CJP & USPCN joining JVP, IJAN protest of Jewish National Fund!

Coalition for Justice in Palestine & USPCN joining Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)-Chicago & the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) to Picket Jewish National Fund (JNF) Conference

JNF separate, unequal policies a root cause of escalating violence against Palestinians

WHEN/WHERE: Sunday, October 25, 2015.

• 12:00 pm: Participants gather on Southeast corner of Michigan and Randolph, downtown Chicago

• 12:45 pm: March to Fairmont Hotel, 200 N. Columbus

• 1:15 pm: Speaking program outside Fairmont Hotel

WHAT: Chicago-area members of Jewish Voice for Peace, a national human rights organization advocating for justice and equality for Palestinians; members of IJAN; and the Coalition for Justice in Palestine, which represents all the major Chicago Palestinian, Arab and Muslim organizations advocating for Palestinian human rights, will protest the Jewish National Fund’s Annual Conference at Chicago’s Fairmont Hotel.

Time for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
End the Occupation Now

WHY: The Jewish National Fund is deeply complicit in the ongoing dispossession of Palestinian land, the destruction of Palestinian homes and the theft of Palestinian resources that has continued unabated since 1948. These practices are among the root causes of the escalating violence in the region today.

JVP–Chicago is calling on fellow American Jews to disassociate themselves from the separate and unequal policies toward Palestinians the JNF implements in our name.
We are uniting in this action with all the major Palestinian organizations in the Chicago-area (Coalition for Justice in Palestine) to also condemn today’s Israeli state and settler violence against Palestinians, which has led to the killing of 55 Palestinians, and the injuring of over 2,000, since October 1.

The JNF racially segregates the 13% of Israeli public land it controls in “Israel Proper,” prohibiting its use by Palestinians. JNF asserts it “does not have a duty to practice equality towards all citizens of the state.” JNF’s control of 10 of 22 seats on the Israel Land Council, governing the Israel Land Authority, empowers it to pursue its discriminatory ideology throughout 93% of land within the Green Line.  JNF collaborates with the Israeli government to replace Palestinian communities it destroys with Jewish-only settlements or manicured forests that erase any trace of Palestinian presence, including the Ambassador Forest planned to replace the village of al-Arakib within Israel’s Green Line (1948 Palestine).

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Jewish Voice for Peace is a national, grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine. Jewish Voice for Peace has over 200,000 online supporters, over 65 chapters, a youth wing, a Rabbinic Council, and an Advisory Board made up of leading U.S. intellectuals and artists.

IJAN is an international network of Jews who are uncompromisingly committed to struggles for human survival and emancipation, of which the liberation of the Palestinian people and land is an indispensable part. We are committed to the right of return for Palestinian refugees and to ending Israeli colonization of historic Palestine, which is reinforced by US economic and military power. We support full Palestinian self-determination and the right to resist occupation. We look to the Palestinian grassroots and Palestinian-led organizations as our primary points of reference in this struggle.

The Coalition for Justice in Palestine represents all major Palestinian, Arab and Muslim organizations advocating for Palestinian human rights in Chicago.