Tell the US Consulate to let Khatib in!

CONTACT THE U.S. CONSULATE IN EAST JERUSALEM NOW. TELL THEM YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO HEAR WHAT KHATIB HAS TO SAY!

Palestinian activist Mohammad Khatib is scheduled to visit the U.S. next week, but the U.S. will not grant him a visa.

UsConGenJerusalem@state.gov Phone: 011.972.2.622.7230 Fax: 011.972.2.625.9270

February 25, 2010.

We hear it all the time in the United States, "Where are the Palestinian leaders of nonviolent resistance?" The U.S. government is keeping one of them from us! Mohammed Khatib is a leader of the Bil'in's Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements who has done jail time for his unarmed struggle in the West Bank town of Bil'in. Khatib is scheduled to visit the United States next week, but the US Consulate in East Jerusalem refuses to grant him a visa.

Khatib is scheduled to speak with our elected officials, attend the March 5-6 ecumenical Sabeel Conference* in San Anselmo, CA, and engage our communties, inspiring us with us the story of his village's five year campaign against the Wall. He can share from personal experience the horrors of the Israeli government crackdown against unarmed Palestinian leaders, where activists are arrested in the middle of the night on dubious charges or no charges at all. The United States is aiding this crackdown by not allowing Khatib to travel and spread the word.

Khatib had last year's charges against him dropped when an Israeli military judge ruled that the evidence against him was falsified: He was out of the country at the time he was wrongly accused of stone throwing. Khatib was arrested and released a second time. Despite these challenges, he was able to get permission from the Israeli government to visit East Jerusalem to try to obtain his U.S. Visa, no small feat.** Having overcome that hurdle, the U.S. Consulate is now preventing his trip.

We want to see him face-to-face here in the U.S.!

Please call the U.S. Consulate and let them know you will not accept the loss of your right to hear a different perspective. Tell them that you care about Israelis and Palestinians and want to learn more about the views of someone who has been fighting for over five years for his town and for more freedom for all. And please add that you want our members of Congress to have Mohammed Khatib in mind when they decide how best to address the Israeli occupation.

Your calls are needed now.

Thanks!

Sydney Levy Jewish Voice for Peace

PS. If you want to read an article by Mohammad Khatib, check out "Palestine's Peaceful Struggle" (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090928/khatib). Also join JVP's new blog http://theonlydemocracy.org/, where we report on the crackdown of activists struggling for civil and human rights in Israel and Palestine.

* More info about the March 5-6 Sabeel Conference here: http://fosna.org/content/marin-countybay-area-conference-march-5-6-2010

** For example, also from Bil'in, last October the Israeli government blocked Iyad Burnat--head of the Popular Commitee in Bil'in and co-founder of Friends of Freedom and Justice in Bilin--from going to the US Consulate in East Jerusalem for the necessary interview to obtain his U.S. visa.

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