ELECTRONIC INTIFADA – electronicintifada.net
The Electronic Intifada (EI), found at http://electronicIntifada.net, publishes news, commentary, analysis, and reference materials about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a Palestinian perspective.

PALESTINE CHRONICLE – palestinechronicle.com

FROM OCCUPIED PALESTINE – fromoccupiedpalestine.org
Independent online journal and resource archive of the conflict.

• THE PSG SUMMER DELEGATION TO PALESTINE STILL NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT – HELP DONATE SO CHICAGO ACTIVISTS CAN WORK WITH PALESTINIAN ORGANIZATIONS TO DEVELOP BDS AND POLITICAL PRISONER CAMPAIGNS HERE IN THE U.S. Use the “Donate” button on this page and designate for the “Palestine Delegation”. All housing, food, and transportation dollars go to support Palestinian families and Palestinian owned businesses.

• August 23: Join PSG when we protest Israel’s inclusion in the
  Chicago Sister Cities International Festival!

]]> http://psgchicago.org/?feed=rss2&p=7 0 http://psgchicago.org/?p=391 http://psgchicago.org/?p=391#comments Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:58:16 +0000 wfchambers http://psgchicago.org/?p=391 Petach Tikva: Community School – or Ethiopian Ghetto

[original published here http://www.mynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3943586,00.html ]

All 400 students of the Ner Etzion school in Petach Tikva will be from the Ethiopian ethnicity. Council-woman Sarah Oren: they won’t be able to integrate into Israeli society this way.

by Nitzan Yanko

Published 29 August 2010, 07:52

The “Ethiopian Ghetto” is expected to continue in the coming school year, too, at the Ner Etzion school in Petach Tikva, after 100% of the students at this educational institution (approximately 400 children) will be members of the community. However, the chairman of the school’s parents committee, Yoav Talala, actually sounds pleased. “We receive unique benefits,” he explained.

In the last two years the state saw stormy discussion of the issue of absorbing the students who emigrated from Ethiopia into the religious [state] schools in the city. The main problem is that in those educational facilities, the students were required to undergo a process of conversion to Judaism – and in contrast, there was unwillingness to accept them to the public-secular schools.

One of the solutions that was found was to place as many as possible members of the community to the Ner Etzion school, [as] most if not all of them live near it. The fact that most of the students at the educational institutions are from Ethiopia cause parents outside of that community, who live nearby, to refrain from sending their children to it.

“The situation where all of the students are from Ethiopia is not bad at all,” said Talala. “We’re talking about an elementary school, and the educational level is identical to other places. The children get a long study day, until six pm. Additionally, they bring them food to school, and they get assistance and enrichment in the various fields of study. The children also get enhanced education, such as music.”

Don’t you think that the situation will hinder the students socially? What about integration?

“They learn at a regular school, with teachers who teach properly. I don’t think it matters what population is in the school. As soon as they’re done with elementary school, they go to the middle school and high school with students from all communities, even now. We’ll see how it is this year. The parents want the children to study quietly, and they don’t want to get into wars. In the meanwhile, it is good. When it comes down to it, a person goes to where things are good for him.”

Gadi Yaffe, chairman of the central parents’ committee, supports the Ner Etzion Committee: “the story of this school is unique,” he explained. “On the one hand, we don’t want this to be the situation. But on the other hand, the school’s parents’ committee prefers to study this way. They claim that they get better achievements this way. I know that there is a plan of the municipality that will change the character of the school over the coming three years, including its population.”

In opposition, city council member Sarah Oren (‘Yerukim Ir Hofshit’ [greens - liberal city]) demands that the situation be changed, urgently: “they won’t be able to integrate into Israeli society this way,” she explained. “The municipality should disperse them in the public schools, even if this means building religious classrooms. It can’t go on like this. For good [cultural] absorption you need no more than 20 percent of immigrant students and the rest having been here a long while.”

Moti Zefet [?], who is in charge of religious education in the municpality, stated in response: “last year and two years ago the situation was similar there. The school in question is a regional one, as is customary in all public secular and public religious schools. It is not customary to send children who live in a particular area to elementary schools far away. Whoever lives in that area, learns there.”

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.

Friday July 9
4:00 – 5:30PM
Chicago Cultural Center
78 E. Washington

The Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago (PSG) will join Palestine solidarity activists around the world on this international day of action to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the historic Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it ends the occupation, respets the right of return of Palestine refugees, and respects the rights of Palestinian citizens in Israel. We will renew our calls on the Chicago Sister Cities International, whose offices are located at the Chicago Cultural Center, to drop Petach Tikva, Israel from the Chicago Sister Cities International (CSCI) program and call on Israel to release political prisoner Ameer Makoul, tortured at Petach Tikva.

We reject an official relationship between the City of Chicago and the Municipality of Petach Tikva in Israel. Under the guise of promoting cultural and education ties, and under the false premise of a people-to-people program, Petach Tikva’s inclusion in the CSCI promotes Israel-US business ties while it simultaneously whitewashes Israel’s occupation and human rights abuses.

Ameer Makhoul (pictured) is the latest Palestinian grassroots activist to be held and tortured at Petach Tikva. It is bitterly ironic that the chairperson of the CSCI’s Petach Tikva program is also president of the America Israel Business Chamber of Commerce, which earlier this year advertised a “Fight Back Against the Boycott” to undermine the movement grassroots Palestinian activists like Ameer Makhoul have been arrested and persecuted for leading.

At a national meeting earlier this year, Jewish United Fund – one of the racist Israeli government’s main champions in the US – identified the threat posed to Israel’s “legitimacy” by our campaign. Join our campaign and directly challenge Israel’s supporters in Chicago, and demand real policy change!

TAKE ACTION: 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!