‘Israel is engaged in genocide, mass starvation, and the illegal annexation of Palestinian land.’
The North Carolina office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NC), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called Wake County Board of Commissioner Vickie Adamson’s trip to Israel – paid for by the Israeli government – “deeply unfortunate.”
In a statement, CAIR-NC Community Engagement Manager Al Rieder said:
“Israel is engaged in genocide, mass starvation, and the illegal annexation of Palestinian land. In Lebanon, the Israelis are engaged in similar violations of international law, while apparently trying to draw our own country into another war. The trip is deeply unfortunate, and the Commissioner needs to explain why this trip is the right use of the voters’ trust here in Wake County.”
Earlier today, Washington, D.C., based CAIR called on Congress to condemn Israel’s murder of teenage girl as she walked to school to take an exam in Gaza City.
CAIR said that the murder of Raghad Hassan Ashour, 16, is part just one small part of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its deliberate targeting of children. A new report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel found that some 30 percent of those murdered by Israel in the Gaza genocide were children.
Last week, CAIR welcomed a vote by the United Auto Workers (UAW) to divest from Israeli bonds over the genocide in Gaza.
Numerous credible human rights bodies – U.S.-based, international, Palestinian, and Israeli – have independently concluded that Israel’s assault on Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide. Israel is also carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the illegally-occupied West Bank and Lebanon, and has attacked a number of neighboring nations.
CAIR also joined the call for urgent international intervention to secure the immediate release of three pregnant Palestinian women currently detained in Israeli prisons.
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CONTACT: CAIR-NC Community Engagement Manager Al Rieder, 202-742-6421, arieder@cair.com; CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com