NGO ACTION NEWS 21 January – 16 February 2011 http://unispal.un.org/ngoactionnews.nsf/1c0b3ab87dc4f2f8852568f8007759fd/92b02bbb0d7ff62b8525783900798305?OpenDocument North America Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East is organizing a lecture tour through southern Ontario entitled “Israel and Palestine: Past, Present, Future,” featuring independent scholar Norman Finkelstein. Lectures will be held in Waterloo on 17 February, London on 18 February and Hamilton on 19 February. OneVoice will hold a webcast event on 18 February featuring young Palestinian and Israeli activists and the idea of “a youthful generation demanding the right to define their future.” OneVoice is also organizing a speaking tour across New York and New Jersey, featuring young Palestinian and Israeli activists; the tour is running from now until 23 February. Al-Qaws and Aswat have organized a speaking tour through the US for Palestinian LGBT activists; the tour ends on 18 February with an event in New York. Adalah-NY will hold a protest at the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance in New York on 22 February, as part of a boycott of “institutions that work to normalize the occupation.” The Palestine Center will hold an event on 24 February in Washington, DC, entitled: Uprisings in the Middle East: A New Arab World Order.” Among other things, speakers will look at how the ongoing uprisings change the way we think of the Palestine question. U.S. Boat to Gaza will hold a fundraising concert in Detroit on 25 February. Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies will hold an event called “Archives Lost and Found: Encounters with Palestinian History” on 28 February in New York. The talk will consider the complicated condition of archives of Palestinian history. American Jews for a Just Peace is highlighting a campaign called “Breaking the Law of Return.” The campaign involves signing on to a statement which declares among other things: “We are Jews from the United States, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel's law of return.…We renounce this right to return offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may return to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed.” The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) is sponsoring an event called Never Again for Anyone, featuring Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer and Islamic scholar Hatem Bazian. The event, to be held on 17 February in Oakland, California, will benefit MECA's Maia Project, which provides clean water for the children of Gaza. A similar event, also called “Never Again for Anyone, will be held in Los Angeles on 19 February. The Middle East Children's Alliance, Rethinking Schools and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network will hold a half-day workshop, on 26 February in San Francisco, for youth educators who want to teach about Palestine. The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation hand-delivered a petition on 11 February, in Portland, Oregon, to US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice. The petition, currently signed by more than 10,000 people, asks the Obama Administration to support the draft UN Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements. The petition is still open for signature. The Free Palestine Movement encourages supporters to contact US Vice President Joseph Biden to “tell him the truth about Zionism,” given his statement that he himself is a Zionist. Europe The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) calls on supporters to raise the issue of Palestine with candidates in the Irish General Election, which has been set for 25 February. IPSC has prepared a set of questions to ask those candidates. Meanwhile, the IPSC Dublin Branch Organising Meeting will be held in Dublin on 17 February. Additional events are listed on IPSC’s website. The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) has organized a speaking tour for Shir Hever, the author of “The Political Economy of Israel's Occupation.” The tour starts on 17 February in London and will progress through various cities in the UK, including Glasgow and Edinburgh, before wrapping up in Brighton on 3 March. SPSC will also hold a “residential weekend” under the theme “Re-thinking Palestine Solidarity - Moving forward during the Arab Revolutions” from 18 to 20 February in New Lanark. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) will demonstrate on 19 February in London against AHAVA, the Israeli company whose cosmetics come from Dead Sea minerals and are manufactured in an illegal settlement. For additional PSC events, visit their website. The Palestinian Return Centre, in partnership with the Council for European Palestinian Relations, led a delegation consisting of British MPs and EU MEPs to Lebanon to visit Palestinian refugee camps and meet senior officials. The delegation reached Lebanon on 6 February. Latin America and the Caribbean Stop the Wall reports that, on 28 January, Brazil’s largest trade union confederation, known as CUT, issued a statement supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and called for the suspension of Israeli-Brazilian economic agreements and military ties. Asia and the Pacific The Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine reports that a discussion entitled “Holding Israel Accountable- Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Campaign” will be held on 18 February in Sydney, Australia. The Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA) has posted videos of its ongoing protests in Adelaide, which promote the boycott of the Israeli cosmetic company, Seacret, which, according to AFOPA, uses Palestinian mineral resources from the Dead Sea. Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem Ir Amim will lead study tours of Jerusalem, in English and Hebrew, throughout February and March. The tours pass through Israeli and Palestinian neighbourhoods offering an introduction to developments in Jerusalem since 1967. The tours tackle such themes as the separation wall and the relationship between the Israeli authorities and the Palestinian population. Stop the Wall and www.itisapartheid.org announced the winners of the International Israeli Apartheid Short Film Contest. The videos can be viewed here. Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association. Aldameer Association for Human Rights, Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, The Civic Coalition for Defending Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem, Defence for Children International – Palestine Section, Ensan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid and Human Rights, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies, Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling and The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions published an open letter on 4 February to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, on her first official visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, entitled: Is the Goldstone Report Dead, High Commissioner? Defence for Children International - Palestine Section issued a report on 29 January entitled: “In their own Words: A report on the situation facing Palestinian children detained in the Israeli military court system.” United Nations The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations International Meeting on the Question of Palestine on 7 and 8 March 2011 at the United Nations Office at Vienna. The Meeting, which was originally scheduled to be held in Cairo in early February, will focus on the following theme: “The urgency of addressing the plight of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention facilities”. This will be the first conference that the Committee has ever held on the issue of Palestinian prisoners. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA-OPT) posted on 11 February its latest “Protection of Civilians” weekly report. Also on 11 February, it issued its “Humanitarian Monitor” for the month of January. On 10 February, OCHA-OPT published a report on Israeli demolitions in the West Bank.