URGENT CALL

Palestinian Primary School in Fasayil
to be demolished on the 29th of November!

Education not Occupation

Stop the Occupation from destroying yet another community project aimed at
building a future for Palestinians

This summer, the Popular Committee of Fasayil together with the Palestinian Save the Jordan Valley Initiative of the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign and the Brighton Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group, started to build the first and only primary school in Fasayil in the heart of the Jordan Valley. The grassroot project is part of the twinning between community groups in Brighton and in Palestine.

In defiance of the Israeli occupation’s complete ban on house construction, the shell of the new school has been completed in September. The school was built out of traditional mud bricks, using traditional building techniques and will provide a resource for more than 115 children. It aims at resolving the grave educational crisis that is affecting Fasayil and many other communities in the Jordan Valley caused by military restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation forces.

Education is a crucial tool for empowering Palestinian children to confront the harsh life under occupation, opening a perspective that goes beyond a future as slave labourers in the occupation’s settlement plantations.

On the Thursday, the 17th of October, however, the so called 'Military Civil Administration' issued a demolition order for Fasayil’s primary school and yet another Palestinian family’s home in the village. Construction work requires a permit from the Occupation authorities but since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967 not one has been granted. The systematic ban on con''struction is clearly aiming at driving out Palestinians of the Jordan Valley.

According to the demolition order issued against the primary school the community has to dismantle the school within 40 days or to face the arrival of the occupation’s bulldozers and a heavy fine for not respecting the construction ban.

But villagers and local activists are defiant: “They can knock our school down as often as they want. We cannot stop them from doing so. We will build the school again and again and again. They cannot destroy our determination to give proper education to our children."

"Our children’s education is our future! They will not succeed in their attempts to drive us from our land.”

We are calling on all free-minded people around the world, the media and the international community to get active to prevent the Israeli occupation forces from destroying Fasayil’s primary school!

Defend the children’s right to education!

Protect the Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley!

GET ACTIVE - Protect Fasayil’s primary school

Demolition is scheduled for the 29th of November.

We have 15 days to stop the Bulldozers!


What you can do:

1) Create awareness

Sign the petition to save the Fasayil primary school (at  http://brightonpalestine.org/blog/?page_id=224) and get others to sign it.

Distribute this call widely and get it published in your local and national media.

Raise the issue of Fasayil School in your Parliament and in the European Parliament.

2.) Give support

Make your university/school/Campaigning Group an international Sponsoring
Institution of the Fasayil primary school

Establish a twinning link between your school and the Fasayil primary school. Email  thewallmustfall@riseup.net for more details Donate to our fund for Fasayil Primary School the Fasayil school still needs rendering, furniture and equipment. Part of the funds coming in will be used to purchase the necessary material. The demolition order will not prevent us from finishing school construction and starting lessons. See below for contact details for the group

3.) Come to Palestine

Mobilize in your school/your university/in your community to send a delegation to Fasayil as soon as possible: We will give you any support necessary to organize your trip to Palestine.

Contact  thewallmustfall@riseup.net to fix a date for a tour to Fasayil.

We want to establish a strong international presence in Fasayil during the days the demolition is scheduled on: Volunteers are asked to come to Fasayil from the 29th of November onwards to protect the school. Contact  thewallmustfall@riseup.net for more details

4.) Protest

Write to your local MP (find out who your MP is at  http://www.writetothem.com/?keyword=my%20mp&creativeid=605235279&gclid=CPakvbKC0I8CFQgsQwodCCIv9A)
and ask them to put a question in parliament about the demolition of Fasayil school. CC  thewallmustfall@riseup.net to any correspondence.

The demolition of Fasayil school will be carried out with CATerpillar equipment. Why not organise solidarity demonstrations, pickets or actions in your local area against CATerpillar. Info on caterpllar can be found at www.caterkiller.com, www.stopcat.org and www.bigcampaign.org

Write to the following Israeli authorities in protest re the demolition of Fasayil school:

Tzipi Livni
Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
9 Yitzhak Rabin Boulevard
Kiryat Ben-Gurion
Jerusalem 91035
Israel
Fax: +972 2 530 3367
Email:  sar@mfa.gov.il
Salutation: Dear Minister

Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit
Military Judge Advocate General
David Elazar Street
Tel Aviv, Israel
Fax: +972 3 608 0366
Email:  arbel@mail.idf.il
Salutation: Dear Judge Advocate General

Commander
District Coordination Office (DCO)
Jericho
Fax: +972 2 9943305
Salutation: Dear Sir
COPIES TO: diplomatic representatives of Israel accredited to your country.

For further information please contact:

Brighton-Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group
 thewallmustfall@riseup.net
tel 07984 438655
c/o BPEC, 39-41 Surrey St, Brighton