Over 3,700 people have signed on to a call supporting the human rights organization, after the Knesset coalition chair calls to revoke its executive director’s citizenship.
By John Brown*
ACRI executive director Hagai El-Ad at the Human Rights Day march in Tel Aviv, December 11, 2009 (Keren Manor/Activestills.org)
B’Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad addressed the UN Security Council last week, calling on its members to take real steps toward ending the military dictatorship over the occupied territories, which is nearing its 50th year.
Following El-Ad’s speech, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu published a statement condemning B’Tselem for joining the “chorus of slander” against Israel. It was only a matter of time before thousands of right-wingers took to social media to call for El-Ad’s execution. As expected, Israeli police did nothing to stop the incitement, and not a single person has been arrested.
In the week that followed, however, B’Tselem reported a fivefold increase in “small” donations, which come from individuals, rather than from organizations.
Following Knesset coalition chair David Bitan’s proposal to revoke El-Ad’s citizenship, the donations have increased tenfold. Meanwhile, over 3,700 people have signed on to a call supporting B’Tselem on social media.
*John Brown is the pseudonym of an Israeli academic and a blogger for Local Call, where this article was first published in Hebrew. Read it here.
Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war – the atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel and the massive retaliatory Israeli attacks on Gaza. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing violence.
We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed unleashed by these events has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Hamas’ murderous assault in southern Israel has devastated and shocked the country to its core. Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza is wreaking destruction on the already besieged strip and killing a ballooning number of civilians. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to escalate their attacks on Palestinians.
This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 13 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, the entrenched occupation, and an increasingly normalized siege on Gaza.
We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives.
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