements built without ofcial government approval) in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.2 According to Human Rights Watch: "Palestinians face systematic discrimination merely because of their race, ethnicity, and national origin, depriving them of electricity, water, schools, and access to roads, while nearby Jewish settlers enjoy all of these state-provided benets. . . While Israeli settlements ourish, Palestinians under Israeli control live in a time warp - not just separate, not just unequal, but sometimes even pushed off their lands and out of their homes."3 From 1993 to 2000, during the period of the peace process known as the Oslo Accords, the number of Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem), nearly doubled, from 110,900 to 190,206 according to Israeli human rights organization BTselem. According to BTselem, the number of illegal settlers in East Jerusalem stood at 167,000 as of 2000, though accurate numbers are difcult to locate. Settlements and related infrastructure (including Israeli-only roads, army bases, the separation wall, closed military zones, and checkpoints) cover approximately 42% of the West Bank.

See UN Security Council Resolution 242 and Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention. Also see the IMEU factsheet on the occupation for more details: http://imeu.net/news/article0022576.shtml
2

See BTselems report: http://www.btselem.org/settlements

See HRW at: http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/12/18/ israelwest-bank-separate-and-unequal

Apartheid Wall
In June 2002, under the pretext of security, the Israeli government began unilaterally constructing a wall, much of it on Palestinian land inside the occupied West Bank. In July 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ)4 issued an advisory opinion deeming the West Bank separation wall illegal. The court said the wall must be dismantled, and ordered Israel to compensate Palestinians harmed by

Read the opinion at: http://www.icjcij.org/docket/les/131/1677.pdf

the west bank , part 1

its construction. It also called on third-party states to ensure Israels compliance with the judgment. While the ICJs decision was an advisory opinion, and therefore not binding on the parties, it is an authoritative statement of the status of the wall in international law. Critics have accused Israeli authorities of designing the walls route to envelop as much Palestinian land and as many Israeli settlements as possible on the western, or Israeli side, while placing as many Palestinians as possible on the eastern side. In total, about 98% of the Israeli settler population is expected to end up on the Israeli side of the wall. The wall also surrounds much of occupied East Jerusalem, cutting its more than 200,000 Palestinian residents off from the rest of the occupied West Bank.

Checkpoints
At any given time, there are upwards of 500 checkpoints, roadblocks, and other barriers to Palestinian movement inside the West Bank, hindering Palestinians from moving between their own towns and cities and the outside world. Palestinians are prohibited from driving on the vast network of settler roads built inside the West Bank, which are restricted to Israeli citizens.In addition to limiting movement of individual Palestinians, Israeli restrictions also impede the ow of commercial goods and commerce, with adverse effects on the Palestinian economy and development. According to a September 2011 report by the UN Ofce for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:5 522 roadblocks and checkpoints obstruct Palestinian movement in the West Bank, compared to 503 in July 2010. 200,000 people from 70 villages are forced to use detours between two to ve times longer than the direct route to their closest city due to movement restrictions. One or more of the main entrances are blocked to Palestinian trafc in ten out of eleven major West Bank cities. Four of the ve roads into the Jordan Valley are not accessible to most Palestinian vehicles. Almost 80 percent of land in the Jordan Valley is off-limits to Palestinians, with the land designated for Israeli settlements ring zones and nature reserves. (See here for 2012 UN map) Palestinian access to their private land around approximately 55 Israeli settlements is highly restricted.

Read the report at http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ ocha_opt_MovementandAccess_ FactSheet_September_2011.pdf

The West Bank, Part 2

Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA November 5, 2013 Destruction and Discrimination
Home Demolitions
Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.1 Israel has demolished approximately 24,800 Palestinian homes in the occupied territories since 1967.2 Demolitions are carried out for three stated reasons: military purposes; administrative reasons (i.e. a home or structure is built without difcult to obtain permission from Israel); and to deter or punish militants and their families, a violation of provisions of international law that prohibit collective punishment. According to Human Rights Watchs 2012 World Report: Israel usually carries out demolitions on the grounds that the structures were built without permits, but in practice such permits are almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain in Israeli-controlled areas, whereas a separate planning process available only to settlers grants new construction permits much more readily.3 Since 1967, some 2,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished in occupied East Jerusalem. According to ofcial Israeli statistics, from 2000 to 2008 Israel demolished more than 670 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem. The number of outstanding demolition orders is estimated at up to 20,000.4 Palestinians in East Jerusalem are often forced to choose between demolishing their own homes and paying for Israeli authorities to do it.

Read it here: http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/full/380

2

See the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), here: http://www.icahd.org/?page_id=5508

Read the report: http://www.hrw.org/worldreport-2012/ world-report-2012israeloccupied-palestinian-territories

See ICAHD: http://www.icahd.org/?page_id=5374

Theft of resources and discrimination

After taking control of the occupied territories in 1967, Israel began to exploit their natural resources. Most critically in the semi-arid region, Israel began to exploit aquifers and other water sources. According to international law, including Article 55 of the Hague Regulations, an occupying power is prohibited from using an occupied territorys natural resources for its own benet. An occupying power may only

the west bank , part 2

use resources in an occupied territory for military necessity or for the benet of the occupied population. Thus, Israels exploitation of Palestinian resources such as water for use in Jewish settlements and inside Israel proper is a clear breach of international law, a position supported by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International. Despite this clear prohibition, in December 2011, in response to a petition led by Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that Israeli companies could continue exploiting Palestinian resources in the occupied territories.5

Water
While Israeli settlers water their lawns and ll swimming pools, Palestinians living nearby often cannot access an adequate amount of water for drinking, cooking, or proper hygiene. In the West Bank, Israeli settlers consume on average 4.3 times the amount of water as Palestinians. In the Jordan Valley alone, some 9000 settlers in Israeli agricultural settlements use one-quarter the total amount of water consumed by the entire Palestinian population of the West Bank, some 2.5 million people.6 According to a 2010 Human Rights Watch report, 60,000 Palestinians living in Area C of the West Bank (which is under full Israeli control) lack access to running water, and must pay high prices up to one-sixth of their income to bring in water tankers, which in turn require special permits from Israel. According to the 2011 US State Department Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Israel and the occupied territories: According to Amnesty International, Palestinians received on average of 18.5 gallons of water per person per day, falling short of the World Health Organizations standard of 26.5 gallons per person per day, the minimum daily amount required to maintain basic hygiene standards and food security.7

See the coverage here: http://www.haaretz.com/printedition/news/ high-court-says-israelcan-take-advantage-of-west-bankresources-1.403978

See Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/ les/reports/iopt1210webwcover_0.pdf

Agriculture
According to the UN Ofce for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, in 2011 alone some 10,000 Palestinian-owned trees, mostly olive trees, were damaged or destroyed by Israeli settlers, signicantly undermining the livelihoods of hundreds of West Bank families. Between 2000 and 2007, more than half a million Palestinian olive trees were destroyed by Israel for the construction of the separation wall or by settlers.8

Read the report here: http://www.state.gov/documents/ organization/190656.pdf

See the Alternative Information Center for an example of coverage: http://www.alternativenews.org/english /index.php/news/news/3797israel-continues-to-uproothundreds-of-olive-trees-forconstruction-of-separation-wall-.html

The Prison System

Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA November 5, 2013 Facts and Figures
According to prisoners rights organization Addameer, there were 4653 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel as of May 1, 2012.1 Since 1967, Israel has imprisoned upwards of 700,000 Palestinians from the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, or about 20% of the total population of the occupied territories.2 Those who are charged are subjected to Israeli military courts that human rights organizations have criticized for failing to meet the minimum standards required for a fair trial.3 According to Amnesty Internationals 2011 Annual Report on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Palestinians in the [occupied territories] subject to Israels military justice system continued to face a wide range of abuses of their right to a fair trial. They are routinely interrogated without a lawyer and, although they are civilians, are tried before military not ordinary courts.4
1

See Addameer: http://www.addameer.org/etemplate.php?id=475

See Addameer: http://www.addameer.org/etemplate.php?id=290

See BTselem: http://www.btselem.org/administrative _detention/criticism_on_the_administra tive_detention_order

Administrative Detention
Israel uses a procedure known as administrative detention to imprison Palestinians without charge or trial for months or even years. Administrative detention orders are normally issued for six-month periods, which can be extended indenitely. Administrative detention was rst instituted by the British during the Mandate era in 1945, prior to the creation of Israel. There are currently as of September 1, 2012, approximately 212 Palestinians being held in administrative detention.5 Since 1967, some 100,000 administrative detention orders have been issued by Israel. Although there are none currently being held in administrative detention, Israeli authorities have in the past used the procedure against Palestinian children as well as adults. Israels frequent use of administrative detention has been condemned by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as Israeli human rights groups like BTselem. 6

See the report at: http://www.hrw.org/worldreport-2012/ world-report-2012israeloccupied-palestinian-territories

See Addameer: http://www.addameer.org/etemplate.php?id=293

See Amnesty: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library /asset/MDE15/002/2012/en/899510fdb45a-4713-8fa2-77aa8a774b0a/ mde150022012en.html; HRW: http://www.hrw.org/news/ 2012/02/11/israel-hungerstriker-s-life-risk and BTselem: http://www.btselem.org/administrative _detention/criticism_on_the_ administrative_detention_order

the prison system

An end to the use of administrative detention was one of the main demands of a recent wave of hunger strikes by Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

Children
As of April 2012, there were 220 Palestinian minors in Israeli prisons. Since September 2000, Israel has arrested and imprisoned more than 7000 Palestinian children.7 Like all Palestinians from the occupied territories, Palestinian children are subject to Israeli military tribunals. Palestinian minors are frequently arrested in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers, taken away without their parents and harshly interrogated without a guardian or lawyer present.8 According to a recent report by the Israeli NGO No Legal Frontiers, which followed the cases of 71 Palestinian children as they made their way through the Israeli military court system: The most common offense was throwing stones and Molotov cocktails. In most cases the object was not actually thrown, did not hit a target, or cause any damage. In no case was serious harm caused. In 94% of cases the children were held in pre-trial detention and not released on bail. In 100% of cases, the children were convicted of an offense. 87% of them were subjected to some form of physical violence while in custody.9 Under pressure from human rights organizations and childrens rights advocates, the Israeli army announced in 2011 that it would raise the age that Palestinians are treated as adults from 16 to 18 years of age, however, critics complain that they are still subject to the same unjust and abusive treatment accorded Palestinian adults.

See Defence for Children International: http://www.dcipalestine.org/content/child-detainees

See: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ world/middle-east/how-israel-takes -its-revenge-on-boys-who-throw-stones2344037.html

Read the report: http://nolegalfrontiers.org/en/reports/77report-juvenile-court

International Law
Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA November 5, 2013
Illegality of the Occupation
Israels occupation regime has been ruled illegal by the United Nations Security Council in Resolutions 242 and 446. 1 A recent United Nations Human Rights Council investigation concluded the same, calling on Israel to withdraw settlers from the West Bank, saying that the settlements violated international law. It added,
"Israel must, in compliance with article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, cease all settlement activities without preconditions. It must immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all settlers from the OPT [occupied Palestinian territories]." 2
1

See http://imeu.net/news/ article0022576.shtml

The settlements contravene the 1949 Geneva Conventions forbidding the transfer of civilian populations into occupied territory, which could amount to war crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court [ICC]. The International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International have all agreed. In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israels wall through the West Bank was illegal and must be removed. It also afrmed that Israels settlement policy was a violation of international law and illegally displaced Palestinians. 3 Although Israel removed settlers from the Gaza Strip, it maintains effective control over Palestinians everyday lives, blockading its land and sea borders and freedom of movement. Amnesty International referred to this as the collective punishment of the Gaza Strips population. 4 In 2009, Amnesty International issued a report calling for an international arms embargo against Israel in response to Israels use of weapons against civilians in the Gaza Strip. (source)

Read the report: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/ HRCouncil/RegularSession/ Session19/FFM/ FFMSettlements.pdf

See the HRW report: http://www.hrw.org/node/95061

See Amnestys report: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ MDE15/007/2009/en/4c407b40e64c-11dd-9917-ed717 fa5078d/mde150072009en.html#2.2.4.1.2.4%20 Collective%20punishment%7Coutline

Violation of Rights
In 2010, Human Rights Watch issued a report on the separate and unequal system of occupation in the West Bank and called on the US, EU and private business to avoid supporting discriminatory Israeli settlement policies.5

See the report referenced above.

international law

The UN Human Rights Council recently echoed these ndings, saying that settlements violate the Geneva Convention, Palestinian right to self-determination, and their right to equality and nondiscrimination.6 The same UN report also called on business to cease activity in the settlements so as to not continue violations of Palestinian rights.

See the UNCHR report referenced above.

Military Violence
In 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the United Nations all launched fact nding missions and concluded that Israel used collective punishment against Palestinians, and found substantial evidence of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from Israels attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza. Israel repeated similar behavior in its 2012 Operation Pillar of Cloud.7

See the section on Gaza for fuller information and citations.

Common Struggles
Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA November 5, 2013
The United States, Past and Present
The segregated bus systems in the south have a strong comparison in the segregated roads, busses, and services in the West Bank, where Palestinians are not allowed to access Jewish-only resources. The violence visited upon Palestinian civilians without protection from the state is similar to Southern white violence against Blacks, who were not protected by the state. The unequal prison system enforced on Palestinians is similar to our own countrys racially discriminatory incarcertaion system. Systems of racial proling in the United States are also analgous to the racial proling enforced on Palestinians in the territories and also inside Israel.

US-Mexico Border
Elbit systems is a company helping to build the wall through the West Bank. It laso helps to construct the wall and fences being built on the US Mexico border.1 Hewlett Packards involvement in monitoring Palestinians in the West Bank is paralleled by its cooperation with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)s efforts to track and deport undocumented people in the American Southwest.2

Learn more at http://www.globalexchange.org/ economicactivism/elbit/why

Apartheid in South Africa

The South African apartheid system was established by white residents of the country as a system of domination and exploitation over the native population. Enforced by violence, it granted special rights to whites and made Blacks second class citizens, forced to live in bantustans or islands of territory within the stateand stripped of equal citzenship. State resources were given out separately and uequally between Blacks and whites, and Blacks were monitored using a similar system of passes that is now used today in the West Bank (though with improved technology). The United Nations International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973) denes apartheid

Learn more at http://www.globalexchange.org/ economicactivism/hp/why

common struggles

as inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.3 Over the entirety of its 64-year existence, there has been a period of only about one year (1966-67) that Israel has not ruled over large numbers of Palestinians to whom it granted no political rights simply because they are not Jewish. Prior to the start of the occupation in 1967, Palestinians who remained inside what became Israel in 1948 were ruled by martial law for all but one year, not unlike Palestinians in the occupied territories have been for the past 45 years. According to a 2010 Human Rights Watch report entitled Separate and Unequal: Israels Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories":
"Palestinians face systematic discrimination merely because of their race, ethnicity, and national origin, depriving them of electricity, water, schools, and access to roads, while nearby Jewish settlers enjoy all of these state-provided benets. . . While Israeli settlements ourish, Palestinians under Israeli control live in a time warp - not just separate, not just unequal, but sometimes even pushed off their lands and out of their homes."4

See http://untreaty.un.org/cod/avl/ ha/cspca/cspca.html

Many veterans of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa consider Israels treatment of Palestinians to be a form of apartheid. One of the most outspoken voices has been that of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, one of the heroes of the struggle against South African apartheid, who has repeatedly made the comparison. In 2012, Archbishop Tutu wrote that Israels version of apartheid is actually worse than South Africas, stating: Not only is this group of people [Palestinians] being oppressed more than the apartheid ideologues could ever dream about in South Africa, their very identity and history are being denied and obfuscated.5

See http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/ 12/18/israelwest-bank-separate-andunequal

Settler Colonialism
Settler-colonialism, the process by which a native population is displaced to make way for a new outside group, is not unique to Palestine. It is a phenomenon that has been experienced here in the United States, where indigenous people were largely exterminated to make way for British and European settlers. We recognize and respect that fact that UCLA stands on American Indian land.

See a recent article http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/ columns/justice-requiresaction-to-stop- subjugation-ofpalestinians/1227722 and his statement at: https://www.kairosresponse.org/ Endorsement_Statements.html