Amos Trust

Profile

Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
Websitewww.amostrust.org
Founded1985
In their own words"work[] with a network of community projects from around the world to raise awareness of, and provide support to responses that address the route causes of injustice and poverty."

Funding

Activities

  • Supports projects in the West Bank, Gaza, India, Burundi, Nicaragua, South Africa, and Tanzania.

Political Advocacy

  • Amos Trust’s attacks against Israel include accusations of “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “collective punishment.”
  • Promotes a one-sided, politicized view of the conflict. Describes the “devastating impact of the wall, settlements blocks and travel restrictions upon Palestinian life,” with no mention of terrorism or Palestinian corruption.
  • Amos Trust offers “Alternative Pilgrimages” allowing participants the chance to “see for yourself the injustice of occupation.”
  • Amos Trust has supported the Kairos Palestine document, which calls for BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) against Israel; denies the Jewish historical connection to Israel in theological terms; and rationalizes, justifies, and trivializes terrorism, calling it “legal resistance.”
  • In March-May 2023, Amos Trust co-sponsored a bike ride to mark “75 years of the ongoing Nakba…75 years ago marks the start of the ongoing Israeli colonisation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. We will be highlighting this historic atrocity as part of the 2023 Big Ride for Palestine.”
  • In November 2022, to mark 105 years since the Balfour Declaration, Amos Trust posted an article affirming, “We stand against colonialism, We stand against apartheid, We stand against ethnic cleansing.”
  • In August 2022, Amos Trust was a signatory on a statement condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the statement, “These Palestinian civil society organisations provide vital services to Palestinians living under occupation…We call on the UK government to uphold its legal and moral duties to the Palestinian people and support Palestinian civil society as its institutions are targeted by Israel’s repressive measures.”
  • In 2022, Amos Trust Director Chris Rose and Director of Operations Nive Hall led a trip to Israel and the West Bank to visit Al-Haq and Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P). Hall also referred to Al-Haq founder Raja Shehadeh as “one of our heroes.”
  • In September 2021, Amos Trust published a report focusing on “some of the worst aspects of how the Occupation and Israel’s apartheid policies are worked out on the ground.” According to Amos Trust, “We have always viewed our campaign for equal rights to be an anti-apartheid campaign but we avoided using the word as we did not want to spend time justifying its use when we could have been focusing on the abuses it encapsulates…But the 2021 reports by Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch specifically stating that Israel is pursuing apartheid policies means that no further justification is required.”
  • In July 2021, Amos Trust Director Chris Rose participated in a webinar to learn how the “Israeli apartheid wall consumes and divides Palestine.”
  • In May 2021, Amos Trust was a signatory on a statement calling to end “Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing of neighbourhoods in occupied East Jerusalem.”
  • In July 2019, Amos Trust organized the Palestine Expo conference and exhibition, which served as a platform for organizers and participants to espouse anti-Israel rhetoric, antisemitism, and promote BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) as well as demonization and delegitimization campaigns.
  • In May 2019, Amos Trust participated in a demonstration titled “Exist! Resist! Return!” calling for “No new Nakba” and to “Defend the Right of Return.”
  • In June 2018, Amos Trust organized a protest titled “Free Palestine. Stop the Killing. Stop Arming Israel” in response to the violence on the Gaza border. In promoting sanctions against Israel, Amos Trust ignores the violent nature of the protests, which included Molotov cocktails, arson, and attempts to breach the border fence with Israel.
  • In May 2018, Amos Trust, alongside Amnesty International UK and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, organized an event titled “At 70: A Celebration of Contemporary Palestinian Culture” meant to “commemorate[e] the Palestinian experience of dispossession and loss of a homeland.”
  • In November 2017, Amos Trust organized “Just Walk to Jerusalem,” an “initiative to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration and 50 years of military occupation of the Palestinian Territories.” The walk is an “act of penance for Britain’s 100 year-long failure to ensure Palestinian rights.”
  • On May 15, 2017, Amos Trust held a concert titled “Nakba- Songs of Exile” to “commemorate the Nakba of Palestinian exile” in “this year of major anniversaries for the Palestinian struggle – the tenth year of the blockade of Gaza, fiftieth year of the Occupation and the centenary of the Balfour Declaration.”
  • On February 7, 2017, Amos Trust was a signatory on a call to “end the European complicity – marking 100 years of injustice against the Palestinian people.” The call “solemnly reaffirm[ed] that in 2017, after 100 years of dispossession, denial and ethnic cleansing, the rights of the Palestinian people must, at last, be respected.”
  • In December 2016, Amos Trust published an “All-Age Christmas Activity Pack,” including activities meant to indoctrinate children with a theologically themed message to promote anti-Israel propaganda.
    • In one activity, a typical nativity scene is deconstructed to reflect the “situation in Bethlehem today.” This includes actions such as removing the olive tree, to remember olive groves that have been destroyed “to clear the group for settlements, to build the separation wall or in attacks on local people.” Children are then told to replace the tree with a “separation wall.” Later steps include removing the shepherds and livestock, as “The wall and neighbouring settlements also prevent shepherds in Bethlehem from going to their fields.”
  • In December 2015, Amos Trust published a “Bethlehem Pack” for Christmas stating, “For peace to come to Palestine and Israel, we must speak out about the injustices faced by Palestinians and support them with our prayers, both at Christmas and throughout the year.” Amos Trust encourages people to read prayers as a sign of support at Christmastime and year round, prayers with language such as: “God-with-us, you sit down in our midst. Nothing can separate us from your love – not towering concrete walls or the deep darkness between searchlights…You are with our brothers crowded at the checkpoint, with our sisters witnessing for peace…Born into poverty to displace people living under occupation…we know that your love can never be contained by the walls of separation.”
  • In November 2014, following the murder of five Israelis in a terror attack in a Jerusalem synagogue, Rev Chris Rose, director of the Amos Trust, stated that “The Palestinian community in East Jerusalem has been increasingly suppressed, with high unemployment and poor amenities, and they are more and more squeezed by Israeli settlers. The waves of violence that have been happening have been in no small part pushed by Jewish extremist groups and the Israeli government has not been effective in countering them” (emphasis added).
  • In December 2013, Amos Trust co-sponsored a festival in London called “Bethlehem Unwrapped,” featuring a comedy show called “Stand Up Against the Wall,” a “Bethlehem Christmas dinner,” and a debate titled “Both sides of the Barrier – Separation or Security?” that featured Jeff Halper, founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

BDS Activities

  • Amos Trust is involved in campaigns targeting HP and G4S as “Two decades ago, the international boycott of firms that supported the apartheid South African regime played an important role in over-turning that racist regime. It’s time to do it again.”
  • In June 2023, Amos Trust joined a campaign pledging to fight the UK’s anti-BDS bill, claiming that it “singles out Israel and its occupation of Palestinian territory with an immunity not afforded to any other state, preventing public bodies from ever being able to cut ties with illegal Israeli settlements and companies profiting from them.”
  • In March 2021, Amos Trust held a webinar to discuss “Why is the Palestinian call for cultural boycott so important?
  • In March 2019, Amos Trust posted an interview with Wia’m founder Zoughbi Zoughbi, who stated that “I believe BDS is an important and legitimate form of non-violent struggle. When we talk about BDS we are talking about boycotting Israeli goods, especially from settlements, divesting from any company that prolongs occupation and imposing sanctions on Israel.”
  • In May 2018, Amos Trust posted on its Facebook that “As long as the Israeli government commits war crimes against the Palestinian people, we support their call for a boycott of Israel as a means of peaceful protest against the brutal occupation.”
  • In January 2018, Chris Rose stated his support for BDS saying that “For us, it has always been very straightforward, if a government refuses to acknowledge international law and to deny basic human rights, then we have to pursue the non-violent means available to us to challenge the situation. BDS is one of these tools.”
  • On December 5, 2016, Amos Trust shared the story of “Amos friend Rachel Wakefield” who visited Gaza and the West Bank with Amos Trust and “experienced on some small level what it must be like to be under scrutiny every day, for simply being born on a specific piece of land. So when it came to buying a new computer, I couldn’t just maintain the one I had as it is made by Hewlett Packard… I didn’t agree with the way HP allow their technology to be used to oppress the Palestinian people.”
  • On September 21, 2016, Amos Trust organized a lecture of Sahar Vardi, the Israel Program Coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee. Vardi described the objectives of BDS: “in terms of profit, the real losses will not come from the boycott of products, but from divestment. That’s where the big money is. The last thing I’ll say about the BDS movement is that it’s fun. They’ve started using all these flash mobs and [other] cool activities. It accesses people who normally wouldn’t care. There are huge companies being affected, and [activists] are having fun.”
  • In May 2016, Amos Trust signed a call titled “Enough with the criminalisation of the BDS movement for justice in Palestine! Let’s support right to boycott!” calling on the European Commission to “introduce the human rights guidelines guaranteeing freedom of speech and right to boycott.”
  • In November 2010, as part of the “Disconnect Now” campaign calling on Bezeq Telecom to “end its complicity in serious breaches of international law and human rights abuses, through its partnership with Israeli telecommunications company Bezeq International,” Rev Canon Garth Hewitt, Director of Amos Trust said: “BT has the chance to prove that its commitment to human rights is not just talk. The message is simple – BT must ‘disconnect’ from its relationship with Bezeq International and end its complicity in the illegal settlements.”

Partners

2018-2021 Grants Donated (amounts in £)

Donor2021202020192018
Holy Land Trust77,67096,12859,9431,859
Wi’am Conflict Resolution Centre5,62812,43528,7253,093
NECCCRW-Gaza19,33219,47712,1987,715

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