MADRE

Activities

• MADRE’s publications on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are characterized by extreme distortions in the service of a political agenda, rejecting Israeli security concerns and placing Palestinian terror in the context of the “right to resist military occupation.”
• MADRE was a major participant in the NGO forum of the Durban Conference on Racism in 2001, including a highly biased presentation on the history of Palestinian refugees.
• In March 2022, MADRE was a signatory on a statement welcoming then UN Special Rapporteur “on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967” Michael Lynk’s report accusing Israel of apartheid. According to the statement, “We reiterate the need for effective measures to dismantle Israeli apartheid, as put forward by the Special Rapporteur and civil society, including for UN member states to recognize Israeli apartheid against the Palestinian people…It is time to act to adopt effective measures, including sanctions, to end Israeli apartheid.”
• In October 2021, MADRE was a signatory on a joint statement condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the statement, “This unprecedented designation is merely the latest escalation in Israel’s widespread and systematic institutionalized campaign that has aimed to silence and discredit any Palestinian individual or organization that dares seek accountability for Israel’s grave human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity…the international community, especially the European Union and its member states who are key supporters of and donors to Palestinian civil society, should ensure that banks and financial institutions in their jurisdiction are notified Israel’s designation of Palestinian organizations is unfounded and inapplicable.”
• In May 2021, MADRE called for the United States to “stop bankrolling ethnic cleansing” by Israel.
• In May 2021, MADRE published a press release urging the Biden administration to “call for an end to the Israeli occupation and apartheid” and to “Stop selling weapons and providing unconditional military aid to Israel, enabling its violent attack on Palestinians.”
• In 2021, MADRE endorsed US Congresswoman McCollum’s proposed legislation “to prevent United States tax dollars from supporting the Israeli military’s ongoing detention and mistreatment of Palestinian children.” The entirety of the proposed bill is premised on factually inaccurate claims from anti-Israel advocacy NGOs, including direct quotes from DCIP’s “No Way to Treat a Child” 2016 report and website.
• In June 2018, MADRE posted an article commemorating the death of Razan al-Najjar. MADRErepeated the unfounded claim that a 21-year-old female medical volunteer, Razan Najjar, was intentionally killed by an Israeli sniper. MADRE ignored that an New York Times article examining the incident concluded that Najjar was accidentally killed by shrapnel from a ricocheting bullet.
• In May 2016, MADRE joined a coalition of over 100 groups to send a letter to members of the New York Legislature, “urging lawmakers to oppose bills that would effectively create blacklists of individuals and entities that boycott companies based in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territory.”
  • The coalition included Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, Center for Constitutional Rights, Students for Justice in Palestine, WESPAC Foundation, Adalah-NY, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and Palestine Legal.