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Palestinian Animal League

From EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki




Palestinian Animal League (PAL)
الجميعة الفلسطينية للرفق في الحيوان
File:Palestinian Animal League Logo.png – TO BE UPLOADED AFTER ACCEPTANCE
Formation2011; 15 years ago (2011)[1]
FounderAhmed Safi and Sameh Arekat[1]
Founded atRamallah, Palestine[2]
HeadquartersRamallah, Palestine[2]
Websitehttps://pal.ps/

The Palestinian Animal League (PAL) is a Palestinian animal rights organisation which was founded in 2011 by Ahmad Safi and Sameh Arekat.[1] PAL is based in the West Bank and registered in Ramallah.[2] The group's founding aim is "to support young people to develop kindness and compassion for animals within Palestinian society,"[2] and to these ends they operate youth education and empowerment programmes, such as their Youth for Change project.[3] Nevertheless, PAL has since gone beyond this initial vision, for instance by advocating for the introduction of an animal welfare law in Palestine.[4] Moreover, since February 2016, they operate the country's "first ever trap, neuter, vaccinate and release (TNVR) scheme in the city of Tulkarm" for stray dogs, which they consider "one of the most visible animal welfare problems" in the West Bank.[5] PAL are proponents of an intersectional stance towards animal issues, focusing especially on the connection between these and the Palestinian national cause.[6][7][8] Because of their position on intersectionality, the group has adopted a BDS policy, and does not and will not engage with Israeli organisations, until the Israeli occupation of Palestine has ended. This includes refusing any and all funding from such sources.[9][10] PAL has a series of international representatives in countries such as Italy and the United States.[11]

Programmes and Activities

Youth for Change

PAL's "Youth for Change" programme began in March 2015 at three West Bank universities, where over forty students were taught to act as mentors for schoolchildren, on animal protection issues. They were also trained in campaign skills.[3]

In 2016, the project continued thanks to funding from the International Fund for Animal Welfare. As with the year before, over 40 students were trained by 15 trainers. These student mentors then trained over 400 schoolchildren in 18 schools and community groups in Palestine and have carried out workshops on animal welfare.[3]

Street Dogs: Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate and Release (TNVR)

PAL launched the first trap, neuter, vaccinate and release (TNVR) programme in Palestine in February 2016. The programme is based out of the city of Tulkarm.[5] It has received funding from British animal charity Dogs Trust and involves collaboration between PAL and An-Najah University. PAL hopes that up to 240 dogs will be neutered by the end of the pilot programme, and the first dog to undergo the procedure was named Lateef, Arabic for "Gentle".[12]

Prospective donors are able to pay for dogs to be neutered via the organisation's website. A donation of £24 pays for "one dog to be spayed, vaccinated, health-checked and tagged"; £50 pays for "a student vet to receive training to learn how to deliver... the surgery". £500 funds the entire programme for a week, which would facilitate the treatment of up to 20 dogs.[12]

Vegan Tours in Palestine

The Palestinian Animal League runs tours of Palestine which combine "the political with the gastronomical".[13] The programme aims to challenge the negative images people have of Palestinians and to give tourists a chance to "see the beauty of the land, to taste the delicious flavours of the traditional cuisine" and to meet Palestinians "who are dedicated to the struggle for land, human and animal liberation".[13] The tour lasts seven days and covers Bethlehem, Hebron, Ramallah, and Nablus. It is based in Bethlehem, and participants are hosted by a Palestinian family in the Aida refugee camp. The chief tour operator is Sandra Guimarães, a self-described "vegan chef and a human and animal rights activist" from South America, who has lived in Palestine for over 10 years.[13]

Sudfeh

Sudfeh, meaning "coincidence", or "chance",[14] was the first-ever vegan restaurant in the Arab world.[15] The idea to open such a restaurant came as a result of students participating on the "Youth for Change" programme in 2015.[16] With a $70,000 USD loan from Al-Quds University, PAL opened Sudfeh on the university's Abu Dis campus.[16] Despite initial success, complaints over high prices and cultural expectations that dairy products and eggs would be part of the dishes reduced the restaurant's profitability, given competition from other outlets on campus.[16] After pressure from the university, PAL decided to turn the restaurant vegetarian, rather than vegan, in order to increase sales.[16] Nevertheless, in 2017 it became apparent that the business model was unsustainable and Sudfeh was forced to close.[16] The PAL team do, however, intend to reopen Sudfeh as a fully-vegan restaurant by June 2019, in Ramallah, somewhere they consider to be much more vegan-friendly. They aim to host art, cultural and music events at Sudfeh when it does reopen, and seek to exploit Ramallah's popularity with foreign tourists to ensure custom.[16]

International Speaking Tours

The PAL team have undertaken speaking tours abroad on several occasions. For example, between 7 and 23 April 2016, Ahmad Safi gave a series of talks throughout Poland, Switzerland, Italy, and France entitled "Animal Activism Under Occupation".[17] In May 2018, Ahlam Tarayra and Sameh Arekat performed a similar tour of Sweden and Denmark.[18] PAL have also given talks in academic settings, such as at a June 2018 event at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, which was organised as part of the "Genealogies of Knowledge" project by Professor Myriam Salama-Carr, in association with the university's Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies.[19][20]

Key Figures

Ahmad Safi

Ahmad Safi is a vegan and an animal rights activist. He is one of PAL's two founders and his work focuses particularly on PAL's international solidarity groups and on youth initiatives.[11] Ahmad has previously served as Executive Director for the group, founding it with Sameh Arekat after spotting a child throwing stones at a cat during a summer camp for children. Upon questioning the boy, Ahmad learnt that he had seen his brother beaten and taken away by Israeli soldiers the previous night, and was taking his frustrations out on the animal. Ahmad realised that this was emblematic of a wider issue, wherein Palestinians hurt and abuse animals in response to their own suffering, which he chalks up to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.[1] In September 2016, Ahmad gave comment to National Geographic about the rescue of animals from the Khan Yunis Zoo. In his post as then-Executive Director of PAL, he stated that whilst he is glad the animals have been moved to safety, he feels issues "such as wildlife trafficking and commercialization of wild animals in the Gaza Strip" mean that new animals will inevitably be brought into the zoo to live in the same inhumane conditions.[21] Ahmad is featured heavily in Penny Johnson's 2019 book, Companions in Conflict, in the context of his animal rights activism.[22]

Ahlam Tarayra

Ahlam Tarayra is PAL's current Executive Director. She is vegan and an animal rights activist, and joined PAL in 2017 with the aim of spreading an intersectional conception of animal rights in Palestine. Ahlam is also the Executive Director of MUSAWA – The Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession.[11]

Sameh Arekat

Sameh Arekat is PAL's co-founder[1] and Programmes Manager for education and volunteering. He has decades of experience working with young people in his role as Student Activities Coordinator at Al-Quds University.[11]

Reception

Media Coverage

In Palestine-Israel

Coverage of PAL in Palestine-Israel has been sparse. Nevertheless, in 2011, the Ma'an News Agency released an article covering PAL's foundation.[23] Additionally, PAL's now-defunct vegan café, Sudfeh, was the subject of an August 2016 +972 Magazine article.[24] Later, in February 2019, PAL was mentioned in an article by Ramallah-based Wattan News about an unrelated animal shelter in Beit Sahour, regarding their work with stray animals.[25]

Abroad

In the West, PAL has seen interest mostly from left-wing media outlets. For example, in June 2015, Ahmad Safi was interviewed as a representative of PAL on Melbourne-based 3CR radio's Freedom of Species programme. During the interview he explained that PAL's mission is to break the cycle of violence between humans and animals, and to create a positive Palestinian state, free from occupation.[26]

Furthermore, in February 2019, the Palestinian Animal League was featured in Spanish-language newspaper Público. In the article, PAL's Ahmad Safi and Ahlam Tarayra are interviewed in the context of PAL's recent Spanish speaker tour, and questioning revolves particularly around the group's ideological stance regarding the Israeli–Palestinian question.[27]

Reception by Israeli Activists

Sociologist Esther Alloun remarked in an article in Settler Colonial Studies that during her attendance at the fourth Israeli Vegan Congress, which occurred in 2017 in Tel Aviv, she noticed the complete omission of the work done by Palestinian animal rights activists. She was particularly struck by the failure to mention PAL, given their success in opening Sudfeh since the last conference took place. In the article she explains that this is because the Israeli animal rights movement "erases Palestinian activity, presence, and participation".[15]

Reception in Academia

The Palestinian Animal League and its activists are explored in depth in two academic studies. The first is a journal article by Esther Alloun, in which she contrasts PAL's intersectional stance on animal rights and the way in which the group "weaves animal activism with the decolonial struggle for Palestinian self-determination" with the typical Israeli activist's mentality.[28] This, she claims, is one in which animal and human rights have been "decoupled", that is, seen as separate, unrelated causes.[29] She asserts that veganism is "a personal consumer decision, akin to recycling" in this paradigm.[28] The second academic study which significantly features PAL is Penny Johnson's Companions in Conflict.[30] Published in 2019, the book follows PAL and other Palestinian animal rights activists' journeys, examining their relationship with animals and how this correlates with the occupation of Palestine.[30]

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Bedson.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "About Us".
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Youth Education and Empowerment".
  4. ↑ "Animal Welfare Law for Palestine".
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Street Dogs".
  6. ↑ "Palestine Animal League Conference: Defending Animal and Human Rights".
  7. ↑ Palestinian Animal League.
  8. ↑ "PAL's Spanish tour a huge success".
  9. ↑ Alloun, 565–566, 570.
  10. ↑ Hatuqa.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 "The Team".
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Palestine's first ever locally-run spay and neuter programme for street dogs launched".
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Guimarães.
  14. ↑ "صُدْفة [Coincidence]".
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Alloun, 560.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 16.5 "Sudfeh: Palestine’s First Vegan Restaurant, Challenges, and Lessons Learned".
  17. ↑ "PAL European Speaking Tour 2016".
  18. ↑ "PAL Team in European Tours".
  19. ↑ "PAL in UK".
  20. ↑ "'Developing and Translating Rights' event".
  21. ↑ Tenorio.
  22. ↑ E.g., Johnson, 96, 203.
  23. ↑ "تأسيس أول جمعية للرفق بالحيوان في فلسطين [The Foundation of the First Animal Rights Group in Palestine]".
  24. ↑ Salaime.
  25. ↑ "مأوى مهدد بالإزالة في بيت ساحور يفتح الباب واسعاً أمام مصير الكلاب الضالة في الأراضي الفلسطينية [A Shelter Threatened with Closure in Beit Sahour Opens Its Doors to Stray Dogs in the Palestinian Territories]".
  26. ↑ Freedom of Species.
  27. ↑ Tena.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Alloun, 559.
  29. ↑ Alloun, 559–560.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Johnson.

References

External Links

See Also


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