Join the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago to say NO CHICAGO TIES WITH ISRAEL!
WHEN: Monday August 23rd at 11:00am
WHERE: Millennium Park, corner of Michigan and Monroe
Protest Israel’s participation in the Chicago Sister City
International Festival!
On Monday August 23rd, the city of Petach Tikva in Israel will be
officially represented at the Chicago Sister City International
Festival in Millennium Park.
The Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago demands an end to the Chicago
Sister Cities International (CSCI) program’s relationship between
Chicago and Petach Tikva. Petach Tikva’s inclusion in the CSCI
promotes Israel-US business ties while it whitewashes Israel’s
occupation and human rights abuses. Indeed, the chairperson of the
Petach Tikva committee of the CSCI is also an executive of the America
Israel Business Chamber of Commerce, so it’s clear what this Sister
City relationship is really about.
After remaining silent for more than one year, the board of the CSCI,
responding to PSG’s persistent protests, finally responded with a
letter dated 20 July in which they renew their refusal to meet with us
to learn about Petach Tikva’s role in the continued dispossession of
the Palestinian people and Israel’s repression of their struggle for
self-determination. We will keep our call to drop Petach Tikva and end
business-as-usual loud and clear and on August 23, we will remind the
CSCI that apartheid Israel has no business participating in the
International Festival at Millennium Park.
About Petach Tikva:
The first Jewish-only settlement in historic Palestine, and known in
Israel as the “mother of all settlements,” Petach Tikva symbolizes the
dispossession and colonization of the Palestinian homeland. Petach
Tikva is built on the remains of depopulated Palestinian villages
whose descendents are denied the right to return home. Petach Tikva is
also home to one of the largest interrogation and detention centers in
Israel, where Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip
are illegally transferred and routinely subjected to ill treatment and
torture.
Palestinian civil society leader in Israel, and an advocate of the
Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, Ameer
Makhoul is the latest Palestinian grassroots leader to be detained and
tortured at Petach Tikva. Amnesty International has declared Makhoul a
prisoner of conscience as Israel tries to make an example of him and
try him on trumped up charges of espionage using “evidence” it
gathered through his torture at Petach Tikva.
About boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS):
Heeding the Palestinian call for BDS, the Palestine Solidarity
Group-Chicago rejects an official relationship between the City of
Chicago and the Municipality of Petach Tikva in Israel
We join the Palestinian call BDS on Israel; We demand that Israel ends
its occupation of Palestinian lands; We support self-determination for
the Palestinian people; and demand the Right of Return for all
Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
Take action:
Protest Chicago’s business-as-usual with Israel and demand that Petach
Tikva be dropped from the Chicago Sister Cities International Program!
Contact Leroy Allala – Sister City Program Executive Director
(leroy.allala@cityofchicago.org, 312.744.1372) and demand an end to
the Sister City partnership between Chicago and Petach Tikva!
Palestine Solidarity Group Chicago, www.psgchicago.org,
info.psg.chicago@gmaill.com
Endorsers: Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago, USPCN, 8th Day Center
for Justice, Jewish Voices for Peace, Chicagoans against Apartheid in
Palestine, Chicago Coalition against War and Racism, Students for
Justice in Palestine – DePaul, Students for Justice in Palestine -
IIT.
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