On Monday, June 15th, around twenty Palestinian solidarity activists protested Petach Tikva’s presence at the 4th annual Chicago Sister Cities International Festival in downtown Daley Plaza. The demonstration was organized by Palestine Solidarity Group and is part of a recent campaign to pressure the city to drop Petach Tikva from its sister city program. Chicago solidarity activists object to a partnership with Israeli cities while the Palestinian people suffer under occupation and dispossession.

At 12pm, activists held signs and Palestinian flags in front of Petach Tikva’s booth, which was selling body products from Jericho, a Palestinian city. The demonstrators also distributed leaflets with information about Petach Tikva to festival participants, encouraging at least two people to join the demonstration after reading the flyer. Not all responses were as positive however. One activist was spit on when he attempted to give out a leaflet.

The staff at Petach Tikva’s booth quickly became agitated and called security. Security and Chicago police officers claimed the entire plaza was private property, and ordered to demonstrators to stand instead on the adjacent sidewalk. After about half an hour of negotiating, the activists decided to leave the plaza and leaflet on the sidewalk.

The demonstrators then proceeded to City Hall, where they delivered a letter to the mayor’s office, who is Honorary Chairman of the Sister City Committee, requesting that Petach Tikva be dropped from the program. A copy of the letter was also delivered to other members of the Committee.

Petach Tikva, known in Israel as the “Mother of all settlements”, was the very first Jewish-exclusive settlement established in Palestine before the founding the Israel state on the land previously owned by the Palestinians of Mlabbes. The inhabitants of Mlabbes were subsequently forced to leave their land to join the millions of Palestinians of the Diaspora. To this day, Petach Tikva remains a symbol of the confiscation and occupation of Palestinian land. As such, the Sister City partnership between Chicago and Petach Tikva is a slap in the face to the large community of Palestinian descent living in the City of Chicago.

In the Palestinian territories, Petach Tikva is best known for the infamous Israel Security Agency interrogation and detention centre of Petach Tikva. Petach Tikva is one of the main locations used by the ISA to detain and interrogate Palestinians. It is well documented that Palestinians are routinely tortured and detained without charges in this facility. As such, Petach Tikva actively contributes to the occupation of Palestine. The Sister City partnership between Chicago and Petach Tikva provides legitimacy to these practices and works against the goals of the Sister Cities Program in promoting peace.