Palestine Program Fellow

JOB DESCRIPTION

Position Title: Palestine Program Fellow, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
Location: Jerusalem
Duration: 12 months fellowship
Reporting to: Palestine Program Manager
Type of contract: local hire
Starting Date: October 1st 2014

Brief Description of the program the Fellow will work on:
During FY14, the AFSC Palestine program focused primarily on implementing the Palestinian Youth: Together for Change project, part-funded by Bread for the World. This project, which is at the core of the Strategic Priority “Fostering cohesion among Palestinian communities in different locations” will be in its second year of operation during FY15.

In addition, the FY15 Palestine Program plan has identified the need to start the work around the Strategic Priority 2 "Supporting active nonviolence and social change movements", particularly focusing on supporting Palestinian grassroots movements working around issues of confiscation of Palestinian lands inside Israel. There is an ongoing pattern of displacement and land confiscation from Bedouin Palestinian communities in the northern Naqab (Negev).

Bedouin citizens of Israel, inhabitants of the Naqab (Negev) desert since the seventh century, are the most vulnerable community in Israel. For over 60 years, since the foundation of the State of Israel, the indigenous Arab Bedouin have faced a state policy of displacement, home demolitions and dispossession of their ancestral land. Today, 70,000 Arab Bedouin citizens live in 35 villages that either predate the establishment of the State in 1948, or were created by Israeli military order in the early 1950s. The State of Israel considers the villages “unrecognized” and the inhabitants “trespassers on State land,” so it denies the citizens access to state infrastructure like water, electricity, sewage, education, health care and roads.

The Palestine program will initiate activities aimed at looking at the current need of grassroots movements working to counter on-going land confiscation of Palestinian lands inside Israel and to link those (where and when possible) with the current struggles carried out by resistance movements inside the occupied Palestinian territory. In order to do so, the Palestine Program will be looking at the following:

1-Assessment of the capacity of Palestinian grassroots activist groups working to counter the ongoing expropriation of Palestinian lands inside Israel.
2-Identification of similar ongoing struggles against land appropriation and confiscation inside the occupied Palestinian territory.

The project is designed to meet a specific need at this juncture in the development of the Palestinian resistance to land appropriation. The outcomes will be a capacity assessment of Palestinian activist groups in Israel, and the identification of potential linkages with Palestinian groups in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Main position purpose:
The purpose of the fellowship is to carry out an assessment of the capacity of Palestinian grassroots activist groups working to counter the ongoing expropriation of Palestinian lands inside Israel, particularly in the Naqab. Such an assessment will be used in order to identify capacity building needs and identify resources needed.
The fellow will be based in the Regional Office in East Jerusalem.

Requirements:
-Demonstrated experience in research, assessments and/or needs identification of communities
-Deep knowledge of the challenges and issues facing communities exposed to land appropriation and displacement particularly in the Naqab but also in the oPt.
-Analytical skills and ability to transform research findings into programmatic actions.
-Experience in conducting focus groups discussions, in-depth interviews and designing questionnaires.
-Proven ability to reach out collaboratively to individuals, groups and organizations. Ability to network effectively with activist groups
-Arabic and Hebrew are a must with a good working knowledge of English.

Presentation of application
Individuals interested in this position should send their CV and a cover letter to

[email protected]

before COB July 17th, 2014. Applications received after this date will not be considered.

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