Letter to Keren Kayemet Le’Israël (Jewish National Fund) Belgium – Luxemburg
L’Union des Progressistes Juifs de Belgique (UPJB) and Een Andere Joodse Stem (EAJS) call on the KKL-JNF to refrain from uprooting the Sumarin family, a Palestinian family of 18 members, from their East Jerusalem home.
In these times of a global health crisis, the importance of a home is clear. Nevertheless, the KKL-JNF is intensifying these days its efforts to evict the Sumarin family from the home in which they have been living for several generations. On June 30th, the KKL-JNF will demand the evacuation of the family in Jerusalem’s district court.
The attempts to evict the Sumarin family are based on a draconian application of Israeli legislation that was imposed on the Palestinian residents in the territories occupied by Israel in the June 1967 war, which ended exactly 53 years ago. Within the severe injustice and the wide range of human rights violations that this ongoing occupation creates, evicting the Sumarin family stands out as an act of abject cruelty, especially in these times. The KKL-JNF should immediately renounce all claims to the property, cease all legal proceedings against the family, and let the family live in peace and safety in their own home.
As the official representatives of KKL-JNF in Belgium, you are carrying responsibility towards the Belgian public to the activities of the organization that you represent. We therefore ask you to publicly renounce the evacuation of the Sumarin family, and to announce the central bodies of KKL-JNF that you stop your fundraising activities in Belgium until this issue is resolved. Otherwise, you will be perceived by the Belgian Jewish communities and the wider Belgian public as complicit in this severe case of human rights violations and injustice.
Sincerely,
Union des Progressistes Juifs de Belgique (UPJB) | info@upjb.be
Een
Andere Joodse Stem (EAJS) | infoeajs@gmail.com