Press Releases

24 March 1999

BADIL Resource Center

Dear friends, dear partners, 

For those of you who would like to join the Lobby for Human Rights in Jerusalem in this Campaign by addressing Israeli authorities and international policy makers to demand a halt of the policy of ID-card confiscations from Palestinian Jerusalemites, we have prepared the following sample letter for guidance: 

SAMPLE LETTER 
[your address] 
[date] 

Eli Suissa 
Ministry of Interior 
2 Kaplan Street 
PO Box 6158 
Kiryat Ben-Gurion 
Jerusalem 91061 
fax: (972) 2-670-1628 

Your Excellency Eli Suissa: 

On 22 April 1999, the Israeli Supreme Court will decide on the legality of  Jerusalem ID card confiscation.  This policy, implemented by the Interior  Ministry, has lead to the forceful eviction of 2,083 Palestinian Jerusalemites from 1996 to 1998 according to official Israeli data.  

We wish to express our deep concern over the policy of ID card confiscation in occupied Jerusalem and express our dismay at the very concept of Palestinians being made strangers in their hometown.  We also express our alarm at the increasing number of ID cards confiscated in the past three years due to the implementation of the "center of life" policy in 1996. 

We believe the policy of revoking the Jerusalem residency status of Palestinians, which engenders the forceful eviction of those Palestinian  residents from Jerusalem, is discriminatory, unjust and contrary to international law including the Fourth Geneva Convention (art 49) and the Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (art. 12).  

We strongly urge you to end the policy of ID card confiscation and to grant East Jerusalem Palestinian residents a status that cannot be terminated, to reinstate the status of those Palestinians whose residency rights were revoked, and to allow Palestinian families to be re-united. 

Sincerely, 
[Name] 

Please forward  a copy of your letter to the Lobby and to: 

Thierry Bechet  
Head of Mission  
EC Delegation to OPT 
PO Box 22207  
5 Sheikh Hussam Eddin Jarralah St.  
Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem  
fax: (972) 2-532-6249 

Benjamin Netayahu 
Office of the Prime Minister 
3 Kaplan Street 
PO Box 187  
Kiryat Ben-Gurion 
Jerusalem 91061  
fax: (972) 2-670-1628 

Martin S. Indyk 
Assistant Secretary of State 
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs 
Office of Public Affairs, Rm. 6242 
Department of State 
2201 C Street NW 
Washington, DC 20520 
USA 
fax: (202) 647-7120 

Lobby for Human Rights in Jerusalem/Campaign to End ID Card Confiscation 
Adameer, BADIL Resource Center, Citizens' Rights Center-Arab Thought Forum, Freedom's Defense Center, Jerusalem Center for Women, Palestine Human Rights Information Center, Women's Affairs Technical Committee, Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling