MCC Palestine Update #89

MCC Palestine Update #89

November 27, 2003

This past week my family and I had two good friends as guests for five days: our former landlady from Zababdeh, the northern West Bank village where we once taught English, and her three-year-old daughter. Our friend had come to Jerusalem to check in on her ten-year-old son, who lives as a boarding student with nuns in a Jerusalem convent and had fallen ill. Getting into Jerusalem, however, was no simple matter. Our friend and her daughter left Zababdeh at 2 am, setting out for a five hour drive to the Qalandia checkpoint in northern Jerusalem. The drive took them and their fellow passengers through multiple back roads and in and out of olive fields. Once in Qalandia, her journey was not yet over. She took another taxi all around Jerusalem, down to Abu Dis to the south of the city. There, she and her 3-year-old faced an 7 to 8 foot obstacle made of concrete blocks. Like hundreds of Palestinians do everyday, our friend and her daughter found a place in the wall made of concrete blocks where they could find footholds. Once on top, our friend lowered her daughter down. As they were climbing over, our friend's daughter kept telling her to hurry. "The soldiers will come!" the daughter said: the entire trip down in the car, the daughter had been talking to her mother about her fear of the soldiers. The soldiers, fortunately, did not come, and our friend (who, as you have probably guessed) did not have a permit to be in Jerusalem, made it to the convent where she could see her sick son. Our friend and her children made it back to Zababdeh earlier this week.

As my family and I celebrate U.S. Thanksgiving Day tomorrow, we'll be giving thanks for the love that pushes mothers, fathers, and grandparents every day to cross through and find difficult ways around military roadblocks in order to care for their sick children; we'll be giving thanks for the faithful institutions of the Palestinian churches that minister to all children, Christian and Muslim alike; we'll be giving thanks for the witness of those young Israeli men who refuse to participate in the daily rituals of humiliation and control at checkpoints in the occupied territories; and we'll be giving thanks for Palestinian and Israeli peacemakers who work for a shared future of justice, peace, and reconciliation.

Below you will find three pieces. In the first, Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy summarizes the memoirs of Staff Sgt. Liran Ron Furer, a young Israeli man in his mid-20s who has written an account of his three years of military service in the Gaza Strip. Furer's accout of his actions at the checkpoints where he worked are troubling, haunting, and give a disturbing insight into how the occupation and its military roadblocks and checkpoints are dehumanizing not only Palestinians but Israelis as well. The second piece, by MCC's partner organization on Palestinian refugee issues, Badil, examines how human rights standards, including those that address refugees, will have to be incorporated into any lasting peace agreement, any agreement, that is, that seeks to be "conflict resolution" rather than "conflict management." In the final piece, Haaretz journalist Danny Rubinstein examines what he calls the "strangulation fence" and its effect on Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.

--Alain Epp Weaver


1. Twilight Zone: ‘I punched an Arab in the face’
Gideon Levy
Haaretz, 21 November 2003

Staff Sergeant (res.) Liran Ron Furer cannot just routinely get on with his life anymore. He is haunted by images from his three years of military service in Gaza and the thought that this could be a syndrome afflicting everyone who serves at checkpoints gives him no respite. On the verge of completing his studies in the design program at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, he decided to drop everything and devote all his time to the book he wanted to write. The major publishers he brought it to declined to publish it. The publisher that finally accepted it (Gevanim) says that the Steimatzky bookstore chain refuses to distribute it. But Furer is determined to bring his book to the public's attention. "You can adopt the most hard-line political positions, but no parent would agree to his son becoming a thief, a criminal or a violent person," says Furer. "The problem is that it's never presented this way. The boy himself doesn't portray himself this way to his family when he returns from the territories. On the contrary - he is received as a hero, as someone who is doing the important work of being a soldier. No one can be indifferent to the fact that there are many families in which, in a certain sense, there are already two generations of criminals. The father went through it and now the son is going through it and no one talks about it around the dinner table." Furer is certain that what happened to him is not at all unique. Here he was - a creative, sensitive graduate of the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts, who became an animal at the checkpoint, a violent sadist who beat up Palestinians because they didn't show him the proper courtesy, who shot out tires of cars because their owners were playing the radio too loud, who abused a retarded teenage boy lying handcuffed on the floor of the Jeep, just because he had to take his anger out somehow. "Checkpoint Syndrome" (also the title of his book), gradually transforms every soldier into an animal, he maintains, regardless of whatever values he brings with him from home. No one can escape its taint. In a place where nearly everything is permissible and violence is perceived as normative behavior, each soldier tests his own limits of violence impulsiveness on his victims - the Palestinians. His book is not easy reading. Written in terse, fierce prose, in the blunt and coarse language of soldiers, he reconstructs scenes from the years in which he served in Gaza (1996-1999), years that, one must remember, were relatively quiet. He describes how he and his comrades forced some Palestinians to sing "Elinor" - "It was really something to see these Arabs singing a Zohar Argov song, like in a movie"; the emotions the Palestinians aroused in him - "Sometimes these Arabs really disgust me, especially those that try to toady up to us - the older ones, who come to the checkpoint with this smile on their faces"; the reactions they spurred - "If they really annoy us, we find away to keep them stuck at the checkpoint for a few hours. They lose a whole day of work because of it sometimes, but that's the only way they learn." He described how they would order children to clean the checkpoint before inspection time; how a soldier named Shahar invented a game: "He checks someone's identity card, and instead of handing it back to him, just tosses it in the air. He got a kick out of seeing the Arab have to get out of his car to pick up his identity card ... It's a game for him and he can pass a whole shift this way"; how they humiliated a dwarf who came to the checkpoint every day on his wagon: "They forced him to have his picture taken on the horse, hit him and degraded him for a good half hour and let him go only when cars arrived at the checkpoint. The poor guy, he really didn't deserve it"; how they had a souvenir picture taken with bloodied, bound Arabs whom they'd beaten up; how Shahar pissed on the head of an Arab because the man had the nerve to smile at a soldier; how Dado forced an Arab to stand on four legs and bark like a dog; and how they stole prayer beads and cigarettes - "Miro wanted them to give him their cigarettes, the Arabs didn't want to give so Miro broke someone's hand, and Boaz slashed their tires." Chilling confession The most chilling of all the personal confessions: "I ran toward them and punched an Arab right in the face. I'd never punched anyone that way. He collapsed on the road. The officers said that we had to search him for his papers. We pulled his hands behind his back and I bound them with plastic handcuffs. Then we blindfolded him so he wouldn't see what was in the Jeep. I picked him up from the road. Blood was trickling from his lip onto his chin. I led him up behind the Jeep and threw him in, his knees banged against the trunk and he landed inside. We sat in the back, stepping on the Arab ... Our Arab lay there pretty quietly, just crying softly to himself. His face was right on my flak jacket and he was bleeding and making a kind of puddle of blood and saliva, and it disgusted and angered me, so I grabbed him by the hair and turned his head to the side. He cried out loud and to get him to stop, we stepped harder and harder on his back. That quieted him down for a while and then he started up again. We concluded that he was either retarded or crazy. "The company commander informed us over the radio that we had to bring him to the base. `Good work, tigers,' he said, teasing us. All the other soldiers were waiting there to see what we'd caught. When we came in with the Jeep, they whistled and applauded wildly. We put the Arab next to the guard. He didn't stop crying and someone who understood Arabic said that his hands were hurting from the handcuffs. One of the soldiers went up to him and kicked him in the stomach. The Arab doubled over and grunted, and we all laughed. It was funny ... I kicked him really hard in the ass and he flew forward just as I'd expected. They shouted that I was a totally crazy, and they laughed ... and I felt happy. Our Arab was just a 16-year-old mentally retarded boy." In his sister's rooftop Tel Aviv apartment, where he is living now, Furer, 26, comes across as a thoughtful, intelligent young man. He grew up in Givatayim, after his parents immigrated from the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Before Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, his mother was a right-wing activist, but he says that their home was not political. He wanted to be in a combat unit in the army, and served in two elite infantry units. He did his entire army service in the Gaza Strip. After the army, he traveled to India, like so many others. "Now I was free. The crazy energies of Goa and the chakras opened my mind ... You stuck me in this stinking Gaza and before that you brainwashed me with your rifles and your marches, you turned me into a dishrag that didn't think anymore," he wrote from Goa. But it was only afterward, when he was studying at Bezalel, that the experiences from his army service really began to affect him. "I came to realize that there was an unchanging pattern here," he says. "It was the same in the first intifada, in the period that I was serving, which was quiet, and in the second intifada. It's become a permanent reality. I started to feel very uncomfortable with the fact that such a loaded subject was hardly mentioned at all in public. People listened to the victim and they listened to the politicians, but this voice that says: I did this, we did things that were wrong - crimes, actually - that's a voice I didn't hear. The reason it wasn't being heard was a combination of repression - just as I repressed it and ignored it - and of deep feelings of guilt. "As soon as you get away from army service, the political and media reality around you is not ready to hear this voice. I remember that I was surprised that no soldier had gone public with this yet. It all somehow dissolved in the debate about the legitimacy of settlement in the territories, about the occupation - for or against - and nothing connected to the routine of maintaining the occupation appeared in the media or in art." Not an individual caseFurer is out to prove that this is a syndrome and not a collection of isolated, individual cases. That's why he deleted a lot of personal details from the original manuscript, in order to underscore the general nature of what he describes. "During my army service, I believed that I was atypical, because I came from a background of art and creativity. I was considered a moderate soldier - but I fell into the same trap that most soldiers fall into. I was carried away by the possibility of acting in the most primal and impulsive manner, without fear of punishment and without oversight. You're tense about it at first, but as you get more comfortable at the checkpoint over time, the behavior becomes more natural. People gradually test the limits of their behavior toward the Palestinians. It gradually becomes coarser and coarser. "The more confident I became with the situation, as soon as we reached the conclusion - each one at his own stage - that we are the rulers, we are the strong ones, and when we felt our power, each one started to stretch the limits more and more, in accordance with his personality. As soon as serving at the checkpoint became routine, all kinds of deviant behavior became normal. It started with `souvenir collecting': We'd confiscate prayer beads and then it was cigarettes and it didn't stop. It became normative behavior. "After that came the power games. We got the message from above that we were to project seriousness and deterrence to the Arabs. Physical violence also became normative. We felt free to punish any Palestinian who didn't follow the `proper code of behavior' at the checkpoint. Anyone we thought wasn't polite enough to us or tried to act smart - was severely punished. It was deliberate harassment on the most trivial pretexts. "During my army service, there wasn't a single incident that made us understand, or made our commanders interfere. No one talked about what was permitted and what was not. It was all a matter of routine. In retrospect, the biggest source of guilt feelings for me didn't happen at the checkpoint, but by the Gush Katif fence, when we caught the retarded boy. I demonstrated the most extreme behavior. It was a chance for me to catch one - the closest thing to catching a terrorist, a chance to vent all the pressure and impulses that had built up in all of us. To lash out the way we wanted to. We were used to giving slaps, to handcuffing, to a little kicking, a little beating, and here was a situation in which it was justified to let go entirely. Also, the officer who was with us was himself very violent. We gave the kid a real beating and as soon as we got to the post, I remember having a great feeling of pride, that I'd been treated like someone strong. They said, `What a nut you are, how crazy you are,' which was basically like saying, `How strong you are.' "At the checkpoint, young people have the chance to be masters and using force and violence becomes legitimate - and this is a much more basic impulse than the political views or values that you bring from home. As soon as using force is given legitimacy, and even rewarded, the tendency is to take it as far as it can go, to exploit it much as possible. To satisfy these impulses beyond what the situation requires. Today, I'd call it sadistic impulses ... "We weren't criminals or especially violent people. We were a group of good boys, a relatively `high-quality' group, and for all of us - and we still talk about this sometimes - the checkpoint became a place to test our personal limits. How tough, how callous, how crazy we could be - and we thought of that in the positive sense. Something about the situation - being in a godforsaken place, far from home, far from oversight - made it justified ... The line of what is forbidden was never precisely drawn. No one was ever punished and they just let us continue. "Today, I feel confident saying that even the most senior ranks - the brigade commander, the battalion commander - are aware of the power that soldiers have in this situation and what they do with it. How could a commander not be aware of it when the more crazy and tough his soldiers are, the quieter his sector is? The more complex picture of the long-term effects of this violent behavior is something you only become conscious of when you get away from the checkpoint. "Today it's clear to me that that boy whose father we humiliated for the flimsiest of reasons will grow up to hate anyone who represents what was done to his father. I definitely have an understanding of their motives now. We are cruelty, we are power. I'm sure that their response is affected by elements related to their society - a disregard for human life and a readiness to sacrifice lives - but the basic desire to resist, the hatred itself, the fear - I feel are completely justified and legitimate, even if it's risky to say so. "It's impossible to be in such an emotional state and to go back home on leave and detach yourself from it. I was very insensitive to the feelings of my girlfriend at the time. I was an animal, even when I was on leave. It also sticks with you after your service. I saw the remnants of the syndrome in India - something about being in the Third World, among dark-skinned people, brings out the worst of the `ugly Israeli,' which is as Israeli as it gets. Or the way you react to a smile: When Palestinians would smile at me at the checkpoint, I got tense and construed it as defiance, as chutzpah. When someone smiled at me in India, I immediately went on the defensive. "I was an average soldier," he says. "I was the joker of the group. Now I see that I was often the one to take the lead in violent situations. I often was the one who gave the slap. I'm the one who came up with all kinds of ideas like letting the air out of tires. It sounds twisted now, but we really admired anyone who could beat up some guy who supposedly had it coming. The officer we admired most was the officer who fired his weapon at every opportunity. Out of everyone I've spoken to, I've been left with the most guilt feelings ... A friend from the army read the book and said that I'm right, that we did bad things, but we were kids. And he said that it's a shame that I took it too hard."


2. Conflict Management or Conflict Resolution

BADIL Occasional Bulletin No. 13November 2003

This Bulletin aims to provide a brief overview of issues related to Palestinian Refugee Rights

Peace agreements--provisions on rights, refugees and participation: This analysis of human rights provisions is the first of a 3-part series on recent agreements. Part Two examines how they deal with refugees and Part Three is on public participation in formulating agreements.

Conflicts are unique and so are the mechanisms set up to resolve them. But in most cases, human rights are considered an important element for conflict resolution.

What makes the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and its resolution particularly unique is the virtual absence, in any peace proposals to date, of human rights regulations or provision for the establishment of human rights institutions. This implies that the two parties have yet to agree on the underlying root causes of the conflict and how they should go about resolving the conflict.

Peace agreements, like national constitutions, replace “the arbitrary use of power with its legal regulation through checks and balances.”* Thus human rights are a key element in a successful agreement, providing a common framework to regulate relations between former antagonists, mediate future disputes and reconcile past injustices.

Many agreements include provisions for new human rights institutions to monitor respect for human rights, educate the general public, hold accountable persons who have violated the human rights of others and investigate and recommend remedies for past violations.

The following is a summary of the role of human rights and the Palestinian-Israeli negotiation process; a comparative overview of human rights provisos in other peace agreements; and observations on recent peacemaking experience.

Missing from the start

Human rights have been marginal to the Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking process that began in Madrid more than a decade ago. The Madrid-Oslo process focused primarily on security and the transfer of certain powers to a limited self-governing authority in 1967 occupied Palestine.

According to the initial framework agreement (1993 Declaration of Principles) Israel and the PLO agreed to recognize “mutual legitimate and political rights” in order to “achieve a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement and historic reconciliation through the agreed political process.” There is no mention of international law or the UN Charter as the basic framework for negotiations and future relations between the two.

Subsequent interim agreements include only limited references to human rights. They are first mentioned in the 1994 Gaza-Jericho agreement (Article XIV; Annex I,
Article VIII) in regard to the exercise of “powers and responsibilities” under the agreement. Annex III, Article II also stipulates that the parties to the agreement shall
ensure that persons transferred for criminal investigation will be treated in accordance with accepted human rights norms. The 1995 Interim Agreement (Article XIX; Annex I, Article XI(7), Article 11(7)(h)(1)) and the 1998 Wye River Memorandum (Article II(4)) include similar provisions.

While the agreements include numerous references delineating agreed-upon “rights” of both parties the only reference in the agreements to “legal rights” concerns “Government and Absentee property” that was “acquired” by Israelis in the occupied territories (Interim Agreement, Annex III, Appendix I, Article 16(3) and Article 22(3). Palestinians are obliged under the agreement to respect these rights.

Common to all these agreements is the absence of specific references to internationally accepted human rights norms. None establish human rights institutions to monitor and investigate human rights violations. Moreover, both the Interim agreement (Article XI(1), Annex I) and the Wye River Memorandum (Article II(4)) suggest that internationally accepted norms are subject to the agreement rather than vice versa.

Recent unofficial initiatives on the outlines of a final status agreement follow a similar approach, omitting rights altogether (e.g. Nusseibeh-Ayalon and the Geneva understandings). The latter actually states that where the agreement and the UN Charter conflict, the agreement itself overrides the UN Charter Article 2 (6).

The absence of human rights and international law, in general, from past agreements and current initiatives can be explained in part by looking at some historical background.

Focus on security: Since 1967, peacemaking has largely focused on security based on the political notion of ‘land for peace’ under which Israel would return some conquered land in the occupied territories for a lasting peace agreement. This incorrectly implies a symmetrical relationship between the parties and that Palestinians have peace and only need land. Human rights norms are secondary and their inclusion has been undermined or even cast aside when they interfere with Israel’s security considerations.

Unwillingness to recognize certain rights: Recognition of certain rights such as refugees’ right to return to their homes of origin could lead, in Israel’s view, to unacceptable political outcomes. Human rights interfere with its arbitrary exercise of power.

Unresolved and conflicting narratives/views on the conflict itself: Human rights and international law have played a fundamental role in the Palestinian view of the conflict. Their proposals during pre-Oslo talks in Washington, for example, include key references to international law. Israel disagrees fundamentally, hence the absence of human rights.

Key role of human rights in other agreements

Human rights are a key element in peace agreements, playing a particularly important regulatory role in ethno-national conflicts. Agreements in Bosnia, Kosovo, Burundi, and Rwanda, for example, contain particularly detailed human rights provisions. In general, they delineate applicable norms; provide for legal, including constitutional, reform to incorporate greater recognition of human rights principles; and establish institutions to monitor, investigate and adjudicate future and past human rights violations.

The peace agreements in Bosnia Herzegovina, Kosovo, Burundi, Cambodia, East Timor, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda all have specific reference to applicable international human rights conventions and most delineate specific human rights. A list of 14 international human rights instruments to be applied in Bosnia Herzegovina is even annexed to the 1995 Dayton Agreements.

Provisions for constitutional reform to strengthen recognition of human rights norms are also included. The constitution attached to the 1999 Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo, for example, states that the rights and freedoms set forth in the European Convention for the Protection of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms and its Protocols shall apply directly in Kosovo and have priority over all other law. Similar provisions for constitutional reform are found in Bosnia and Cambodia.

Education is also an important component of peacebuilding. The 2000 Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement for Burundi, for example, calls for a major educational and awareness program for peace, unity and reconciliation. In Cambodia, the UN transition administration was required to develop and implement educational programs to promote respect for and understanding of human rights. In Sierra Leone, the parties pledged to promote human rights education through schools, media, police, military and the religious community.

Mechanisms to monitor respect for human rights, investigate and provide remedies for future human rights violations also feature in some agreements. The 1994 Protocol of Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Rwanda and the Rwandan Patriotic Front on the Rule of Law establishes an independent National Commission on Human Rights to investigate human rights violations and use the findings to sensitize and educate the public on human rights and bring legal proceedings where necessary.

Similar commissions are provided for in the Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Guatemala, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Burundi, Bosnia, and Kosovo agreements. Remedies for victims of human rights violations include compensation.

Some establish independent mechanisms to investigate and prosecute individuals found responsible for past grave human rights violations. The Burundi agreement, for example, asks the UN Security Council to establish an international criminal tribunal to try and punish those responsible for acts of genocide, war crimes and other crimes against humanity. The Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights in Guatemala (1994) establishes a Commission to clarify past violations and issue recommendations to encourage peace and national harmony. Agreements in Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda establish similar mechanisms for transitional justice.

Finally, many agreements also include provisions to commemorate the victims of human rights violations. The Arusha agreement (Burundi) calls for a national monument in memory of all victims of genocide, war crimes and other crimes against humanity and a national day of remembrance. The Guatemala agreement requires measures to preserve the memory of the victims to foster a culture of mutual respect and observance of human rights and to strengthen the democratic process.

Human rights, the common framework

Human rights are sine qua non for a peace agreement. Human rights provisions may not provide ironclad guarantees that violations will not recur, but they provide a common framework to regulate relations between former antagonists, resolve future disputes, rehabilitate victims of past violations, and ensure that no individual or party is above the law and can act with impunity.

As numerous human rights organizations have observed, recent experience around the world has shown the legitimacy and sustainability of political processes are strengthened, not weakened, by the inclusion of human rights standards. Disregarding human rights, or subordinating these rights to political considerations, can only undermine the prospects of achieving durable peace and security.

The inability of the international community to effectively monitor and enforce human rights in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the lack of political support to ensure codification of such principles and the establishment of corresponding human rights mechanisms in peace agreements between Israel and the PLO has led to a situation where the peacemaking process continues to be governed by the arbitrary use of power.

A deeper problem

The virtual absence of human rights from Palestinian-Israeli peace agreements and current political initiatives also points to a deeper problem. Comparative experience

suggests that human rights provisions in peace agreements stem from agreement between the parties about the function and role of human rights and, therefore, an agreement about the nature of the conflict itself and related remedies.

The absence of human rights in existing agreements and recent initiatives thus implies that the parties have yet to agree on the underlying root causes of their conflict. Such agreements and initiatives can, at best, provide for conflict management, but cannot be seen as resolving all outstanding claims between Israel and the Palestinians or providing just and durable solutions for Palestinians and Israelis alike.

Past experience, community involvement and the rule of law are three major components of any peace and reconciliation plan, according to BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. BADIL promotes research into these areas, encourages Palestinian community participation in formulating peace agreements and organizes fact-finding visits to areas repairing the damage of conflict such as South Africa and Bosnia-Herzogovina.
***

* Christine Bell, Peace Agreements and Human Rights, 2000


3. A strangulation fence
Danny Rubinstein
Haaretz, 24 November 2003

Despite all the criticism of the separation fence both in Israel and abroad, a majority of the Israeli public is still enthusiastic about it (83 percent support it, as opposed to 12 percent who are against it, according to the Peace Index of October, 2003, as published in Haaretz on November 4). This enthusiasm clearly has a security background, but also a political background. Everyone who wants to arrive at the solution of two states for two peoples supports separation between the two entities - and if separation, then why not a fence?

A certain enthusiasm for separation between the two peoples has prevailed in Israel ever since the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967. Moshe Dayan, who laid down the lines of Israeli policy in the territories after the Six Day War, favored maximum possible integration between Israel and the territories - but he too called again and again for "not getting into the Palestinians." That is, to minimize as much as possible a permanent Israeli presence in heavily populated areas and not to fly the Israeli flag in every corner of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. He wanted the Arabs in the territories to manage their civil affairs themselves. "My father didn't come to Degania and Nahalal in order to run the education system in Nablus or the orchards in Gaza," he once said.

Yitzhak Rabin's electioneering slogan "Get Gaza out of Tel Aviv" was one of the reasons for his success in the 1992 elections - and another call for separation formulated as "We here and they there" was among one of Ehud Barak's popular statements.

The bloody clashes and the terror attacks of the Al Aqsa Intifada of course brought the Israeli support for separation and the construction of the fence to a peak. Among the supporters of the fence in Israel are hawks and doves, centrists, leftists and rightists. In short, nearly everyone.

Among the Palestinian public, the picture is different. Their main sources of employment are in Israel, and they also want free access to the centers of commerce, medical services and recreational sites in Israel. But the official Palestinian position cannot be opposed in principle to the fence; they oppose only any deviation of the separation wall from the Green Line (the pre-June 1967 border). Palestinian spokespersons have frequently stated: Israel is entitled to build as many fences and walls as it wants - but only inside its own territories and not in the Palestinian territories.

The Palestine Liberation Organization steering committee, which convened at Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's headquarters at the end of last week, decided that the Palestinians will apply to the International Court of Justice in The Hague to file a suit against the construction of the fence. In Jerusalem, the head of the Islamic courts Sheikh Rajib Bayyud al Tamimi (whom Arafat appointed about a year ago), announced the launching of a public struggle against the fence in the city, as its aim is to "strengthen the Judaization of Jerusalem."

The deviations of the fence from the old 1967 border into the territories are not a marginal issue in the affair. They are the main issue. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his government ministers, who support the fence, are exploiting the large public support that there is in Israel for ideas of separation in order to build fences and walls. However, more than these stand between Israelis and Palestinians - they are creating, in a large part of the West Bank, a reality of siege and distress in which the Palestinians cannot live. It sometimes seems that most of the Israeli public that so yearns for separation and security does not realize that in fact a wall of strangulation is being built in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

MCC Palestine Update #88

MCC Palestine Update #88

November 14, 2003

“It was like an earthquake.” That was how Fayez al-Banna of Block G in the refugee camp of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip described the arrival of Israeli tanks and bulldozers that came in October to destroy his four-story building, along with scores of other homes. At least 1250 Palestinians from Rafah camp were left homeless after the October invasions. On Sunday, November 9, MCC joined the Culture and Free Thought Association in distributing food packets and blankets to the families who had lost their homes. While grateful for the assistance, many recipients wanted to know why the world was more or less silent in the face of these house demolitions. Two days later, on November 11, the Israeli military destroyed 15 more homes in Rafah.

This past week has been an international week of action against the apartheid wall being built in the West Bank. MCC’s partner organization, the Palestinian Environmental NGO Network, has been a leader in providing high-quality resources and information about the wall. For stories, facts and figures, information sheets, articles, and powerpoint resources on the wall, go to http://www.stopthewall.org/.

Below you will find four pieces. The first, by Neve Gordon, professor of human rights at Ben Gurion University in the Negev, asks why the world is silent in the face of the apartheid reality being created by the construction of the fence/wall/barrier. The second and third pieces, by Danny Rubinstein and Gideon Levy respectively, look at how Israel is unilaterally realizing its old vision of establishing autonomous Palestinian rule in parts of the occupied territories even while maintaining military control over those territories; Gideon Levy voices a feeling that more and more Palestinians express, namely, that the ongoing existence of the Palestinian Authority allows Israel to have the occupation without assuming any of the responsibilities of an occupying power. In the fourth and final piece, Gideon Levy tells the story of a family from Gaza whose lives were shattered by the most recent “targeted killing” in the Gaza Strip; contrary to Israeli claims that the “targeted killing” did not exact a civilian toll, the reality is one of broken, grieving families.

--Alain Epp Weaver


1. Silence in the Face of Israeli Apatheid: Captives Behind Sharon's Wall
By NEVE GORDON
November 6, 2003
Jerusalem

As the government of the Jewish state forces the Palestinians in ghettos, history must be turning in its grave. Qalqiliya, a city of 45,000, has been surrounded by a concrete wall and only those who are granted permits by the Civil Administration can enter and exit the city's single gate.

Along the West Bank's north western border, an additional 12,000 people are now living in enclaves between the wall and the pre-1967 border. They too have become captives; yet the so-called security wall does not separate these Palestinian residents from Jewish Israelis, but rather from their brethren in the West Bank.

After placing them on small "islands," Israel is now "encouraging" them to leave their ancestral homes by undermining their infrastructure of existence. The goal, so it seems, is to annex the land uninhabited.

More recently, another 15-km of the wall were approved to be built in the midst of East Jerusalem. Ten minutes drive from my Jerusalem apartment, parts of this concrete wall wind between houses in the Abu Dis neighborhood. A new Berlin wall in the making, only this time in the holy city.

This wall will ultimately place approximately 35,000 Palestinians in a ghetto. Not only will they be isolated from their source of livelihood, but the sick will not be able to reach hospitals and the children will not be able to reach schools. Even the cemeteries will be out of bounds.

Think about it, once this Apartheid wall is completed, many Palestinian parents will be living on one side while their adult children will be living on the other. Families will be torn apart.

The wall dividing East Jerusalem clearly exposes Israel's lie, revealing that security is not the government's real objective. To put it simply, how will a wall that separates between Palestinian communities ensure the security of Jewish Israelis?

The facts on the ground lay bare that the Apartheid wall, which was ostensibly built to satisfy security needs, is in fact being used as an extremely efficient weapon of dispossession and abuse. Rhetoric aside, the Palestinians' land is being stolen, basic rights to freedom of movement and livelihood are systematically violated, and the rights to education, health and even burial are contravened. The instruments of violation are not only guns, tanks and airplanes, but Caterpillar bulldozers and Fiat tractors.

If the wall is completed, then 50 percent of the West Bank will be annexed to Israel, and there will be no possibility of creating a viable Palestinian state. Moreover, it will not solve Israel's security problems, but rather exacerbate them. By engendering extreme pressure on the Palestinian people, who are already living under dire circumstances, it fosters their sense that there are no prospects for the future, thus motivating people to join extremist groups like the Hamas and Islamic Jihad; indeed, the wall only increases the hatred towards the occupiers and promotes bloody attacks.

What baffles the Israeli peace camp is the international silence. A state among nations is placing thousands of people in ghettoes, forcing them to live in subhuman conditions, and not even a murmur of protest can be heard from the world leaders.

On November 9th, these international leaders have a unique opportunity to raise their voice against the Apartheid wall and 36 years of Israeli occupation. On this day, the world will be commemorating the 14th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall and the 65th anniversary of "Kristallnacht," the state orchestrated pogrom against Jews in Nazi Germany.

The international leaders should tell Prime Minister Sharon that at this historical moment he has an option between walls and ethnic cleansing, on the one hand, and open borders and freedom, on the other. They should also let him know, in unequivocal terms, that they will use all necessary means to ensure that Israel will choose the latter.

Neve Gordon teaches politics and human rights at Ben-Gurion University and can be reached at ngordon@bgumail.bgu.ac.il


2. Back to that old autonomy
Danny Rubinstein
Haaretz, November 10, 2003

Palestinian spokesmen are sneering at Israel's announcements that the IDF is easing restrictions in Gaza and the territories. One need only look to the PA's news sheet, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, from last Friday, where the lead headline on the story about what happened in Gaza and the West Bank a day earlier was, "The easing fraud."

The story read, "A woman who was shot by occupation soldiers bled to death in her home in Nablus, and an engineer was murdered when he drove by the Tul Karm checkpoint, while four people were injured by the bombing of Khan Yunis and 20 others were arrested in the West Bank." The reports have been accompanied daily by pictures of demolished homes, uprooted and burned olive trees, barbed-wire fences and women and children clearly exposed to rifles.

Last weekend, 12 Palestinians were killed, among them activists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but also a child from the Balata refugee camp and another from Gaza.

In Ramallah, they warmly welcomed the removal of the Ein Arik checkpoint, which had closed the western exit from the city. This is a significant easing for the city's residents, who are also waiting for the Sorda checkpoint, which is blocking movement north from Ramallah, to fall. But Arafat Khalef, the mayor of Bitoonyah, where the Ein Arik checkpoint is located, said he has experience with these checkpoints. Some months ago, he said, there was talk of easing the closure, and Israeli tractors tore down the checkpoint, but the easing lasted only three or four days.

The Ein Arik checkpoint is one of 163 in the West Bank (according to a Palestinian count), and Palestinian reports on its removal were alongside dozens of reports on how tight the closure is, the curfew, and other restrictions on movement that were imposed once construction of the separation fence started. In other words, not only has it not been made easier for Palestinians to move in the West Bank, but the opposite is actually true - it is harder and harder to go from place to place.

It is actually doubtful if there were ever harsher restrictions on traveling to the Al-Aqsa mosque on Fridays during the month of Ramadan.

Every road into East Jerusalem last Friday was blocked with checkpoints and hundreds of police officers and soldiers, if not more. In effect, it made it impossible for anyone from the territories to get to the mosque, even if they had the necessary permits. A Jerusalem police spokesman said some 180,000 people reached the mosque, though Waqf management said the number was much lower and most were Israelis.

The Palestinians are also deriding the number of permits granted to enter Israel to work. According to the Palestinian Labor Ministry, this is misleading, because the figures are still trifling compared to the numbers permitted before the intifada. What really stood out last Saturday was a report that 50-year-old Ibrahim Darduna from Gaza had died in Tel Hashomer hospital after being beaten to death by unknown assailants in his place of work in Petah Tikva.

So where is all this leading? Many years ago, Israeli plans for granting Palestinians autonomy were circulating. The best known of these plans was drafted in 1977 by Menachem Begin after he was elected prime minister. The autonomy plan (for residents, not the territories) led the Israeli government and the military rule in the territories to set up settlements, capturing land and spreading the IDF around. The Palestinians rejected the plans, and every Palestinian mayor resigned in 1981, saying they didn't want to serve as tools of the Israeli occupation.

What is happening now in the territories is more or less the Israeli imposition of such a plan of autonomy. And there is no chance it will last.


3. Time to do away with the PA
Gideon Levy
Haaretz, November 9, 2003

This farce should have been ended long ago. If the leaders of the Palestinian Authority had been blessed with a greater measure of self-respect, readiness for personal sacrifice and political audacity, they would have long since declared the PA liquidated and left all the responsibility solely in Israel's hands.

If they were more concerned about the subjects they are supposed to be in charge of - the well-being of their nation - they would have resigned and thereby torn the mask from the false impression of the supposed government and the "state in the making." They would have ceased to be the fig leaf that serves and perpetuates the Israeli occupation. Instead, they cling to the few honors and benefits that Israel continues to confer on a few of them, and they go on lending a hand to the great deception that a sovereign Palestinian Authority and a government with powers exist.

Under a cover of empty titles, they continue to take part in the fraud while many in Israel and elsewhere find it convenient to go on believing that the Israeli occupation of the territories has not reverted to being total, and that there is a Palestinian government. "Ministers," "director-generals," "deputy ministers" and "governors," whose titles are empty and lack any authority, and who cannot rule or make decisions about anything except for the official cars and the VIP cards that enable them to go through checkpoints, continue to make a mockery of their nation and the international community.

Is the Palestinian minister of internal security capable of seeing to the security of even one Palestinian in the face of the assassinations, the helicopters, the soldiers and the troops who burst into homes in the middle of the night? Is the health minister capable of seeing to the health of his nationals, when every soldier at every checkpoint can delay ambulances and patients and when the cities and villages are under lengthy curfew? And what can the agriculture minister do when settlers cut down and uproot hundreds of olive trees without interference or prevent the harvesting of the olives, and when the Israeli army defoliates thousands of dunams of fields and vineyards? And how will the minister of labor ensure jobs for the people, when they cannot even leave their places of residence? What can the transportation minister do when his country is strewn with checkpoints and the Israel Defense Forces is the exclusive sovereign that decides which roads are for Jews only and which Palestinian bus lines will be allowed to operate? The list goes on and on.

On the streets of Ramallah, a passerby joked this weekend: "While the Palestinians were arguing over whether Nasser Yusuf would be appointed interior minister or not, the Israelis finished building the separation fence." The majority of Palestinians have no idea who their cabinet ministers are, and for good reason: most of the small amount of aid they receive comes from organizations such as UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) and from the local governments, not from the imaginary government.

The most wretched situations of all are the meetings of Palestinian ministers with Israeli ministers. A case in point was the meeting between the finance minister, Salam Fayad (who suspended himself last Thursday), the favorite of the United States and Israel, and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, which was intended solely to smooth Mofaz's visit to Washington. It's hard to understand why the Palestinian official agreed to meet with Mofaz - who more than any other Israeli is responsible for the cruel policy toward his nation - only to serve the political needs of the Israeli minister. Why is Israel allowed to boycott Palestinian leaders, above all Yasser Arafat, whereas Palestinian ministers have no similar red lines? While European and American officials decline to visit the office of the Israeli justice minister, which is located in East Jerusalem, the outgoing Palestinian justice minister, Abd al-Karim Abu Salah, together with the minister responsible for prisoners, Hisham Abd al-Razak, met with Justice Minister Yosef Lapid in his office. The Palestinian public has only contempt for such cabinet ministers.

This deception in the form of a supposedly autonomous government and Authority serves the Israeli government above all. The Palestinian

Authority's existence allows Israel to accuse it and demand that it fight terrorism, and Israel can also tell the world that its occupation is not full.

In the past three years Israel has done much to harm all of the PA's bases of power. Little remains of it, and the zombie-like entity that continues to exist in Ramallah should now depart the world. This is not only an internal Palestinian matter: Israel, too, bears heavy responsibility, which it is trying to shake off. If the Palestinian cabinet ministers were to declare together that the game is over, that there is no longer a Palestinian Authority and no longer a Palestinian government, the entire weight of responsibility for the occupation would devolve on Israel.


4. For the pilots' information: Mohammed Tabazeh lost a son and a nephew in an IDF assassination operation in Gaza. Three of his sons were wounded, one is fighting for his life. Yet the air force reported there were no civilians near the targets' vehicle.
Gideon Levy
Haaretz, November 7, 2003

Here is what the precise hit of an Israeli Air Force missile, launched at a vehicle carrying Hamas operatives in Gaza on October 20, in a completely "targeted assassination," looks like: Young Mahmoud Tabazeh, just 14, lies on a bed in the intensive care department of Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, writhing in pain. Chills wrack his body; his legs - one shredded and the other broken - are bandaged; his whole body is bruised and pockmarked from the countless pieces of shrapnel that penetrated it. His complexion is pale and sallow, his head is shaven and scratched, blood drains from his abdomen into a bag. In a hoarse voice, he begs his father to do something to ease his pain. Mahmoud cries.

Two weeks after he was injured, the doctors say that his life is still in danger. The shrapnel struck his liver and apparently his pancreas, too, and the infection that spread in his body is life-threatening. A 14-year-old boy who went out to the street when he heard a loud explosion nearby, whose brother and cousin were killed, and three other brothers were wounded - but no one has told him all of this yet. For the information of the pilots who pressed the button that hurled missile after missile at the suspects' vehicle on the main road next to the Nuseirat refugee camp and later reported a direct hit.

For the information of the senior air force pilot who said the next day: "It's possible that some residents of nearby buildings were hit by shrapnel," that "this is a missile that's like a big hand grenade," but that the likelihood that many civilians were wounded was "extremely low." For the information of those responsible for disseminating the photos from the IDF drone that showed there were no civilians near the car at which two missiles were fired; and for the information of the senior IDF officials who claimed the next day that the Palestinians "fabricated" the large number of wounded in the operation.

For the information of all the above: Mohammed Tabazeh, who has worked in Israel for 30 years laying floors, had four of his nine children wounded in the operation, and is now sitting at the bedside of his son Mahmoud, who is fighting for his life, and can count 10 neighbors and relatives, including another son and a nephew, who were killed in the air force's perfectly successful and legal operation. Here are their names: Mohammed's son, Abdel Halim Tabazeh, 23, who was studying economics and statistics; his nephew, Ibrahim Tabazeh, 18, a 12th-grader who planned to study computers; Ahmed Halifi, 15; Ayoub al-Malak, 21, a third-year university student; Mohammed Hathat, 25, an engineer; Salah al-Din As'ad, 16, a high-school student; Atiya Mawnas, 20, a second-year university student; Mahdi Abu Jarbu'a, 19, a first-year student; Mohammed Barud, 12; and Dr. Zinadin Shahin, a married father of one. All of them, including the concerned doctor, ran frightened into the street when they heard the first missile strike the car, and a minute and a half later, the second missile struck, killing 10 and wounding dozens.

Tears well and threaten to overflow in the eyes of Mohammed Tabazeh, 49. Whenever he mentions his son Abdel Halim, who was killed, or his wounded son, Mahmoud, the tears start to flow. His face doesn't contort; it's not bitter weeping, just tears that silently trickle down his cheeks as he talks. He is a floorer who has worked in Israel for over three decades, even recently. His knees are scarred and tough, from all those years of kneeling on floor tiles.

Born in the Nuseirat refugee camp, his family came from the lost village of Hawama - between Ashdod and Ashkelon. His first job in Israel: cleaning Egged buses in Ramle, at age 14. His last job: laying the floor in a villa in Nir Zvi, about two months ago.

Between the bus and the villa, it seems he has tiled nearly half the country: "Four months ago, I put a special kind of stone tile around the shopping center in Givat Savyon. Go there and look. I did a job for an architect called Riskin, I'm sure you've heard of him. I tiled the houses of the richest people in Israel. Yakobi of the cleaning supplies business, Padani of Pinat Hayarkon. I tiled the Gordon pool 10 years ago. Zehava of Gali Shoes, whose husband was killed - I did her house. If I had her phone number, she'd come here right away. Where the Scud fell in Ramat Gan [during the Gulf War], I did six villas. I tiled all the houses there, in marble and stone. I put 10,000 meters of tile in Givat Shmuel. I did the Neta'im School 20 years ago. I did the ORT school in Ramat Gan and made it like new. I did villas in Ashdod."

From his work, he made close friendships that transcend checkpoints and national conflicts. The first visit to his wounded son, who was rushed to Sheba Hospital all alone in the middle of the night, came from Jewish friends from Givat Shmuel.

He says he has a hundred friends in Israel, and his fluent Hebrew proves it. He sits alone at the hospital and the trauma of the last days is apparent on his face. He worked in Israel his whole life in order to pay for an education for his nine children and for his brothers. He proudly enumerates their achievements: the brother who studied to be an X-ray technician at Sheba, the brother who is a registered nurse at Shifa Hospital in Gaza, the brother who is a physics teacher and close to getting his doctorate, and the sister who is an English teacher. And, of course, the children: the daughter who studied geography at the Islamic College, the dead son who studied economics and statistics, and the rest of the children, who are all diligent students. He can calculate the price of an hour of university study in dinars. There was a time when he earned a good living in Israel.

On Monday, October 20, everyone got up as usual in the morning and each member of the family went his own way. Mahmoud got up first. He is a ninth-grader at the UNRWA school in the camp, where the classes are held in two shifts. Mahmoud, who was in the first shift, got up at 6:30 in order to be in school by 7 A.M. Abdel Halim got up about an hour and a half later and left for the university. Due to the closure of the camp, their father stayed at home with his wife Rahab. The eldest son, Talal, who is unemployed, also stayed at home. The children came back for lunch, ate and then went out again.

An iron rule in the Tabazeh household: Everyone is at home by 10 P.M. Sometimes the father returns from work in Israel, even when he has a permit to stay over, just to make sure that everyone is home on time. He says he has always worried about his children, and tried to make sure that they weren't wandering about Gaza's dangerous streets.

That night, they were all back home in the two-story house by 8 P.M. At about 8:30, they heard a loud explosion that sounded like it came from the main road, about 30 meters away. Their house is in the first row of houses in Nuseirat, next to the road. What do you do when you hear an explosion? You go outside to see what happened. Within moments, everyone was outside. Mohammed says that he tried to keep his children from going out, but it all happened so fast, and who can control nine children, he moans.

Two minutes after the first missile struck, the second one landed - amid the crowd that had gathered on the spot. Tabazeh says that dozens of neighbors had gone outside, including Dr. Shahin, who ran over from his nearby clinic. It all happened very quickly and Tabazeh didn't see much. He heard shouting and saw a crowd of people and plumes of smoke. He did not see the burning car, or his wounded sons.

Only nine-year-old Mustafa stood by his side. A piece of shrapnel had hit him in the abdomen and he was bleeding. Someone picked him up and carried him to an ambulance. Then Tabazeh was told that his 18-year-old nephew Ibrahim had been wounded. He never got to see him. Ibrahim died three days later, at Shifa Hospital.

Tabazeh kept running back and forth, beside himself with worry and not knowing what had become of his children. There was chaos. He says that dozens of people were injured - 135 by the Palestinians' count. At the entrance to the clinic, he saw another nephew, Ala, 24, who was wounded in the ear and arm. Inside the clinic, he saw a seriously injured boy and then he was told that it was his son Mahmoud. "He was all covered in blood, I didn't recognize him." And in another room - another seriously injured person, whom he found out was his son, Abdel Halim.

His brother the nurse was trying to help Abdel but Tabazeh could see right away that it was hopeless. Abdel was vomiting blood. Mahmoud was taken to Shifa Hospital. Mohammed says that it looked as if his whole body had been shredded. "Say 1,000 pieces of shrapnel, 1,500 pieces - It's like taking rice and throwing it on him." But he couldn't get to him at Shifa - "How can you get there if there are 2,000 people trying to get in?" The final toll: five close family members hurt - a son and a nephew killed, and three sons - Mahmoud, Mustafa and Tariq, 20 - injured.

Mohammed and his wife returned to their home in a state of shock. They knew that two of their children were fighting for their lives and they couldn't be with them. At Shifa, Mahmoud underwent abdominal surgery and they also planned to amputate his leg. Nothing could be done for Abdel Halim. They buried him in the camp the next day. Then they transferred Mahmoud to Tel Hashomer. No one was permitted to accompany him.

The next day, Mohammed Tabazeh called Shifa and asked how his son was doing. At first he was told that there was no such child there. Gadi, Avi and Baruch, old friends from work, came to Tel Hashomer to look for their friend's son. Mohammed called Sima, a bookkeeper at the hospital whose home he had also worked on, and she eventually located the lost child; he was in critical condition in the pediatric intensive care unit. Mohammed called Sheba again, introduced himself as a worried neighbor and asked how the boy was doing. He was told that the boy's life was still in danger. Mohammed told Rahab that their son was okay.

Ibrahim Habib of Physicians for Human Rights - Israel tried to obtain an entry permit to Israel for the father. Avi, Gadi and Baruch called "every 15 minutes" to keep Mohammed updated. They have been going to the hospital every day since.

Mahmoud spent close to a week in the pediatric intensive care unit without his parents or any relatives allowed to stay with him. Security reasons. Last week, Mohammed was allowed to come to the hospital, and he hasn't budged from his son's bedside since then. He would like to be able to go home and let another family member come for a few days, but he's afraid that if he leaves Sheba, he won't be permitted to return. Mahmoud will probably spend many more weeks in the hospital. After Israel killed one of his sons and seriously wounded another, both of whom were wholly innocent bystanders, couldn't Mohammed expect just a bit of kindness? Such as an entry and exit permit that would enable him to be with his son, who is still in agonizing pain? Mohammed wants to thank the hospital staff for the kind treatment and care of his son.

Two of his neighbors who were injured in the same attack were also hospitalized at Tel Hashomer: Abd Tayam, a boy Mahmoud's age, who left here permanently paralyzed; and Husam Ta'ima, 19, who is in good condition. Every evening, when the Ramadan fast ends, a former Gazen who married a Jewish woman and lives in Israel comes to distribute food to the relatives of the injured so they can break their fast. An armed security guard arrives, summoned by hospital administrators to prevent us from photographing Mahmoud - despite his father's consent.

Prof. Zohar Barzilai, the director of the department, greets us and describes Mahmoud's condition as worrisome. "The boy is very sick. He has fractures and abdominal injuries that haven't healed yet. A break in the left thighbone, with burns and an open fracture. Since he was wounded, he has been ill for almost two weeks. The stomach continues to worry us. The functioning of the pancreas is affected. This is a serious injury that requires a long recovery. We are very worried about his leg. His head was also injured and he was on a respirator, but he got beyond that. He has made good progress, but he is still in great danger of a systemic failure that could happen at any moment."

Tabazeh listens silently. "It's always the little ones that go, on both sides. When there's a bombing for you, the little one is killed because he rides the bus and the big guy rides in a private car. And with us, this one's son and that one's son are abroad at our expense, and the little ones bear the brunt. Always the little ones." Again the tears flow from his eyes. Mahmoud lies in the next room, also crying; a nurse is changing the bandages on his mutilated leg. He's cold and the leg hurts.

What does he remember?

"A window in the house fell and I went outside to see what happened and then I saw my brother wounded," he whispers.