Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
21 November
ISRAEL, US AND EU IGNORE ANOTHER UN CALL
On this day in 2014, the United Nations International Meeting of Parliamentarians in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace took place in New York at UN Headquarters. It called for the release of 22 Palestinian parliamentarians being held in Israeli jails without trial. Israel ignored the proceedings and continues to detain the kidnapped Palestinian parliamentarians. The US and main EU members stayed away and likewise ignored the UN call, and the meeting made no perceivable impact on events.
إسرائيل والولايات المتحدة والاتحاد الأوروبي تتجاهل دعوة أخرى للأمم المتحدة
21 نوفمبر
في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 2014 ، انعقد اجتماع الأمم المتحدة الدولي للبرلمانيين لدعم السلام الإسرائيلي الفلسطيني في نيويورك في مقر الأمم المتحدة. ودعت إلى إطلاق سراح 22 نائبا فلسطينيا محتجزين في السجون الإسرائيلية دون محاكمة. تجاهلت إسرائيل الإجراءات واستمرت في اعتقال البرلمانيين الفلسطينيين المخطوفين. بقيت الولايات المتحدة وأعضاء الاتحاد الأوروبي الرئيسيين بعيدًا وتجاهلوا بالمثل دعوة الأمم المتحدة ، ولم يكن للاجتماع أي تأثير ملموس على الأحداث. يوم الأمم المتحدة العالمي للأطفال
Detained Palestinian Legislative Council Members
Palestinian political leaders are routinely arrested and detained as part of an ongoing Israeli effort to suppress Palestinian political processes – and, as a necessary result, Palestinian political sovereignty and self-determination.
In recent years, this process has focused particularly on members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). In the lead-up to the 2006 PLC elections, Israeli forces launched their campaign of arrest against PLC members, detaining 450 members of the “Change and Reform” party mostly involved in the elections, either through active campaigning or who were taking part in the municipal elections in various West Bank cities. The majority of those detained were kept in administrative detention for different periods. Some were released on the day of the election or a couple of days before or after it.
As of July 2017, thirteen Palestinian Legislative Council members were held in Israeli jails, most of them held in administrative detention without charge or trial.
In 2009, nearly a third of all Palestinian legislators were held in Israeli detention, preventing the PLC from reconvening since mid-2007. As of 1 April 2014, eleven PLC members were held by Israel, nine of them under administrative detention.
Two of the most well-known Palestinian political prisoners are PLC members Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Sa’adat. Barghouti is a prominent Fatah leader, arrested by Israeli forces on 15 April 2002. Throughout his trial process, Barghouti maintained that the Israeli court was illegitimate and illegal, and therefore refused to present a defense. He was sentenced to five life sentences with an additional 40 years.
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Secretary General Ahmad Sa’adat was arrested by Israel on 14 March 2006 when he was taken from the Palestinian Authority’s Jericho prison in a raid. Two years later, he was sentenced to 30 years. In March 2008, Sa’adat received an order to be placed in isolation for six months, which was subsequently renewed every six months for over three years. He was removed from isolation upon the conclusion of Palestinian prisoners’ mass hunger strike in May 2012.
PLC member Khalida Jarrar was released on June 3, 2016 after 1`5 months in an Israeli jail. On 2 July 2017 Jarrar was again snatched by the Israeli security apparatus and held without charge in Damon Prison until 28th February, 2019, 20 months in administrative detention without charge or trial In October, she was again arrested and the Israeli Military court sentenced her to further administrative detention.
The continued targeting of Palestinian legislative council members must be viewed in a broader context of systematic attempts by the Israeli occupation to suppress Palestinian political processes which attempt to hold Israel accountable for the crimes committed against Palestinians. Evidence of this repression can be seen in the increasing number of Palestinian legislative council members currently imprisoned by the Israeli occupation.
From the EU, only Belgium, Malta, and Slovenia bothered to send a representative to discuss the issue of democratic rights that are violated by the jailing of elected parliamentarians, mostly jailed without trial by Israel.
Israel's sense of impunity concerning the UN
Israel, a state with a population of only 7 million people, has violated more United Nations resolutions than any other nation. Just between 1967 and 2000, the UN passed 138 resolutions regarding Israel; these resolutions often condemned acts committed by Israel, called upon Israel to follow basic international laws, and reminded Israel of previous resolutions that Israel had ignored.
How Israel expressed contempt for UN resolutions 224 and 338......with "a touch of humour with a slight hint."
5-minute video: Ali Abunimah on the strangeness of Israel-UN relations