Support New Bill on Human Rights for Palestinian Children

The family of Shadi Farrah, 15, greet him as he arrives in Ramallah after serving almost three years in an Israeli prison, West Bank, November 29, 2018. Farrah was arrested when he was 11 years old at a bus stop in Jerusalem in December 2015, and was later accused of “possessing sharp tools and endangering public security,” a claim that the family denies to this day. Photo: The Activestills Collective (http://activestills.org/).

By Genie Silver
Middle East Committee  

On April 30, 2019, Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN) introduced her second bill for the protection of Palestinian children, 10,000 of whom have been detained by Israel in military prisons since 2000 where they are frequently abused, tortured, and then tried before military courts—all in violation of international humanitarian laws that Israel has signed.

The Middle East Committee asks all US Section members to contact your congresspersons ASAP to urge them to support H.R. 2407, introduced by Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN) and called “Promoting Human Rights for Palestinian Children Living Under Military Occupation.” The bill prohibits US taxpayer support of abuses and torture of Palestinian children while they are detained by Israeli security forces and prosecuted in Israeli military courts.

Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts that lack fair trial rights and protections. Despite its signing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, Israel has held in military detention and prosecuted in military courts more than 10,000 children since 2000. Children are denied access to family members and attorneys. UNICEF, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem (the Israeli human rights organization), Defense of Children International-Palestine and the US State Department have documented and reported on this extremely abusive and cruel treatment of Palestinian children.

H.R. 2407 amends the Leahy Bill by adding a new subsection that includes a prohibition of US military aid being used by foreign armed forces to support the military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of children in violation of international humanitarian law. The US annually gives in excess of $3.8 billion in foreign military assistance to the Israeli government.

Please support this very important bill by taking two easy actions:
1)    Send an email to your congresspersons asking them to support H.R. 2407
2)    Cosponsor H.R. 2407 as an individual.

This website makes everything easy for you. When you tap on this Defense for Children International-Palestine website, the first two horizontal bars that pop up after a short introduction to the No Way To Treat A Child campaign are 1)WRITE CONGRESS and 2)ENDORSE H.R. 2407. When you click on the first bar, a form pops up which you can use to email your congressperson. When you click on the second bar, a form pops up which you can use to become a citizen co-sponsor of H.R. 2407.

We hope you'll do both. Thank you!

For more information, please contact Middle East Committee member Genie Silver at rhsilver@comcast.net.