From: WRL West <wrlwest [at] riseup.net>
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 11:10:13 -0800
BAY AREA JEWISH ACTIVIST FIGHTS DEPORTATION FROM ISRAEL

Please support this longtime bay area nonviolent activist (and WRL West
member).

Please read the press release and appeal for funds below and post widely.

Kate has filed an appeal of her deportation order, and the judge issued an
order to stop the deportation so that she can do the appeal. The prosecutor
has until 12-23 to reply to her appeal.

Since Kate is representing herself, the financial cost is somewhat less than it
would otherwise be, but court proceedings always require money. She has paid to
file the appeal, and may incur other costs. Please consider donating to help
Kate fight deportation! Any amount -- large or small -- will help in this
effort.

Checks of $50 or more can be made out to the Middle East Children’s Alliance,
and designated “IWPS/legal funds.” Checks of less than $50 should be made out
directly to IWPS, and designated “legal funds.”

Please send all donations to:
IWPS
2018 Shattuck Ave, PMB 122
Berkeley, CA 94704

_________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BAY AREA JEWISH ACTIVIST FIGHTS DEPORTATION FROM ISRAEL
Contact:
Kate Raphael Bender, (011-972)547-870-198
Lisa Belenky, 415-863-8604

Dec. 20, 2004, San Francisco--Kate Raphael Bender, a Jewish lesbian activist
from the Bay Area, filed an appeal in Israeli Court today requesting that the
order to deport her be revoked.

Raphael Bender has spent 12 of the last 15 months in the occupied Palestinian
territories volunteering with Palestinian and international human rights
groups. She was arrested on December 14 at a protest against the construction
of the Apartheid Wall in Belain village, Ramallah District.

Currently Raphael Bender is being held in Tsochar Prison near Israel’s border
with Egypt and the Gaza strip. Kelly Minio-Paluetto, 23, of Madison Wisconsin
is imprisoned in the same facility. The two women were arrested while filming
the severe beating of a teenage Palestinian by a group of Israeli border
police.

Raphael Bender states in her appeal, "The Apartheid Wall has been held to be
illegal by the International Court of Justice. Israel has been ordered to cease
construction of the Wall. The International Court ruling requires foreign
governments to take steps to force Israel to comply with the ruling. Foreign
governments have not met this obligation."

The appeal goes on to point out that, Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands
in the West Bank and Gaza is illegal under UN Resolution 242. The U.S.
government continues to fund the occupation with 13 million dollars a day.

Apartheid is defined by the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights as a
crime against humanity. Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid based on its
legal discrimination between ethnic and religious groups in regard to ownership
of land and property, immigration rights, citizenship rights, political
freedoms, and access to benefits.

Raphael Bender argued that the Israeli government has no right to deport her
for trying to prevent it from committing illegal acts. She cites the partisans
in Nazi occupied Europe and the international brigades who fought in the
Spanish Civil War as examples of international citizens who intervened to
prevent atrocities when their governments refused to act.

Raphael Bender will represent herself in the appeals process. Israel has
deported dozens of foreign activists in the last two years. This is the first
time that someone has based their appeal on the responsibility of individuals
to take action when governments do not. The appeal stays the deportation order.
Bail has been denied, so Raphael Bender will await her court hearing in jail.

Since 1923 the War Resisters League has affirmed that war is a crime against
humanity. We therefore are determined not to support any kind of war,
international or civil, and to strive nonviolently for the removal of all the
causes of war.