Draft:Ingrid Jaradat Gassner

Ingrid Jaradat Gassner

Ingrid Jaradat Gassner (born Austria; died 2023) was a human rights advocate, researcher, public relations coordinator, and policy analyst known for her work on Palestinian refugee rights and international law. She was a co-founder and director of the BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. She was also involved in the founding of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Early life and education

Ingrid Jaradat Gassner was born and raised in Austria and grew up without any personal connection to Palestine. Her first visit to the region came almost by accident, when she and her friends undertook voluntary work on an Israeli kibbutz after completing secondary school (although her preferred destination had been Latin America). During her stay in Israel, she came to believe that kibbutz life bore little relation to socialism and felt that discussions with Israelis about the Zionist–Palestinian conflict often overlooked its underlying causes.

She completed a B.A. degree at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. While studying in Jerusalem she engaged with the anti-Zionist socialist group Matzpen. Jaradat Gassner remained politically active thereafter, and was involved with socialist organisations in Austria and anti-colonial movements from Latin America, before returning to Palestine during the First Intifada to work with the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem.

Between 1983 and 1988, she lived in Austria, where she obtained a Master of Arts degree in education and sociology from Salzburg University. Her thesis investigated educational policies and the Palestinian minority.

Career

In 1988, Jaradat Gassner returned to Palestine to work at the Alternative Information Center, where she coordinated the Project for the Palestinian Residency & Refugee Rights.

In 1998, she co-founded BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights together with her husband, Muhammad Jaradat. BADIL is an independent, human rights non-profit organisation committed to defend and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons. During her time at BADIL, Jaradat Gassner was responsible, among other duties, for developing institutional strategies, fundraising, preparing institutional reports, and carrying out advocacy and information work.

Jaradat Gassner also served as advocacy and public relations coordinator at the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCPRJ). CCPRJ is an East Jerusalem-based union of Palestinian NGOs cooperating to protect and promote the human rights of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem, including the right to self-determination. While at CCPRJ, Jaradat Gassner co-authored the report entitled "Occupied East Jerusalem", submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council Independent International Commission of Inquiry Investigating all Violations of International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 13 June 2014.

Jaradat Gassner also coordinated a research initiative seeking to register exiled Palestinians as voters and proposals for direct elections to the Palestine National Council.

During her career, Jaradat Gassner made important academic contributions and policy analyses on Palestinian refugees, displacement, the Israeli apartheid, and international law. Her chapter "Palestinian Refugees: From 'Spoilers' to Agents of Development" was published in the book Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), edited by Mandy Turner and Omar Shweiki. She authored the chapter "A Programme For An Independent Rights Campaigned" published in the book Palestinian refugees: the right of return (Pluto Press, 2001), edited by Naseer Aruri. She was a regular contributor to Al-Shabaka (the Palestinian Policy Network). She also published in the Palestine-Israel Journal and contributed to the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP). In 2012, she published a memorandum providing a legal framework for advocacy aimed at holding States accountable to their legal obligations vis-à-vis the illegal Israeli settlements in the 1967 Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory has dedicated a chapter of her book When the World Sleeps, titled "Ingrid", to the work of Ingrid Jaradat Gassner.

Personal life

Ingrit Jaradat Gassner married Muhammad Jaradat, a Palestinian activist and co-founder of BADIL. The couple had one son, Nadim, and lived in Beit Jala, West Bank.

Death

Ingrid Jaradat Gassner died in 2023.

In 2024, the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the largest coalition of Palestinian entities in historic Palestine and in exile that is leading the global BDS movement, established the Ingrid Jaradat Award (IJA) in her memory. According to the organisation's announcement, her tombstone near Bethlehem bears the following inscription:

We promise you to smile whenever we can, like you did; to keep on going no matter what, struggling, reflecting, defending hope despite the pain, falling, standing up again, modifying the path, resuming the struggle, and ultimately winning our liberation!