Yousef Munayyer

Yousef Munayyer (Arabic: يوسف منيّر‎) is a Palestinian-American writer and political analyst based in Washington, D.C., United States. Munayyer was born in Lod, Israel. He is the Executive Director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Previously he directed The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development and its educational program, the Palestine Center and was also a policy analyst with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Quotes

Protesting near a fence, approaching a fence, damaging a fence, climbing a fence or crossing a fence is not are reason to kill someone. But Israel has ordered it's soldiers to use lethal force. This is criminal.
- In response over a video of a shooting by IDF soldiers on prostestors during the 2018 Gaza border protests. (April 10 2018)

About the events of Land Day 2018, In Gaza, Israel Aims To Massacre Hope (2 April 2018), HuffPost.

Pluralistic democracies that respect human rights do not find themselves resorting to using lethal force against demonstrators. That’s what apartheid states do. But Israel has sold itself to the world as something else, a beacon of liberalism and democracy. Few things expose this image as a sham as well as massive non-violent mobilizations or civil disobedience.

More than the atrocities committed or the condemnations that followed, perhaps the most important and also inspirational element of the events of last Friday was the demonstrations themselves. Tens of thousands of Palestinians congregated in disciplined, organized demonstrations at various points along the fence of the besieged Gaza Strip. People of all ages joined, songs were sung, meals were cooked, pick-up volleyball games were played. All of this, importantly, was done as a unified Palestinian front. Despite Israel’s efforts to slap a Hamas label on it, the only visible flags were Palestinian, not factional. For Palestinians, this was a vision that brought us together with great hope.

These types of events are Israel’s nightmare, not because they are violent, but precisely because they are not.

Israel, since its inception, has relied on external support, particularly from the Western world, for justification of its policies in Gaza and the West Bank. These relationships are contingent on many things, including values the West claims to hold dear like freedom, democracy, civil rights and equality. The prospect of a negotiated agreement based on two-states has allowed Israel to stave off the confrontation between the myth of these values and the reality on the ground. But as the notion of a two-state agreement fades firmly into history, the apartheid reality becomes impossible to ignore, and further episodes where Israel will confront masses of mobilized Palestinians demanding their rights will continue to highlight this contradiction.

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