Protest: JNF Negev award dinner for Davenport

The JNF Negev award dinner for UWO President Dr. Davenport will take place 

SUNDAY JUNE 1st

4:30-6pm / Lamplighter Inn (outside on the concrete)

Dress Code: All in black (may have Palestinian paraphernalia)

We are organizing this to be a silent & peaceful demonstration.

Signs will be available, and people may bring their own - but they must be appropriate messages.

It is recommended that cars are parked elsewhere then in the hotel parking lot.

Thanks & Solidarity!

http://www.alhaq.org/etemplate.php?id=356

Dear Dr. Davenport:

We are writing to you as deeply concerned students of this academic
institution regarding your acceptance to invitation to stand as the
2008 Negev Dinner Honouree by the Jewish National Fund of London.

As members of the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), a ratified
club here at UWO, we have worked tirelessly to advocate for freedom of
speech as well as an environment of tolerance and acceptance on campus.
In that regard, we believe that your acceptance of the award presented
by the JNF stands in contrast to the values that our group, the UWO
community, and the President of this university actively support.

While the JNF presents a friendly face to the public, the reality
is far different. The JNF is, in reality, a tool of discrimination and
dispossession used by the Israeli government against the Palestinian
occupants of Israel and against the millions of Palestinian refugees
dispossessed from their land in 1948 and 1967.

To begin with, the lands that the Jewish National Fund in Israel
owns in Israel are reserved for the exclusive benefit and use of Jews
only. In addition to owning 13% of the land in Israel, the JNF plays a
decisive role in the directorship of a state body – the Israel Lands
Authority – which manages another 80% of the lands in the country,
giving it effective control over 93% of the land in Israel. (Adalah)
Much of this land originally belonged to Palestinians who were forced
to become refugees in 1948; other lands were expropriated under the
“Absentee Property Law” of 1950 from Arab citizens of Israel (so-called
“present absentees”) who happened to be away from their homes, in some
cases for as little as a day or two, but still were in the land that
became Israel. (UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.)
These lands were unilaterally expropriated by the Israeli government
and are administered by the ILA (including the JNF), which acts as a
cover for a state policy of dispossession.(Adalah) Palestinian citizens
of Israel, who formed a majority before the 1948 war and today
constitute 20% of Israel’s population, are forbidden by the JNF
covenant (with a few short-term exceptions) from leasing these lands.

Also, the discriminatory policies and practices of the Jewish
National Fund have been criticized by a number of respected bodies. In
1998, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights stated that the practices of the Jewish National Fund
“constitute an institutionalized form of discrimination” and are in
breach of Israel’s international legal obligations. (UN Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.)

In addition, the JNF-Canada is the sponsoring organization of
Canada Park, which has been built in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories on the ruins of three Palestinian villages (Imwas, Yalu and
Beit Nuba) that were deliberately destroyed by Israel in 1967. (Davis)
The destruction of the Palestinian villages, and the denial of the
villagers’ right to return to their homes, are grave violations of the
4th Geneva Convention of 1949.

In 1986, a United Nations Special Committee reported to the
Secretary-General (UN Report A/41/680, 20 October 1986) that it was
concerned about:

…the fate of the inhabitants of Emmaus, Beit-Nuba and Yalou,
reduced to the state of wandering refugees since their villages were
razed by the occupying authorities in 1967. The Special Committee
considers it a matter of deep concern that these villagers have
persistently been denied the right to return to their land on which
Canada Park has been built by the Jewish National Fund of Canada and
where the Israeli authorities are reportedly planning to plant a forest
instead of allowing the reconstruction of the destroyed villages.
(United Nations, “Report of a Special Committee to Investigate Israeli
Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied
Territories”)

The tragedy of Canada Park has also been the subject of a critical
investigative documentary by CBC’s The Fifth Estate in 1991, which
established that the Park has been built entirely within the Occupied
Territories, that the villages were intentionally destroyed in order to
prevent the villagers from returning, and that the Jewish National Fund
of Canada is the principal funding body for the Park. (Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation)

Mr. Davenport, you have continuously worked towards increasing
diversity and tolerance at UWO and at preserving the high moral
standings and preservation of human rights that exist within the fold
of this great institution. To that effect, we would respectfully ask
you not to support the discriminatory policies of the Jewish National
Fund. Your rejection to support such a politicized, prejudiced
organization would go well with your policy of supporting equality
within this University

Yours truly,

Public Interest Research Group (PIRG-UWO)
London Project for a Participatory Society
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights
Anti-War Organization of London

References

Adalah, “Land Controlled by Jewish National Fund for Jews Only”, (29 July 2007)

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The Fifth Estate, Canada Park Documentary, (1991)

Dr. Uri Davis, “Apartheid Israel and the Jewish National Fund of
Canada: The Story of Imwas, Yalu, Beit Nuba and Canada Park.”
(September 2004)

UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “Concluding Observations” (4 December 1998)

United Nations, “Report of a Special Committee to Investigate
Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the
Occupied Territories” (UN Report A/41/680, 20 October 1986)