P.O.Box 46081, London W9 2ZF jfjfp@jfjfp.org
On-line petitions
Updated on 28 November, 2006
- GAZA: Stop the Siege! Stop the War!
- Demand the Return of Gaza Students to Birzeit University
- International Petition Call for Repeal of Israeli Discriminatory Citizenship Law
- The Joint Israeli-Palestinian Action Group for Peace petition
- Sign the online petition against the wall
- Ittijah on-line petition of protest against the attempted murder of Arab Knesset Member Issam Makhoul
- The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue & Democracy and sign their Wall petition
- International Petition to lift restrictions on Mordechi Vanunu
- Petition to the Scottish Parliament to end the Jewish National Fund's charitable status in Scotland
- Petition to end the eviction threat to cave dwellers
- Petition to protest against Professor Tariq Ramadan being prohibited from entering the United States
- Petition to the Municipality of Jerusalem to reverse its decision to close the Nablus Rd & Antara Ben Shadad Street to vehicles in front of the Jerusalem Hotel.
- Open letter to President Jacques Chirac (France) and Prime minister Tony Blair (Great Britain) originated by Shulamit Aloni Former Israeli minister of education and leader of the Meretz party and Dr. Hannan Ashrawi Secretary General - The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy - MIFTAH.
Demand the Return of Gaza Students to Birzeit University
In November 2004, four Birzeit University students from Gaza were forcibly removed from their studies in the West Bank and illegally deported to the Gaza Strip by the Israeli occupation Army. No charges were made against them, but they have been prevented from returning to Birzeit University to continue their studies. All four students were due to graduate by the end of this academic year.
The Right to Education Campaign at Birzeit University launched an international appeal for the deported students, and hundreds of prominent academics, concerned individuals, trade unions and human rights organizations around the world responded. The Israeli Army Legal Advisor received a stream of faxes and letters, demanding that the students be allowed to return to their studies.
As a result of this international pressure, the Israeli Army stated that the students might be permitted to come back to Birzeit University, but only if they signed a guarantee to permanently return to the Gaza Strip upon completion of their studies. This latest condition exposes the real motive behind the forced expulsion of Gaza students from the West Bank: to impose a final separation between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The West Bank and Gaza Strip are internationally recognized as one integral territory. Under international law everyone has the right to freely choose their place of residence within a single territory. As such, all Palestinians from Gaza have the right to live, work and study in the West Bank and vice versa. This has been actively undermined by the illegal permit system and closure policy imposed by the Israeli occupation since 1991, preventing thousands of Gaza students from studying at West Bank universities.
Since 2000, Israel has made it virtually impossible for Gaza students to study at the eight Palestinian universities in the West Bank. In 1999 there were some 350 Gaza students studying at Birzeit University, today there are only 35. The four deported students - Bashar Abu Shahala, Walid Muhanna, Bashar Abu Salim and Mohammad Matar are among the last Gaza students still studying in the West Bank.
The Gaza students¹ issue is part of the wider Israeli policy to obstruct and attack education in Palestine. Students in the West Bank are prevented from reaching their universities by frequent closures of cities, hundreds of military roadblocks and the construction of the illegal Wall. As a result, the number of new Birzeit students coming from Jenin in the northern West Bank declined by 100% in 2004. In the same year, over 1,500 Gaza students were prevented from traveling to their universities abroad.
Birzeit University urgently calls on all supporters, human rights organizations, and government representatives around the world to:
1. Demand the immediate and unconditional return of the four deported Gaza students to Birzeit University
2. Demand the right of Palestinian students to study at any university in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in accordance with international law
3. Demand the right of all Palestinian students to freely pursue their education in accordance with the right to freedom of movement and the fundamental human right to education
Please sign the online petition and write to:
Col. Yaer Lutstein
Legal Advisor
Bet El Civil Administration
West Bank
Fax number: +972 2 997 7326
Mr. Shaul Mofaz
Israeli Minister of Defense
Email sar@mod.gov.il
Fax number: +972 3 697 6990Please also copy your letters to the Right to Education Campaign at Birzeit University. Email: right2edu@birzeit.edu Fax: +972 2 298 2059
Sign the on-line International Petition Call for Repeal of Israeli Discriminatory Citizenship Law
On July 31st, 2003, the Israeli Knesset enacted the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) 2003 prohibiting citizenship, permanent residency and/or temporary residency status to West Bank/Gaza Palestinians married to Israeli citizens, the fulfillment of which will split nearly 22,000 families. With the passage of this law, the State of Israel has violated its commitment to international human rights conventions. The world community has begun to acknowledge this violation - the United Nation, European Commission, Federation for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, U.S. State Department and Amnesty International - making this an opportune time for citizens everywhere to also voice their condemnation.
The Mossawa Center, Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens of Israel, has composed a petition calling on citizens worldwide to encourage a response from their elected governments in light of the law's inherent human rights violations. This petition can be found on-line at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mossawa/petition.html. If you find yourself in agreement with the petition, please sign and send it, as far and wide as possible; mass support only will provide the necessary influence in this effort.
Sign the The Joint Israeli-Palestinian Action Group for Peace petition.
To: The Members of the "Quartet" - The United Nations, The United States of America, The European Union, The Russian Federation
The decision to "remove" - meaning to assassinate - Yasser Arafat, the elected president of the Palestinian people, is the culmination of Sharon's effort to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by crushing the resistance of the Palestinian people.
The Hudna, and before it the Road Map, have been destroyed by a policy that relies solely on the force of arms while excluding the UN and the international community.
The cycle of violence has reached the point that makes an international intervention imperative:
FIRST, by sending an international force with enough power to separate the two parties, so that a real solution can be reached on the basis of "two states for two peoples", in accordance with international legitimacy.
SECOND: by asking the Quartet to take up its responsibilities as one team, including the supervision of the international force and the implementation of the Road Map in its totality.
We, Israelis and Palestinians, call upon you:
Stop the policy of violence, death and hatred!
Give a chance to the policy of peace and reconciliation, based on respect for the rights of the other!
The Joint Israeli-Palestinian Action Group for Peace
Sign by sending an e-mail to odsh7@zahav.net.
The group believes it is important to publicize the petition both in the Israeli and the Palestinian media. In order to finance the ad, you are requested to send a check of NI.S.100 to the order of: "Mathe Hakoalitzia"
P.O.B. 1335
Kefar-Sava
44113
Israel
Or, transfer your funds to:
Bank Hapoalim,
branch no. 679 (Tchernichovski Kfar-Sava),
Account No. 119442.Sign the Ittijah on-line petition of protest against the attempted murder of Arab Knesset Member Issam Makhoul
Ittijah (Union of Arab Community Based Associations) has issued a petition in protest against the attempted murder of Arab Knesset Member Issam Makhoul. On Friday, 24 October 2003, a bomb was placed under MK Makhoul's car, seriously endangering his life and the lives of his wife and children.
In the petition, Ittijah argues that the anonymous attack is the result of public incitement against Arab leaders by the Israeli government. Ittijah asks the government to step back from these attacks that create an uncontrollable atmosphere of violence.
First signatories of the petition are 34 Arab non-governmental organizations in Israel, including Ittijah, Adalah, the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), the Follow-Up Committee on Arab Education, and the Center Against Racism. We call Israeli institutions and the general public - Arab and Jewish - as well as the international community to support this petition. By signing the petition, you show moral support for MK Issam Makhoul, and you defend the democratic right of Arab Israelis to take part in Israel's public and political life.
After signing, please distribute the petition to others who might take an interest.
Ittijah - P.O. Box 9577, Haifa 31095, Israel Tel. +972-4-8507110 Fax +972-4-8507241
Support The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue & Democracy
To the International Court of Justice,
- The wall anchors Israeli military occupation and colonies in the Palestinian territories, in a blatant violation of international law and resolutions, which do not permit annexation of land by force.
- The wall drives towards the practice of ethnic cleansing and is subjecting an entire population to aggressive collective punishment, to the strangest and harshest laws such as separating the farmers, students, workers and the sick from their lands, water source, schools, doctors and hospitals and their workplace. Moreover, it divides each city and village into enclaves, splitting and dispersing members of the same family. These practices contradict basic human rights, the 4th Geneva Convention and the related international covenants.
- The wall restores the ghetto culture and instills an apartheid regime encouraging discrimination in the era of globalization, openness and integrated markets.
- The wall destroys hopes for peace and all of the political initiatives, fostering an atmosphere of hatred, animosity and war between states and countries of the region as well as jeopardizing security and stability in the Middle East.
- The wall is causing environment catastrophes, with the uprooting of a hundred thousand trees in the first phase alone and the destroying and/or annexing Palestinian water resources. Furthermore, the wall has destroyed and targeted archeological and historical sites in this ancient land.
- In order to solve the harms caused by this wall, which are listed above, a unified and strong campaign, should condemn and combat these actions to stop and reverse the construction of this wall, for no change in route could dissolve these violations.
- We appeal for your urgent action for the sake of peace. We call on you
to act immediately, to stop and remove the Israeli segregation wall that
is under construction now in the occupied Palestinian territories.
International Petition to lift restrictions on Mordechi Vanunu
Mordechai Vanunu walked out of the prison which had caged him for nearly 18 years.
But he isn't free yet.
Israel has imposed severe restrictions on Vanunu, including not allowing him to leave Israel.
But this is absurd. Mordechai Vanunu has been locked away from the world for almost 18 years. He has no more secrets to reveal and is not a threat to the security of the state of Israel.
There are of course many unknowns, but the international campaign is moving forward with attempting to persuade Israel to release Vanunu unconditionally, and allow him to leave the country.
Public pressure has brought important changes over the years. In 1998, pressure from his supporters around the world pried open the lock on Mordechai's isolation cell after his first eleven and one half years in solitary confinement. Israel once claimed that the transcript of Vanunu's closed door trial was so sensitive it could never be made public. But several years ago, bending to public pressure, it released most of the trial record and permitted the Knesset's first open debate on nuclear secrecy. And although Israel still officially denies that it has a nuclear arsenal, government censors are allowing increased coverage of the once taboo topic in Israel's mainstream media.
We need your help to apply maximum pressure and demand that they unconditionally release Mordechai Vanunu!
Until we have a better address, you may send letters and cards of support (no books or valuables, please) to:
Mordechai Vanunu
c/o the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu
POB 43384
Tucson, AZ 85733Petition to end the eviction threat to cave dwellers
Prevent the threatened expulsion by Israel of a powerless community of herders and farmers who live in caves in the Occupied Territories, with little connection to the outside world.
Fourteen Israeli organizations have joined together to help them, and are sponsoring a petition called: "Stop the Eviction of Palestinians from the South Hebron Hills"
Petition to protest against Professor Tariq Ramadan being prohibited from entering the United States
In February 2004, the renowned Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan was appointed Henry B. Luce Professor of Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame (South Bend, USA). A visa of residence and work (H1) was originally granted to him on 5 May. On 2 August the American Embassy in Berne (Switzerland) informed Professor Ramadan that the US Homeland Security Department had decided to revoke this visa. No explanation was given.
This arbitrary decision currently leaves Professor Ramadan unable to fulfill his academic duties to provide tuition on "Islamic ethics" as timetabled for the fall semester 2004-2005. If the situation remains unchanged it will also prevent him from participating in a number of high profile conferences, which include: the University of Stanford on 12 - 14 September, by invitation of the France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies; a visit to New York on 27 September by invitation of former President Bill Clinton; and an engagement in Florida on 19-21 November at the invitation of William S. Cohen, the former US Secretary of Defense.
The decision to revoke Professor Ramadan's visa threatens to set a dangerous precedent for the restriction of academic freedom and freedom of speech in the USA. By this action, the US administration has not only targeted the wrong individual in the name of its 'war against terrorism'. It is also silencing the voice of a scholar who has a long and proud record of denouncing extremism, narrow literalism and anti-Semitism within Muslim communities and societies.
To sign the petition, please email academic_freedom_usa@yahoo.co.uk with the following:
I condemn the decision to revoke the visa of Professor Tariq Ramadan as a breach of human rights and academic freedom. I demand that this decision is overturned without delay.
Academic Title - Name - Department - University
page last updated 28 November, 2006