Tue, Sep 27, 2016
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Democracy, Human Rights, and Israel's Founding Vision

 Approaching 50 Years of Occupation: 

Democracy, Human Rights and Israel’s Founding Vision

Featuring Two of Israel’s Leading Human Rights Litigators: Neta Patrick and Michael Sfard

Tuesday September 27th 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library Room A-9
901 G St NW, Washington, DC 20001
RSVP below

July will mark fifty years since the start of the occupation. Political stalemates, recurring violence, and regional events have stalled Israeli-Palestinian negotiations – threatening Israel’s democracy with military rule over the lives of millions of non-citizens. 

What are Israelis doing about this?

Against the backdrop of recent, alarming developments, Neta Patrick, Executive Director of Yesh Din, and Michael Sfard, an attorney representing many of Israel’s human rights NGOs, will report on their work on the ground in Israel to protect the rights of Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories. 

Yesh Din's activities focus on the extent of Israel's implementation of its duty to protect Palestinian civilians under occupation, including criminal accountability of Israeli civilians and members of the Israeli security forces in the West Bank, and human rights violations related to use of Palestinian lands. 

Neta Patrick, Executive Director of Yesh Din, is an Israeli lawyer specializing in Israeli constitutional and human rights law. Prior to joining Yesh Din in June 2014, Neta served as Director for the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the Hebrew University School of Law, and was a fellow with the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute, where she led a project focused on housing, land and property rights in East Jerusalem and Area C of the West Bank. Neta completed her Master in Laws program (LLM) in 2011 as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar at Columbia University in New York and in 2007 graduated with Honors from the Tel Aviv University School of Law and the Gender and Women Studies Program. Prior to her studies at Columbia University, Neta worked as an associate in the Michael Sfard law office for three years where she worked with several Israeli NGOs, including  Yesh Din, Physicians for Human Rights, Ir Amim, Isha-Le-Isha [Woman for Woman], and co-litigated a variety of cases in the Israeli Supreme Court and district courts, including on Bedouin communities' indigenous rights to land, cases involving freedom of speech, and representing conscientious objectors.

Michael Sfard is an Israeli attorney who represents various Israeli and Palestinian human rights and peace organizations, movements and activists. He is an expert in international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
Sfard has represented many Israeli and Palestinian human rights and peace organizations, movements, and activists at the Israeli Supreme Court, including Peace Now, Yesh Din, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. In 2004 Sfard established his own legal firm focusing on litigating human rights cases on behalf of individuals and NGOs. In 2012, Sfard was awarded the Emille Grintzweig Human Rights Award for his unique contributions to the advancement of human rights in Israel. 

Event Location

MLK Library Basement
901 G St NW
Washington, DC 20001


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