News & Analysis UMKR News & Alerts
Download 2018 Review: Part One –
Download 2018 Review: Part Two –
The Big Stories of 2018
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Read these sections of
Part Two on our website:
• The Top Stories
• People in the Spotlight
• Events IN Israel/Palestine
• U.S. Scene: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism
• U.S. Scene: More from Trump Admin
• U.S. Scene: On Campus
• U.S. Scene: Legislation- State, Federal
• U.S. Scene: Changes on the Horizon
• Around the World
• Successes: BDS & More
• Last, But Not Least
• For Information Junkies
THE U.S. SCENE
Legislation, Federal & State
ON THIS PAGE:
• The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (ASAA)
• The Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act (ACTA)
• The Taylor Force Act
• Support for Children's Rights Grows
ABOUT OUR NEWS SOURCES
The articles we include in our lists to 'Read More' – in our newsletters and on our website – are provided as an informational service for our readers, and the views expressed may or may not be shared by UMKR.
Some selections may be repetitive;because some periodicals have paywalls, we provide a variety of sources in the hope that every reader will find some of them accessible, with or without a subscription.
ABOUT OUR NEWS SOURCES
The articles we include in our lists to 'Read More' – in our newsletters and on our website – are provided as an informational service for our readers, and the views expressed may or may not be shared by UMKR.
Some selections may be repetitive;because some periodicals have paywalls, we provide a variety of sources in the hope that every reader will find some of them accessible, with or without a subscription.
The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (ASAA)
In May 2018, the Anti-Semitism Awareness
Act (ASAA) was reintroduced in Congress.
This bill aims to censor Palestine advocacy
on college campuses by imposing on the
U.S. Department of Education (DOE) a
widely-criticized and overly-broad
redefinition of antisemitism that equates
campus advocacy for Palestinian rights and
criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
The bill has been backed by the Brandeis Center
and the Anti-Defamation League as part of a
broader effort to censor Palestine advocacy
on college campuses, in violation of the First Amendment.
For years, Kenneth Marcus promoted a strategy to abuse civil rights law in order to suppress criticism of Israel on U.S. campuses. The ASAA would codify Marcus’ strategy and better enable his agenda at the DOE by requiring the agency to use the disturbing definition that so many have declared violates Americans’ right to free speech.
As it turned out, with Kenneth Marcus’ appointment as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Dept. of Education, the DOE took the initiative to adopt that disturbing definition contained in the ASAA, without any public pre-notification and input. But passage of the ASAA legislation would establish that definition more solidly in U.S. government policy.
It would lead to increased scrutiny, investigation, censorship, and possible punishment for students and academics who promote Palestinian rights. While being used to justify investigations against Palestine activists on campus, the ASAA would add no new legal protections for Jewish students, who are already covered under federal
anti-discrimination laws.
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READ MORE
AAI-Washington Watch: The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act Is Back: Free Speech Is at Risk
LA Times, Editorial Board: Enough already. Not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism.
Middle East Eye: US bill conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism
Jewish Voice for Peace: Antisemitism bill is a cynical attempt to silence human rights
on college campuses
AAI: The Problems of the new Anti-Semitism Awareness Act
Arab America: We Support Free Speech
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More Legislation Targeting Campuses
FEDERAL FUNDING FOR MIDDLE EAST STUDIES
Four organizations that defend civil rights in the U.S. – Palestine Legal,
Center for Constitutional Rights, National Lawyers Guild, and the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) –
wrote to members of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor,
and Pensions committeeurging Senators to reject right-wing Israel
Lobby groups’ efforts to condition federal funding of Middle East
studies programs on viewpoint-based regulations of academic
activities related to the Middle East.
The legislation in question is the re-authorization of the Higher Education Act
of 1965 (HEA). Through Title VI of the HEA, some colleges and universities receive federal funding for language and international studies programs, including Middle East studies programs. For years, rightwing Israel advocacy groups have attacked Middle East studies programs in U.S. colleges and universities, characterizing them as “biased,” “anti-American,” and “anti-Israel.”
In 2018, they are urging Congress to insert requirements in the HEA that would condition federal funding on academic departments showing their programming is sufficiently sympathetic to Israeli government policies and practices.
Read more with Palestine Legal and get the letter that was sent to Members of Congress
SOUTH CAROLINA
Language aimed at censoring Palestine advocacy
at South Carolina’s public colleges and universities
was added to a 2018-2019 budget bill last week,
and was signed by the governor in July.
This provision codifies into state law a widely
discredited re-definition of anti-Semitism that
classifies virtually all criticism of Israel and Israeli
government policy as inherently anti-Semitic.
The legislation requires public colleges and
universities in South Carolina to use this
overly-broad definition when investigating
alleged acts of anti-Semitism on campuses.
OHIO
The rise in anti-Semitism in the U.S. is certainly troubling, but Ohio's House Concurrent Resolution 10 to label anti-Israel campus protests as anti-Semitic wrongly muddies the concept of what constitutes anti-Semitism, writes guest columnist Ted Steinberg in this op-ed.
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The Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act (ACTA)
In September 2018, Congress enacted a new law with unforeseen consequences. The Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act (ATCA) would allow U.S. victims of terrorist attacks to sue any foreign entity that accepts U.S. assistance and has knowingly provided support to those responsible. Its acknowledged target is the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, which have been sued in U.S. courts with the judgements later voided, due to lack of jurisdiction. ATCA is intended to remove that jurisdiction barrier.
In a seemingly unexpected outcome, the Palestinian Authority stated that they must reject the very limited U.S. aid they still receive, including aid for their security cooperation with Israel program, which both the Israeli and U.S. governments have deemed important to maintain. With no one having mentioned that potential consequence, the House and Senate both approved ATCA unanimously, and the Trump administration raised no objections. Since then, the White House has been scrambling to find a solution that will maintain U.S. funding for the joint Palestinian-Israeli security program. The favored solution would be passing an amended version of the legislation, which the White House is now supporting. But they only have until February 1, 2019, when the act takes effect, to find a solution.
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READ MORE
FMEP: Legislative Round-Up: October 4, 2018
Foreign Policy:U.S. Mulls End To Remaining Aid Programs For Palestinians
Jewish Journal: Palestinian Authority: We Will No Longer Accept U.S. Security Funding
Maan News:Erekat: 'PA informed US to stop sending security aid'
Haaretz:New Law Endangers U.S. Assistance to Palestinian Authority Security Forces Associated Press:In a twist, Trump fights to keep some Palestinian aid alive
Lawfareblog: Shedding Light on the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018
Lawfareblog: Congress Has (Less Than) 60 Days to Save Israeli-Palestinian
Security Cooperation
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The Taylor Force Act
Adopted in March 2018 as part of a large budget bill, the Taylor Force Act aims to cut any U.S.
funding used for payments the Palestinian Authority makes to the families of Palestinian prisoners and those killed by Israel. It is named for Taylor Force (photo), a U.S. veteran who served in the Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2016, while visiting Israel as a Vanderbilt graduate student to learn about global entrepreneurship, Force was killed when a Palestinian man carried out a stabbing attack in Jaffa that injured several others.
Strongly supported by AIPAC and others in the Israel Lobby, the bill was widely reported in the mainstream press as simply and justifiably targeting the Palestinian Authority’s “salaries” to “convicted terrorists.” However, a closer look at this practice that is embedded in Palestinian law shows that these payments go to those families whose loved ones are imprisoned or have been killed for a wide range of charges, some real, some fabricated, as well as those in administrative detention – which can be extended repeatedly for periods of six months – who have never been charged or tried.
HUMANITARIAN AID, MASS INCARCERATION
Contrary to widespread perceptions in the West, Palestinian nonviolent
resistance has been a much more common approach than violence,
including many years of weekly demonstrations in villages across the
West Bank to stop the Separation Wall cutting off their communities
and widespread civil society support for the global BDS (Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions) movement.
Far from simply supporting the relatively few Palestinian families whose
relatives may have committed violent acts against Israelis, the
Palestinian Authority provides these payments as humanitarian aid for
needy families who are not to blame for the charges against their relatives.
Families of individuals who have been killed by Israel also receive a stipend.
Israeli forces routinely injure and execute those who commit or seem to
initiate a violent act, without any attempt at arrest and due process.
There are numerous documented reports per year of Palestinians killed in
error, virtually always without repercussions for the Israeli military.
The head of the Palestinian Prisoners Association has said: “We’re
spending money on the family, not the prisoner. What if someone with
10 children decided to kill Trump and was convicted? Will the U.S.
government let his family end up in the street? Or are they not entitled
to social welfare?” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stated:
“Payments to support families are a social responsibility to look after
innocent people impacted by the incarceration or killing of loved ones
as a result of the military occupation.”
With a conviction rate near 100%, the oppressive Israeli military court system for the occupied territory is deeply flawed and does not meet the minimum standards for a fair trial, according to international human rights observers. Israel also holds many political prisoners under Administrative Detention for endlessly renewable periods of six months, without any charges or trial. Palestinians frequently find themselves arbitrarily arrested for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Much like the United States, for decades Israel has used mass incarceration in
the occupied territories as a means of population control. Roughly 40% of male
Palestinians have been incarcerated by Israel at some time, including many
when they are minors. Many Palestinian prisoners are held for minor offenses
including acts of civil disobedience and political advocacy that would not be
considered criminal in most democratic societies. The Taylor Force act does not
recognize any difference between these prisoners and those charged or convicted
with acts of violent intent. Israeli forces routinely execute those who commit or
seem to initiate a violent act.
Sadly, these PA payments are actually subsidizing the Israeli prison system and the
occupation regime. Israel no longer provides for the basic needs of their Palestinian
prisoners, who must pay to have an adequate food supply in the prison canteen
system as well as other essentials in their prison cells (graphic, below right: "Costs").
The stipends their families receive are often inadequate for those needs, and some
families must go into debt to care for a relative with a long prison term.
RESPONSE TO THE BILL AND REPERCUSSIONS
Although many in Congress should have challenged the faulty reasoning of this bill, because it was associated with the tragic death of an American, most found that withholding their support would be too politically damaging. But some were only too happy to support this “shot across the bow to President Abbas” as Senate Minority Leader, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) described the bill. Clearly this Senator and many Democratic legislators are out of step with the grassroots of their own party (see more in “Changes on the Horizon” in this newsletter).
The Palestinian envoy in Washington decried the bill, aptly observing Congress’ “flagrant bias” as politically motivated (presumably referring to domestic U.S. politics). While Congress chose to focus on the relatively rare acts of Palestinian violence against Israelis, it has ignored the weekly acts of violence against and killing of Palestinians, as well as daily violations of their basic human rights, committed by the generously U.S.-funded Israeli military, in violation of U.S. laws governing the use of foreign aid.
It is highly doubtful that theTaylor Force Act will achieve its purported goal. The Palestinian payments to prisoners and families of the deceased are deeply rooted in Palestinian society, tied as they are to the national struggle for self-determination and those who are willing to sacrifice their freedom and sometimes their lives in that struggle. Besides the need to fulfill the Palestinian law that mandates these payments, the PA is not in a position to take the drastic step of cutting off this aid which would be blatantly contrary to the will of the people.
President Trump praised Congress for including this legislation in the budget package, in keeping with so many steps backward in the deteriorating U.S. approach to Palestinians during Trump’s administration. Although the Palestinian aid to prisoners’ families was addressed in a 2015 Appropriations bill, the Taylor Force Act will have much more impact: it can be applied to funding from earlier years which has not yet been dispersed to the PA, and it will not need to renewed annually.
Supporters say this bill is not meant to affect funding for the PA’s security forces, which work cooperatively with Israel to control the Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation and stop any violent acts of resistance. Nevertheless, other cuts in 2018 by Trump’s administration, combined with additional legislation from Congress, have not only had a serious impact on that security funding but also have eliminated almost all other funding, including vital humanitarian aid, from the U.S. to the Palestinians. At the same time, the U.S. is providing more aid to Israel than it gives to any other nation in the world, about $4 billion a year, thereby effectively subsidizing the Israeli military occupation and oppression of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
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READ MORE
Haaretz: U.S. Officially Cuts Funding to Palestinian Authority Over Payments to Terrorists and Their Families
Times of Israel: Congress passes Taylor Force act as part of $1.3 trillion budget bill
The Intercept:U.S. Law Cutting Aid to Palestinians Punishes Any and All Resistance to Israeli Occupation
The Atlantic: An Israel 'Conspiracy Theory' That Proved True—but Also More Complicated
Washington Post:Does the Palestinian Authority pay $350 million a year to ‘terrorists and their families’?
Jerusalem Post: Palestinians slam Congress's passage of Taylor Force Act
Jerusalem Post: Why can't Abbas stop paying families of 'martyrs'?
Haaretz:AIPAC Throws Support Behind Taylor Force Act, Urges Senate Committee to Pass It
State of Palestine/PLO:Imprisoned Lives: The Reality of the Mass Incarceration
of the People of Palestine
NY Times: Israel Penalizes Palestinians for Payments to Prisoners and ‘Martyrs’
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Support for Children's Rights Grows
In 2017, Representative Betty McCollum (D-Minn) introduced
the first Congressional bill ever to support Palestinian human
rights, along with nine co-sponsors. By November 17, 2018,
the bill's one year anniversary, the Promoting Human Rights
by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children
Act (HR 4391) had thirty sponsors in the House of Representatives!
This landmark legislation would prohibit U.S. taxpayer funds
from supporting grave human rights violations against Palestinian
children in the Israeli military detention system.
In June 2018, staff from 58 congressional offices attended a
Capitol Hill briefing on the McCollum Bill organized by
Defense for Children International-Palestine and American
Friends Service, the organizations that together lead the
No Way to Treat a Child campaign, bringing the public's and
the U.S. government's attention to the systemic abuse suffered
by Palestinian children living under the Israeli military occupation.
Israel is the only country in the world that automatically prosecutes
children - if they are Palestinian children in the occupied territories -
in military courts that fail to meet the basic standards for a fair trial.
About 700 children per year are detained by the Israeli military,
often taken from them homes in terrifying night raids, interrogated
with no parent or adult advocate present, abused and beaten,
subjected to psychological terror and trauma, often coerced into signing
confessions in Hebrew which they cannot read, and convicted at a rate
over 99%. Since the year 2000, about 10,000 children from the West Bank
have experienced such abuse from the Israeli military. In light of the massive amounts of military aid Israel receives from the U.S., HR 4391 aims to ensure that U.S. taxpayers' money is not funding this abuse of Palestinian children.
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Electronic Intifada: Members of Congress rally for Palestinian
children’s rights
International Middle East Media Center: DCIP and AFSC host
Capitol Hill briefing on H.R. 4391
McCollum (download only): Faith Leaders Letter of support to
Representatives Supporting HR 4391
The Nation: US Tax Dollars Must Not Be Used to Detain
Palestinian Children
B'Tselem: Minors in Jeopardy: Violation of the Rights of
Palestinian Minors by Israel’s Military Courts
No Way to Treat A Child :Resources on HR 4391:
Factsheet-Palestinian Child Detainees; Why is This Legislation Needed?; Legislation Overview;
Military Detention Explainer Video; Video: Imprisoning a Generation; Graphic: States of Detention
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United Methodists are responding to Kairos Palestine: A Moment of Truth ,a statement of faith and urgent call to action from Christians in Palestine. UMKR seeks, through nonviolent means and in partnership with Palestinian Christians, freedom, justice and equality for all Palestinians and Israelis.
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