Recorded March 11, 2022
Listen to this conversation as a podcast
This webinar is Part 5 of an 8-part series of webinars. For more information regarding this series, and links to the other sessions, please click here.
Featuring Jawad Boulus (Palestinian human rights lawyer), Sahar Francis (Addameer), and Shibley Telhami (Brookings/University of Maryland).
In this session we explored issues surrounding Palestinian public views, and Palestinian Authority/PLO policy, related to Palestinians killed and imprisoned by Israel, and how this issue has become enmeshed in debates in Congress over U.S. assistance for Palestinians.
Resources shared during the webinar
Jawad Boulus
Sahar Francis
- Follow Sahar on Twitter – @saharfrancis / https://twitter.com/saharfrancis
- Follow Addameer on Twitter – @Addameer / https://twitter.com/Addameer & online – https://linktr.ee/addameer, https://www.addameer.org/
- Interview in ARA 10/31/21: Sahar Francis, Director of Addameer: “Israel accuses us of being terrorists because we are succeeding in exposing its crimes” (Interview in ARA 10/31/21)
- Israel’s military courts for Palestinians are a stain on international justice (Sahar Francis in The Guardian 3/6/21)
- Hunger strikes shouldn’t be the only time to protect Palestinian prisoners (Sahar Francis in +972 Magazine, 12/7/20)
- ‘Change doesn’t come from the courthouses alone’ (Interview in +972 Magazine, 2/21/19)
- See updated statistics from Addameer on Palestinian prisoners here: https://www.addameer.org/statistics
- “Administrative detention fact sheet 2022” https://www.addameer.org/media/4698
- “Addameer urges to safeguard Palestinian political prisoners’ rights against collective punishment and retaliatory measures by the Israeli prison services” https://www.addameer.org/news/4488
- See Addameer’s monthly reports here: https://www.addameer.org/publications/addameer
- “ISRAELI MILITARY JUDGE CONFIRMS SIX-MONTHS ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION AGAINST RETIRED PALESTINIAN LAWYER KHAIRI BASHIR” https://www.addameer.org/news/4635
Shibley Telhami
- Follow Shibley on Twitter at @ShibleyTelhami / https://twitter.com/ShibleyTelhami & at https://www.brookings.edu/experts/shibley-telhami
- See the Middle East Scholar Barometer here: https://criticalissues.umd.edu/middle-east-scholar-barometer
- “Why the discourse about Palestinian payments to prisoners’ families is distorted and misleading” https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/12/07/why-the-discourse-about-palestinian-payments-to-prisoners-families-is-distorted-and-misleading/
Other links
BBC Sept 6, 2021: Six Palestinian prisoners escape Israeli jail through tunnel
New York Times Sept 18, 2021: Israel Captures Last 2 Palestinian Inmates Still Free After Prison Break
CNN April 14, 2002: Palestinian leader charged in Israeli attacks
Al Arabiya Dec 23, 2013: Iconic Palestinian hunger striker freed
The PLO’s webpage for their Commission for Detainee and Ex-Detainee Affairs
Read the Taylor Force Act here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1164
The Nation Aug 17, 2017: Cutting Off Payments to Palestinian Families Won’t Stop Terrorism (Lara Friedman)
Haaaetz: Netanyahu Used Doctored Video of Abbas to Influence Trump’s Policy, Woodward Reveals
Al Jazeera Jan 4, 2022: Palestinian prisoners launch boycott of Israeli military courts
TRT Jan 5, 2022: ‘Battle of empty stomachs’: a timeline of key Palestinian hunger strikes
Brookings Feb 27, 2012: Will Nonviolent Protest Spark a “Palestinian Spring”? [Lara Friedman & Khaled Elgindy]
Amnesty International Feb 1, 2022: Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity
Human Rights Watch Apr 27, 2021: A Threshold Crossed — Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution
Btselem Jan 12, 2021: A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid
MEI/FMEP event 10/29/21: Israel’s Designation of Six Palestinian NGOs as “Terrorist”: Costs and Consequences
UN statement about Mohammed Al Halabi Nov 12, 2020: Gaza Aid Worker Must be Given Fair Trial or Released, Say UN Experts
Read the Palestinian National Conciliation Document of the Prisoners here.
BBC July 20, 2013: Israel to free Palestinian prisoners over Kerry talks
Bios
Jawad Boulus is a renowned Palestinian human rights lawyer, political commentator, and author. Boulus was born into a Christian family in the small Arab Galilee village of Kafr Yaseef in 1956, and graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1980. As a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, Boulus has been deeply involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the fight for Palestinian human rights for over 40 years. He currently publishes a notable weekly opinion column in Arabic which is circulated in numerous local and international printed newspapers and online magazines. He is the Director of the Legal Unit of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club in Ramallah. He serves as Co-Chair on the Board of Directors to ‘Hand in Hand,’ a network of integrated bilingual schools for Jewish and Arab children in Israel. Boulus also serves as Secretary to the Mahmoud Darwish Association for Innovation. His own law firm is based in Jerusalem, where he resides with his wife Jumana.
Sahar Francis has since 2006 been the General Director of Ramallah-based Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, a Palestinian NGO providing legal and advocacy support to Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli and Palestinian prisons. An attorney by training, she joined the association in 1998, first as a human rights lawyer, then as head of the Legal Unit. With over sixteen years of human rights experience, including human rights counseling and representation, Ms. Francis also was on the Board of Defence for Children International – Palestine Section for 4 years, and currently sets in the Board of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees.
Shibley Telhami is a nonresident senior fellow with the Center for Middle East Policy, in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. He is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. In the past, Telhami served as a senior advisor to the U.S. Department of State, advisor to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, advisor to Congressman Lee Hamilton, and as a member of the Iraq Study Group. Shibley is an expert on U.S. policy in the Middle East, on Arab politics, and on shifting political identities in the Arab world. He regularly conducts public opinion polls in the Arab world, Israel, and the United States. Among his many publications are “The World Through Arab Eyes: Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East” (Basic Books, 2013), “The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace 1989-2011” (Cornell University Press, 2013), and the best-selling “The Stakes: America in the Middle East” (Basic Books, 2003), selected by Foreign Affairs as one of the top five books for that year. In addition, he was selected by the Carnegie Corporation of New York with the New York Times as one of the “Great Immigrants” for 2013.