On Wednesday, December 28th, representatives of the Mossawa Center took part in the UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The director of the Mossawa Center, Jafar Farah, addressed the Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. During his presentation, Farah called on the Committee to hold the Israeli government accountable for its violations of the Palestinian people’s rights, specifically examine violations of the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel. 

In his presentation, Farah emphasized that the Jewish Nation-State Law is part of a series of over forty discriminatory laws that garanty collective rights to the Jewish majority and target the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel. Farah highlighted the government’s most recent attacks on culture and freedom of speech, referencing the “Loyalty in Culture Law,” which passed its second reading in the Knesset last week, the closure of Al-Midan Theater in Haifa, the arrest and brutal treatment of protesters and Human Rights Defenders in Haifa in May, and the state’s forceful closure seventeen NGOs via military order. 
Democracy in Israel, he continued, is the demolition of villages like Al-Araqib, Umm al-Hiran, and Zarnouq and the imprisonment of citizens who refuse to allow their homes to be demolished. In light of the Israeli government’s decision to be a state of occupation, segregation, separation, and discrimination, he called on the audience to support the Palestinian Arab minority in striving for a peaceful, equal, and multicultural society and, in so doing, to not only promote peace, but to promote liberation rooted in solidarity. 
This three-day event will include the introduction and presentation of four draft resolutions recommended by the Committee to the General Assembly on item 39, the “Question of Palestine.”

The Committee invited consultations with select civil society organizations. Issues discussed included humanitarian access in Gaza, the occupation of East Jerusalem, and recent legal developments such as the Jewish Nation-State Law. Other Palestinian and Israeli civil society organizations that participated in the consultations included Adalah, Addameer, and Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights and Gisha. The Solidarity Day featured an exhibit with an all too accurate title: “Unrealized Rights, Unfulfilled Promises: 70 Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the Palestinian People’s Nakba”.