Take action: Sheikh Jarrah is under attack for the fifth night in a row
I am sitting with the words of Fatima Salem, the 73-year-old owner of the Salem family home in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem: “As long as there is a soul in my body, I’ll defend my home and my children.” She spoke these bold words of resistance after she and her family defied the Israeli forces and settlers attempting to expel them from their home this week.
Israeli forces have been assaulting Palestinian protesters with tear gas, stun grenades, skunk-water cannons, and rubber-coated steel bullets, while settlers pepper-sprayed the Salem family and threatened to burn the house with their family in it.
This inhumane violence is a calculated strategy of Israeli settler colonialism, the goal of which is to remove the native Palestinian people from their homeland.
You saw Israel’s U.S.-funded colonialism on full display this week as an Israeli politician and settlers set up a “parliamentary office” tent on the Salem’s family’s land, brazenly stealing land and dancing on it as a cruel mockery of the forced expulsion.
And Israeli forces are continuing their brutal violence across Palestine, killing teenagers Mohammad Abu Salah in the Jenin area and Nehad Barghouti in Nabi Saleh. This horrendous state-sanctioned violence—funded by our tax dollars—is designed to carry out ongoing ethnic cleansing, as Israel expels Palestinian people. Yesterday Israel demolished a home in Massafer Yatta, South Hebron Hills.
Now, Muna El-Kurd reports on Instagram Live that Israel could expel the Salem family from their home in Sheikh Jarrah at any moment, even before they’re set to be expelled on March 1. It will take a global outcry to stop it, and to stop the expulsions that will follow if Israel sees it can get away with expelling Palestinian families like the Salems from their homes.
You can help create a global outcry for #SaveSheikhJarrah at this critical moment. Raise your voice on social media now.
As Muna said this week, we must speak out and support the families of Sheikh Jarrah now, for “our cause is not a trend.” It is a constant, steadfast struggle for liberation.
As Israeli forces are threatening Palestinian families, eight members of Congress are currently going on an #ApartheidDelegation to Israel. Speaker Pelosi, Rep. Ro Khanna, Rep. Andy Kim, Rep. Barbara Lee, and more are deepening their complicity by meeting with the leaders of an apartheid state today. So as you’re amplifying #SaveSheikhJarrah, go ahead and tag these representatives to call them out for enabling Israel’s violence right now. Flood their newsfeed with #SaveSheikhJarrah!
Learn more about what’s happening in Sheikh Jarrah through these Instagram graphics, and then share these graphics with #SaveSheikhJarrah. You can find everything you need in the social media toolkit.
Read these graphics and download to share here.
Onward to liberation.
Not on social media? You can amplify Palestinian demands for justice by sending this post to others and contacting your representatives. Using this AJP Action tool, tell Congress they must refuse to go on delegations to apartheid Israel and demand an immediate end to U.S. support of apartheid.
Cat Knarr is the Communications Director at USCPR.
