Activities

• Supports BDS (boycotts, divestments and sanctions) campaigns against Israel and is an active participant in lobbying the UN, EU, and other international bodies to promote this agenda.
• Calls for Israel to “accept historical and legal responsibility for the Nakba, and recognise the principle of the right to return that was endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly in its Resolution No. 194 in 1948.”
• In 2015, DCI-P and American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) initiated a campaign, entitled “No Way to Treat a Child,” to “challenge Israel’s prolonged military occupation of Palestinians by exposing widespread and systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system.” The groups call upon the United States government to pressure Israel to end “abuse of Palestinian children,” and encourage supporters to write members of congress on behalf of their cause. The campaign claims that a letter addressed to President Obama calling for the establishment of a Special Envoy for Palestinian Children, initiated by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) and signed by 20 US congressmen, was a “direct response” to demands made by its supporters.
  • “National campaign partners” include: “American Muslims for Palestine, Amnesty International-USA, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Friends of Sabeel North America, Jewish Voice for Peace, Mennonite Central Committee US, and US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
  • The campaign sponsors events across the United States, with partner organizations including Kairos Puget Sound Coalition and Jewish Voice for Peace.
• As part of their “No Way to Treat a Child” campaign, DCI-P and AFSC held a hearing in Congress on June 8, 2017 on “how persistent human rights violations, systematic impunity, discrimination and a hyper-militarized environment affect the lives of the Palestinian children growing up under a military occupation with no end in sight.” Speakers included Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch and Nadia Ben-Youssef of Adalah.
• In April 2016, Khaled Quzmar, the general director of DCI-P, participated in a roundtable conversation which examined the “impact of prolonged military occupation on Palestinian youth.”
  • Sahar Francis, the general director of Addameer, and Vincent Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, also participated in the event. The event was organized by Students for Justice in Palestine.
• On March 3, 2016, DCI-P released a statement accusing Israeli forces of “implementing a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy, which in some incidents may amount to extrajudicial killings.”
• Manal Tamimi, a Palestinian activist who frequently utilizes antisemitic and violent rhetoric and imagery on social media, was hailed as a “prominent human rights defender” in a 2016 joint NGO submission co-authored by DCI-P. In September 2015, on Yom Kippur (a fast day and the holiest day of the year in the Jewish calendar), Tamimi tweeted, “Vampire zionist celebrating their Kebore day by drinking Palestinian bloods, yes our blood is pure & delicious but it will kill u at the end.”
• In August 2015, DCI-P created a petition titled, “Stop arming Israeli military units violating human rights,” urging President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron to “investigate and impose an immediate arms embargo on Israeli military units that violate human rights and international humanitarian law.”
• On July 29, 2015, DCI-P’s International Advocacy Officer Brad Parker, spoke at a Congressional briefing to “examine Israel’s misuse of U.S.-supplied weapons in Gaza and call on lawmakers to hold Israel accountable for its violations of U.S. and international law.” Parker accused Israel of violating international law and “indiscriminate attacks.” This event was sponsored by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, American Friends Service Committee, American Muslims for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Middle East Children’s Alliance.
• In June 2015, DCI-P lobbied extensively regarding a letter sent to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urging the “Department of State to elevate the human rights of Palestinian children to a priority status in our bilateral relationship with the government of Israel.” Other NGOs behind the lobbying were American Friends Service Committee, Jewish Voice for Peace, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Amnesty International USA, and Pax Christi USA.
• Following the 2010 “Free Gaza flotilla,” DCI-P joined a number of other political advocacy NGOs in petitioning “the international community as a whole,” to “enforce[] sanctions against Israel until such time as ends the siege of Gaza and the occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories.” The same letter urged the EU to “suspend or cancel the EU-Israel Association Agreement” and demanded that “the UN [] act immediately to implement the recommendations of the Goldstone report.”
• In 2010, published a list alleging that 352 children died “as a direct result of Israel’s military offensive” in the Gaza war. (PCHR claimed that 313 children were killed during the fighting.)  Some of the individuals on DCI-P’s list, such as Ibrahim Mostafa Fraih Sa’id and Ibrahim Abed al-Rahim Rajab Suliman, have been identified by B’Tselem and PCHR as combatants. In these instances, DCI-P wrote, “Despite DCI-Palestine’s best endeavours to collect affidavits from eyewitnesses to [the child’s] death, no reliable evidence could be gathered.”
• DCI-P promotes the libel of a “Jenin massacre” on its website, including a statement on the “horror” of the “Israeli army massacre in Jenin refugee camp.”
• DCI-P director Rifat Odeh Kassis is the coordinator and spokesperson for the Kairos Palestine document that advocates BDS targeting Israel, noting that “These advocacy campaigns must be carried out with courage, openly sincerely proclaiming that their object is not revenge but rather to put an end to the existing evil.”  In addition to BDS, it reflects supersessionist theology, exploits related themes to demonize Israel, denies the Jewish historical connection to Israel, and ignores the extreme harassment and violence committed by Palestinians against Christians.
• Published a 2009 “urgent appeal,” calling the UN Human Rights Council members to “endorse all the recommendations contained in the Goldstone report…and submit the report to the General Assembly and the Prosecutor of the ICC for appropriate action.”

DCI-P Ties to the PFLP

• Several DCI-P board members have apparent ties to the PFLP. Mahmoud Jiddah, reportedly a “PFLP member,” was imprisoned by Israel for 17 years for carrying out “grenade attacks” against Israeli civilians in Jerusalem in 1968. Hassan Abed Aljawad is similarly described as a Bethlehem-based “PFLP activist,” or “leader,” representing the PFLP at public events. Fatima Daana, an attorney and board secretary, is apparently the widow of Raed Nazzal, the former commander of the PFLP’s armed wing (the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades) in Qalqilya. Nazzal was responsible for several terrorist attacks and was killed in 2002 in a shootout with IDF forces.Previous board members had demonstrable PFLP ties as well. From 2007 to 2014, Shawan Jabarin – an alleged PFLP activist and director of Al-Haq – was a member of DCI-P’s Board of Directors. Alleged PFLP affiliates Nassar Ibrahim and Dr. Majed Nassar were also on the Board.
• Hashem Abu Maria, a DCI-P employee, was hailed by the PFLP as a “comrade” and a “leader” after his death in 2014.

Allegations of “war crimes”

• Accused Israel of “deliberate targeting of civilians” in Lebanon, “terrorizing the civilian population” in Gaza, and “collective punishment,” and referred to the Gaza conflict as Israel’s “illegal act of aggression.”
• On January 20, 2016, DCI-P released a document titled, “How was 2015 for Palestinian children?” accusing Israeli forces of using “excessive force” and “grave violations against children amounting to war crimes.”
• In April 2015, DCI-P published “Operation Protective Edge: A War Waged on Gaza’s Children,” accusing Israel of “overwhelming and repeated evidence of international humanitarian law violations committed by Israeli forces. These included direct attacks on children, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilian homes, schools, and residential neighborhoods.”
• In a statement delivered to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in March 2015, DCI-P called on UN members “to challenge systemic impunity for violations of Palestinian children’s rights by Israeli forces,” and demanded that Israel end its prolonged “eight-year siege on the Gaza Strip, a form of collective punishment prohibited under international law.”
• In January 2014, Brad Parker, DCI-P’s international advocacy officer, accused the U.S. government of playing a “role in blocking international efforts to hold Israel accountable” in the face of “damning evidence of war crimes.”