The Hebron Fund video named in the diary title announces that a fund dinner will be held for Hebron settlers in the West Bank of Palestine at the New York Mets stadium, Citi Field. Hebron has been the focus of considerable strife between illegal settlers, IDF soldiers, and local Palestinian dwellers. The issue as stated in the video, the call to “reject racist limitations on Jewish growth in Israel,” is nothing less than an appeal for further ethnic cleansing of “Arabs” in the West Bank.
Adalah, a New York based Palestinian human rights group, provided the background on this story, in which Americans, through tax exempt contributions, are participating in the ethnic cleansing that continues in the Palestinian territories:
New York, NY, November 4, 2009 – Eleven organizations from the US, Palestine and Israel have called on baseball’s New York Mets to cancel a November 21st dinner at the Caesars Club at Citi Field for the Brooklyn-based Hebron Fund. The dinner is a fundraiser for Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank City of Hebron. In a letter sent to the Mets on November 3rd, the groups said, “The New York Mets will be facilitating activities that directly violate international law and the Obama administration’s call for a freeze in settlement construction, and that actively promote racial discrimination, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homes in Hebron.” Seven hundred Israeli settlers, living amidst 150,000 Palestinians in Hebron, are expanding their hold on the historic old city by driving out the Palestinian residents.
The groups added that “It would be a tragic irony for an event funding Israeli settlers’ violent actions and discriminatory policies against Palestinians to be held at Caesars Club which, according to the Mets, “sits directly on top of the Jackie Robinson Rotunda,” which was named “in honor of Jackie Robinson, the… great American who broke baseball’s color barrier.”
On the Hebron Fund webpage, clicking on the symbol which says “Give to Hebron” leads to a donations page on the website for the Jewish Community of Hebron which says, among other things, “keep Hebron Jewish for the Jewish people.” In a report on Hebron, the Israeli human rights organizations B’Tselem and ACRI have labeled the demands of Hebron’s settlers as “racist.” Hebron settlement leader Moshe Levinger, praised in a Hebron Fund dinner video, has been quoted saying,”The Arabs know to behave like good boys around us.” Hebron Fund Executive Director Yossi Baumol also made very derogatory comments about Arabs in a 2007 interview.
Adalah’s produced this video in response.
NY Mets: Cancel Hebron Funds Dinner at Citi Field (AdalahNY)
Thanks to Mark Elf of Jews sans frontieres, a British activist, for drawing this story to my attention.