Urgent - Get these sweeping IDF military edicts cancelled in the OPTs
Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 04:00PM This is for people living in the UK. Please adapt it to your own leaders, senators, of your own country.
Please take action! Model letter below:
- Contact the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, to tell him that the British government must insist that these military orders are cancelled: msu.correspondence@fco.gov.uk
- Phone, fax or email the Israeli embassy to register your opposition: Tel 020 7957 9500; Fax 020 7957 9555; info@london.mfa.gov.il
To Foreign Minister David Milliband MP cc MP
Dear David Milliband
Two new Israeli military orders are due to come into effect on Tuesday, which will make any resident of the occupied West Bank who does not have an Israeli-issued permit - and that includes people who were born in Palestine - liable for deportation or jail.
I appreciate that the demands of the election campaign may currently be a priority; however, elections are won on the real actions that governments have taken, rather than on campaigning rhetoric. I would therefore ask you to make your protest to the Israeli government about the new laws, which are illegal under international law, with the same forcefulness with which you dealt with the forged passports issue.
A statement by ten Israeli human rights groups points out that Palestinians, and any foreigners living in the West Bank, could be labelled infiltrators and deported within 72 hours or jailed for seven years if they are found without the correct permit – with no definition on what Israel considers a valid permit. "The orders … are worded so broadly such as theoretically allowing the military to empty the West Bank of almost all its Palestinian inhabitants."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/11/israeli-groups-attack
A Haaretz editorial today says that tens of thousands could be deported, and ‘the order's vague language will allow army officers to exploit it arbitrarily to carry out mass expulsions’
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1162382.html.
The Netanyahu government has the bit between its teeth and is running away unimpeded on a mad gallop of anti-Palestinian actions that are also an insolent slap in the face to the international community, especially the US and UK governments. The British government must insist that these military orders are cancelled.
We urge your urgent intervention both directly to the Israeli government and to the US administration, which at this time of continuing Israeli intransigence , will be likely to have a strong influence.
Yours sincerely
Israeli groups fight orders allowing army to jail West Bank residents
Israeli human rights campaigners claim Palestinians or foreigners could be labelled infiltrators
Israeli human rights groups say that Palestinians and any foreigners living in the West Bank could be deemed 'infiltrators' and deported within 72 hours or jailed for seven years if they are found without the correct permit under the new orders. Photograph: Musa Al-Shaer/AFP/Getty Images
Israel <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israel> 's leading human rights <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/human-rights> groups are trying to stop two new Israeli military orders which will make any resident of the occupied West Bank who does not have an Israeli-issued permit liable for deportation or jail.
The new Order Regarding Prevention of Infiltration and Order Regarding Security Provisions, which comes into force on Tuesday have "severe ramifications," the rights groups say. Palestinians, and any foreigners living in the West Bank, could be labelled infiltrators and deported within 72 hours or jailed for seven years if they are found without the correct permit. It does not define what Israel considers a valid permit.
"The orders … are worded so broadly such as theoretically allowing the military to empty the West Bank of almost all its Palestinian inhabitants," said the 10 rights groups, which include Ha-Moked, B'Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and Rabbis for Human Rights. Until now the vast majority of Palestinians in the West Bank have not been required to hold a permit just to be present in their homes, the groups say.
"The military will be able to prosecute and deport any Palestinian defined as an infiltrator in stark contradiction to the Geneva conventions," they said. The law broadens the definition of an "infiltrator" and could allow Israel to transfer some Palestinians from the West Bank to Gaza, or to deport foreign passport holders married to West Bank Palestinians, or to deport Israelis or foreigners living in the West Bank. The groups said tens of thousands of Palestinians were in those categories.
Israel effectively controls the Palestinian population register and since 2000, apart from once in 2007, the Israeli authorities have frozen applications for renewal of visitor permits for foreign nationals, or applications to grant permanent status in the occupied territories. As a result, many Palestinians live in the West Bank without formal status and are now vulnerable under the new orders. The human rights groups wrote to the Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, today asking him to delay or revoke the orders, which they said were "unlawful and allow extreme and arbitrary injury to a vast number of people".
The Israeli military said the purpose of the orders was "the extradition of those residing illegally in Judea and Samaria," an Israeli term for the West Bank. The orders had been "corrected" in order to "assure judicial oversight of the extradition process," it said.
However, Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the orders would make it easy for Israel to imprison or expel Palestinians from the West Bank. "These military orders belong in an apartheid state," he said. "They are an assault on ordinary Palestinians and an affront to the most fundamental principles of human rights. Israel's endgame is not peace. It is the colonisation of the West Bank."
Thank you for visiting the IPSC's 
