Newsletter of the Israeli Council for
Israeli-Palestinian Peace
No 107/108 - April 2003
Editor: Adam Keller
Editorial Board: Uri Avnery, Matti Peled, Yaakov Arnon, Haim Bar'am, Yael Lotan,
Yossi Amitai
Index
Road Map in the Air Editorial overview
#Undaunted Mitzna
#Racist banning overturned
#Reform from without
#Road map dance
'Action completed successfully' by Adam Keller
Flour against the occupation
Through the hole about Machsom Watch
From hand to hand
Shalom Ken -- Bush Lo!
Dancing in the rain -- at Sharon's farm
Yes to truth!
Policeman refuse - you too will go hungry!
Evidence hereby submitted by B. Michael
Refusal is patriotic!
The road map Potential & weaknesses - by Jeff Halper
To tell you the truth... A road map to nowhere - by Uri Avnery
Evidence hereby submitted by B. Michael
ISM targeted
I was a human shield by Billie Moskona-Lerman
Saga of the court-martials by Adam Keller
Israeli-Palestinian call for reason
Last minute news
Refusal debate gets momentum
[Page numbers removed]
Road Map in the Air
A Prime Minister who presided over one of the deepest economic depressions in his country's history, and who at the same time also got entangled in a bloody war of attrition with no end in sight, should find it difficult to regain the people's confidence -- or so should one think.
The Israel of 2003 proved immune to that rule. Despite the deep crisis in literally all spheres of the country's life, the victory of incumbent Ariel Sharon in the January elections was no surprise to anybody. Rather, it was a foretold victory, confirming what all opinion polls had predicted throughout the two-month campaign. Still, for weeks on end, commentators and editorial writers agonized over the inevitable results of these elections and what they implied for the country, until the fast rush of events towards the Iraq War drove it away from public consciousness.
Like much that happened in the past two and a half years, the political set-up can to a considerable degree still be traced to the aftermath of the failed Camp David negotiations and the claim of former PM Barak to have made "generous offers which were rejected." Barak's success in getting this narrative accepted left the Israeli public with the deep-seated feeling that peace is impossible.
To a large part of the public, suicide bombings are seen as the result of intransigent, fanatic Palestinian hatred rather than as the result of Israel's own actions, such as the ongoing killing of Palestinian civilians and the economic strangulation of millions of people, not to mention the continuing settlement expansion. And since the bad economic situation is considered to be a direct result of the conflict (no tourism; no foreign investment; mounting military expenditure) blame for the economy is also shoved on "the evil Palestinians."
Thus, Sharon was not held responsible for the failure, but perceived as "doing his best" to ameliorate the effects of Palestinian malevolence, regarded as a kind of a blind force of nature.
As continuously indicated by opinion polls, the majority of the Israeli public still supports a solution based upon withdrawal from all or most of the occupied territories -- but that is put off for some indeterminate future, and "for the time being" much of the same public supports "a vigorous fight against terrorism." All that puts the majority of Israelis in tune with a prime minister whose ruthless oppressive policies against the Palestinians are continuously accompanied by talks of a future willingness to make unspecified "painful concessions" and accept a Palestinian state in undefined borders.
Thus, Israelis gave Sharon a renewed mandate -- but they did it with a marked lack of enthusiasm. Throughout the campaign there were no election rallies by any party, and on city streets there were few elections posters or leaflet distributors to be seen; and on the elections day itself, voter turnout was the lowest in Israeli history. A weary and wary electorate returned Sharon to power, not with a serious expectation of solving either the conflict with the Palestinians or the economic crisis, but with a resigned feeling that the problems were unsolvable anyway, and with a kind of leaning upon Sharon as an authoritative father figure.
As much as being Sharon's victory, the elections result reflected Labour's failure to make itself a credible alternative in the eyes of most Israelis.
Labour contested the elections with the heavy cumulative burden of the Barak fiasco and of the two years since then, the majority of which Labour had spent as Sharon's junior coalition partner, collaborating in the reconquest of the Palestinian cities.
The rebellion of the party grassroots, which forced Labour out of the Sharon cabinet and made the militantly dovish Amram Mitzna the new party leader, was too little and too late for the party to regain its electoral credibility in these elections.
Indeed, Mitzna personally was widely recognized as an exceptionally honest politician, which helped him gain the support and sometimes devotion of the more idealistic among the party supporters, and even of people further left who would never have supported Labour otherwise.
But this image of honesty and forthrightness did not spread to the party as a whole -- especially since large parts of the party leadership openly undermined Mitzna's leadership during the entire campaign. Even when Mitzna got all of the party leaders to stand up together in front of TV cameras and pledge that they would not join Sharon's cabinet, it was greeted by general public skepticism. Former
Foreign Minister Peres, in particular, made no secret of the fact that he had left the government only with extreme reluctance and that he was still longing for his lost portfolio... Moreover, Mitzna's evident honesty, and his disconcerting habit of speaking his mind openly were not universally accepted as a virtue. Some commentators, and quite a few of the Labourites themselves, tended to regard Mitzna as naive and quixotic.
The issue of honesty and lack thereof in politics assumed a major role in the campaign, far beyond its intrinsic weight, when the press made sensational revelations of corruption in the Likud Party: first, irregularities amounting almost to outright bribing in the selection of the Likud's parliamentary candidates, giving unknown and highly dubious candidates many safe slots on the party's list of candidates. This was followed by leaks from a secret investigation into a large, highly questionable loan that PM Sharon himself and his two sons received from the South African millionaire Cyril Kern.
When the corruption scandals broke out and the Likud Party seemed in complete disarray, Labour scrapped its original slogans and substituted a campaign based on Mitzna's personal honesty as opposed to the corruption of Sharon and the Likud Party. At the time, when the corruption scandals seemed a godsend to Labour, it may have looked like the most logical course, the one and only opportunity to crack Sharon's base of support -- but it soon turned out to be a red herring.
While initially shaken by the scandals and sensational reports, continued revelations boomeranged and gave the grassroots Likud supporters the feeling of a manipulation and conspiracy of the "leftist media" and the "Labour elites."
Anyway, in large parts of the Israeli society -- and particularly in the impoverished social layers that are the traditional base of the Likud -- there is a prevalent cynical perception that "all politicians are thieves" and that getting new people into power would be no more than "replacing old thieves by new ones."
By the time it became manifestly clear that the corruption scandals had not made a serious dent in the Likud's electoral base, elections day was already looming near, and there was no way for Labour to shift focus to what was originally planned. Only a minor part in the whole campaign was devoted to the specific solutions offered by Mitzna: the pledge to dismantle within a year all settlements in the Gaza Strip and some in the West Bank; to accelerate erection of a border fence (the new Israeli sedative) which should bring about "separation between Israel and the Palestinians"; to slash the settlements budgets and transfer the money to increased welfare budgets, and revive both the peace process and the economy. Opinion polls showed a large part of the public supporting such policies -- but "preferring Sharon to be the one who carried them out", as Ma'ariv commentator Chemi Shalev put it.
If anybody benefited from the elections emphasis on "clean politics", it was not Labour but the Shinuy Party of former journalist and TV commentator Yosef ("Tommy") Lapid -- a party enjoying the image of a young, fresh party as opposed to the very old and bureaucratized Labour; declaring itself to be Champion of the Middle Class, free of any vestiges of Socialist Zionism; vaguely dovish and militantly secularist; especially vehement in its attacks on the ultra-Orthodox community, and particularly on the Shas Party which is not only ultra-Orthodox but also a major representative of the impoverished Oriental Jews.
This mixture proved attractive to a considerable section of the Askenazis -- descendants of the original Zionist pioneers, the Israeli equivalent of WASPs, whose social ascendancy had gradually eroded in the past decades and who had always been Labour's main base of support. Shinuy, along with Likud, emerged as winner on elections night -- having more than doubled their parliamentary strength, mostly at the expense of Labour and of Meretz, Labour's partner and rival to the left.
Undaunted Mitzna
After its previous defeat, in January 2001, the Labour Party was totally dispirited and demoralized, its then leaders virtually crawling aboard the victor's bandwagon. Nothing of the kind was evident on the night of January 28.
When the well-predicted results rolled out on the TV screens, Mitzna told the gathered party workers: "We now start working towards the next elections, which may take place sooner than you think" and led them in a chorus of old Labour Movement songs, to the astonishment of the TV commentator who broadcast the scene.
Racist banning overturned
Jan.1, at about 1.00 AM in Jerusalem, the Central Elections Committee ended a long and stormy session with a decision to ban KM Azmi Bishara and his National Democratic Assembly (Balad) Party -- one of the three main parties active among Israel's Arab citizens. The decision was based on "evidence" provided by the Israeli Security Services -- regarding alleged statements that were interpreted as "identification with terrorist organizations."
On previous days, the committee, in which the right-wing had a majority, already banned Knesset Member Ahmed Tibi -- another well-known speaker for the Arab minority in Israel -- while taking a conspicuous decision not to ban the notorious racist Baruch Marzel, advocate of the wholesale expulsion of Palestinians.
Apart from the populist interest of Arab-bashing as such, the banning was also designed to provoke Arab voters, some 20% of all Israelis, into altogether boycotting the elections -- which naturally would have greatly increased the right-wing share among the votes cast.
The meagre consolation on that bleak night was the position taken by Supreme Court Judge Misha'el Heshin, the CEC chair and the only non-politician on it, who spoke out strongly against the banning. While formally Heshin had no more than one vote out of 35, his position was of great significance, especially since the issue was going to be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
In the following day's Hebrew press there was an enormous volume of articles, editorials and ads condemning the banning of the Arab parties. Many commentators placing themselves at the centre of the spectrum took strong exception to the Arab nationalist views of Bishara and Tibi but nevertheless maintained that such views deserved the democratic right to be heard and presented to the electorate's choice.
On Jan. 3, thirty-two Jewish and Arab groups were represented at an emergency meeting in the town hall of Ya'fia, whose mayor Shawki Khatib is chair of the High Monitoring Committee -- the leadership body of Israel's Arab citizens. A campaign was initiated including a petition and a joint Jewish-Arab rally, to be held on Jan. 7, 2003, in front of the Supreme Court building when the appeal would be heard. There were to be also scores of smaller protest vigils and marches by various groups, throughout the Arab towns and villages and in Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa.
Veteran Galilee peace activist Amiram Goldin made a moving address at the Jan. 7 rally: 'Five months ago I heard that Arabs from a village near my home were suspected of involvement in the suicide bombing in which Omry, my son, was killed. I realized that we were standing at the very edge of the precipice. If now Israel bans the Arabs from participating in the elections, we are actually stepping into the abyss.'
After two days of tense waiting, the Supreme Court finally rendered its decision -- holding Israeli society, for the time being, back from that edge.
While the old party leadership attacked Mitzna and applied considerable pressure for returning to the Sharon Government (which is what was expected all along), the party rank-and-file did not tend to blame the party leader for the poor electoral showing. Many of the younger activists shared Mitzna's feeling that Sharon's trajectory would lead him into a total impasse, long before the end of his new four-year term -- and the two years' sojourn as Sharon's powerless junior partners left many painful memories.
Indeed, despite the fact that Likud emerged from the elections with double Labour's parliamentary strength, it was Sharon who assiduously courted the Labourites and made pathetic efforts to get them into his cabinet. Mitzna however held disdainfully aloof and kept firmly to the planks of his program, especially the dismantling of the Gaza settlements.
He did bend his "no negotiations with the Likud" stance to the extent of holding several "preliminary meetings" with Sharon. At one of these, Sharon surprised his Labourite interlocutors with what was described as "astonishingly dovish and flexible" positions. However, when the perplexed Mitzna asked for these dovish positions to be put in writing, Sharon refused and the budding negotiations fell through. "Labour will give Sharon nothing on credit, they want a cash payment only" was the simile used by Nahum Bar'nea of Yediot Aharonot.
Sharon consoled himself by forming a partnership with Shinuy on the one hand and on the other -- with the two extreme right formations, the National Union Party and the National Religious Party. Getting Shinuy in proved quite easy, with Lapid eager to get a ministerial position and even willing to compromise considerably on his secularist principles to accommodate the NRP.
The coalition enabled Sharon to present himself as standing "in the middle of the political spectrum" and continue appealing to the Askenazi elite, but it was a government that would evidently fall apart if it ever tried to make even the slightest diplomatic concession. On the international arena, Shinuy was no replacement to Labour. Especially in Europe, the Sharon government's diplomatic position was steadily deteriorating, and the PM sorely missed Shimon Peres who had protected his European flank on more than one past occasion.
And meanwhile, in Israel the introduction of Shinuy into the cabinet left somebody out in the cold -- Shas and the rest of the Ultra-Orthodox, who had been for decades the staunch allies of the Likud and of Sharon personally, and who were now left bitter, angry and vowing revenge.
The composition of the cabinet became comprehensible once the new economic austerity plan was unveiled by Finance Minister Netanyahu -- Sharon's arch-rival, whom the PM reportedly shunted into this position in the hope of saddling him with responsibility for unpopular policies and a high chance of failure.
However that may be, the plan was the most right-wing ever presented in Israel -- with deep cuts in education, health and welfare benefits, putting an effective end to what remains of the Israeli welfare state, while at the same time granting generous tax rebates to the most rich on the assumption that this "would revitalize the economy." Certainly Shinuy, with its blatant free-market ideology, was a more likely candidate for such a project than Shas with its base among the impoverished slum dwellers.
But in introducing an economic plan consciously modeled upon that of the Republican Party in the US, Netanyahu did not fully realize the scope of public opposition it would arouse: the numerous and prominent voices of protest in the press, contesting the assertion that this was the only way -- or a way at all - of overcoming the crisis; the public meetings bringing together Labourites and the ultra-orthodox, with ramifications among the Likud's own grassroots; unprecedented demonstrations, such as the one of octogenarians in their dozens blocking highways in protest at the slashing of already meagre old-age pensions...
Netanyahu may have also underestimated the clout of the angry Histadrut union federation when faced with his idea of public sector lay-offs and big cuts in the salaries of those who remain -- and to boot, having existing wage agreements unilaterally nullified by Knesset legislation, effectively destroying collective bargaining that is the very basis of organized labour. Negotiations between Netanyahu and union leader Amir Peretz broke down, with the country seemingly heading towards the first open-ended general strike in Israeli history.
But just as the fight over the Netanyahu Plan drew towards a dramatic climax, President Bush embarked on his final countdown towards the attack on Iraq.
Reform from without
Few wars in history had been discussed in such minute detail, long before they began. In the Israeli senior political and military echelons, privy to much classified information from their American counterparts, discussions of the coming war had been going on at least since early 2002. Occasionally, tidbits of such discussions found their way to the media, usually in the form of smug and gleeful assertions that "Saddam and Arafat will have their ending on the same day", which would open the way to "a truly new Middle East."
In September 2002 the US administration did order Sharon to cease and desist from his attack on Arafat's headquarters, making clear its preference that reforms in the Palestinian Authority be implemented by the Palestinians themselves rather than by force of Israeli arms. Still, some Israeli politicians and generals continued to make dark hints of "sudden changes which can happen under the fog of war", and were apparently encouraged in such hopes by soul-mates in the senior staff surrounding Secretary Rumsfeld at the Pentagon.
For their part, Palestinians were very sensitive to such hints from the Israeli side, and as the Iraq War approached their apprehension grew: not only of Arafat being personally threatened with expulsion or death, but also of Palestinians in general facing ethnic cleansing ("population transfer" in the parlance of the Israeli extreme right). After all, one of Sharon's ministers -- the sinister Effie Eitam of the NRP -- already expressed his opinion that "the best solution" might be "a war at whose end the number of Arabs west of the Jordan river would be much smaller than when it began."
While such dark rumours circulated among Palestinians, the Israeli population was subjected to its own series of nightmare scenarios, every few days bursting out in sensational newspaper headlines: barrages of Iraqi missiles, tipped with chemical warheads; deadly drones, spraying death from the air; anthrax; smallpox... (Among the medical establishment, the debate raged on whether or not to inoculate the entire population; the ministry of health finally decided against it, on the grounds of a very small chance that the Iraqis would make use of such arms, compared with the statistics showing that inoculation of several millions against smallpox may lead to the death of several dozens from side-effects of the inoculation itself.)
In the tense days of February and early March, persistent opinion polls showed nearly half of the Israeli population hoping for a diplomatic compromise to end the crisis without war -- rather similar, in fact, to the position put up at the time by the French and the Germans at the UN Security Council. A most unusual phenomenon, in a country where the public and the political system usually tend to uncritical acceptance of the US position on international issues, probably attributable to the fearful rumours which the press circulated and magnified, and which the country's decision-makers -- for all their talk of "low probability" -- did little to dispel.
With Bush evidently bent on going to war, with or without UN approval, an urgent meeting of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists took place at Ramallah, discussing various contingencies and the best channels of communications needed in order to immediately transmit news of ethnic cleansing or other grave violations and bring it as quickly as possible to the attention of the world.
Meanwhile, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat took his own precautions by agreeing to what the US and Europe have been demanding of him for many months: to designate an executive Prime Minister, for the first time since the creation of the Palestinian Authority, and thus open the way to the long- demanded "reform." So it was that the weeks of the Iraq War were also the time that Mahmud Abbas ("Abu Mazen") was busy putting together a cabinet representing various regions and Palestinian political factions -- a process which the West very much wanted to go on, and which would have been fatally disrupted by any new Israeli assault on Arafat's headquarters.
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Our articles may be reprinted, provided they include the address The Other Israel POB 2542, Holon 58125, Israel.
As the reader by now knows, during the entire course of Iraq's conquest by the Americans and the British there had been no Iraqi attack whatsoever -- conventional or otherwise -- upon Israel. Ordinary Israelis became convinced that such was the situation, already in the first two or three days of the war.
Thereafter, life went back to normal, and only few people heeded the government's directive to all citizens to keep their gas masks by them at all times.
(Even the government ministers themselves failed to follow their own directive -- which became the source of jokes and sarcastic remarks in the papers).
Active manifestations of opposition to the Netanyahu Plan also revived and went on in the streets of Israeli cities -- to the chagrin of the Finance minister, who may have hoped to use the war as a convenient time to ram through his cuts.
As far as the Palestinians were concerned, it was more difficult to conclude whether the danger of all-out assault against their society had been averted. In general, the routine of daily oppression -- terrible enough, even without any blatant addition -- went on, much as it had before the American tanks started rolling towards Baghdad.
For the first two weeks of the war, the Israeli army avoided any assassinations ("targeted killings") of Palestinians - in response, it seems, to a discreet American request.
This did not prevent the Americans themselves: on the morning of April 9 they resorted to an act strongly reminiscent of methods used by the Israeli Air Force against the Palestinians: in an effort to kill Saddam Hussein, a building in Baghdad was bombed and totally destroyed, with the fate of the Iraqi ruler remaining in question but the certain result of killing fourteen innocent civilians. This affair apparently made Sharon feel absolved from the prohibition, and on the same evening the Israeli Air Force set out on its assassination venture in Gaza -- with a second assassination following on the next day.
The most serious alarm was on April 2 -- when the army rounded up more than a thousand Palestinian men at Tulkarm Refugee Camp and dumped them a few kilometres away (see separate article). They were allowed to go back to their homes after two days of frantic protests, and the affair seemed over -- still, as Gush Shalom remarked in its Ha'aretz ad, it looked suspiciously like a dress rehearsal, an opportunity for soldiers and officers to practice the logistics and operational details of taking thousands of people out of their homes and loading them on buses and lorries and taking them away...
Other than that, one should note that the time of the Iraq War was when international volunteers started being "legitimate targets" in the army's routine operations; and -- not directly touching the Palestinians, but part of the same governmental mindset -- during the war, the notorious Immigration Police greatly accelerated the rate of their raids on and deportations of "illegal" migrant workers.
Possibly the most long-lasting effect -- it was under the smoke screen of Iraq that Sharon got a ministerial committee to approve an enormous change in the route of the "Separation Wall." No longer will it pass more or less parallel to the pre-'67 border, at a distance of a few kilometres, taking relatively small bites out of the West Bank (though disastrous to the villages directly concerned). Sharon's new plans would make not one wall but two, going deep into the heart of the West Bank and cutting enormous chunks of its territory. Unimpeded creation of these walls, which would take about two years, would effectively rule out the option of creating a viable Palestinian state. Would he have such undisturbed two years?
Road map dance
On several occasions during the conquest of Iraq, and even more so since the conquest ended and the US/UK embarked on the more difficult stage of ruling and managing what they "liberated", Tony Blair expressed a strong commitment to pushing forward a new peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, with the aim of implementing the two-state solution. Blair -- in need of exhibiting such progress to opponents inside his own party in Britain, and seemingly having a genuine personal commitment to the idea -- pushed the more reluctant Bush to make similar pronouncements, and for his pains got marked as "No. 1 Enemy" by members of Sharon's entourage.
Blair's drive centred on "The Road Map" -- that is, the basic document worked out more than half a year ago by the "Quartet" of Middle East negotiators (US, UN, EU and Russia). Its official publication had been put off again and again by the US, under various pretexts (until after the Israeli elections, until Sharon forms his cabinet, until a Palestinian PM is appointed, until the appointed Palestinian PM forms his cabinet, until after the Iraq War...).
Still, it is already very well-known to all concerned, with all the stages it sets out: Palestinians to end armed activity and implement "reforms", i.e. elect somebody whose name is not Yasser Arafat; Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian areas reconquered in the past two and half years and facilitate rebuilding of the Palestinians authority, and also freeze all construction in the settlements including the so-called "natural increase"; then creation of a Palestinian state inside "temporary borders", whatever that might mean; and within two years negotiations on the definite borders and other final status issues.
Sharon did not reject the road map. He never openly rejects any diplomatic initiative. Rather, he accepts it and then adds some remarks and reservations.
In this case, it is quite simple: the road map is fine, but first the Palestinians must fulfill their part and stop completely all and any attacks on Israelis. Only after the government of Israel is satisfied on this -- and of course, it is the Israeli side that should rule on Palestinian compliance, rather than any outside observer -- will it consent to start considering its own obligations. Put like this, even Sharon's extreme-right allies need have no problems about embracing the road map -- it would simply become one more in the big pile of void diplomatic plans already littering the Middle East dustbin.
On the other hand, any sign of mutual and simultaneous obligations, or of something resembling objective monitoring of both sides' compliance, would land Sharon in immediate trouble. The army would not like the idea of withdrawing from the Palestinian cities -- in the past year they have grown fond of the idea of being able to enter wherever they want and arrest or kill whomever they want. The settlers would be more than just unhappy at any idea
of settlement freeze, even more at the dismantling of illegal settlement outposts, another roadmap provision. The settler parties now in the government would walk out, leaving the Sharon government's survival dependant on Mitzna's good will....
Of course, nothing of the above would come to pass unless the US government chooses to use its enormous leverage upon Sharon. Can something of the kind be expected of such a person as George W. Bush? Bush owes a debt to Blair, who went together with him to war at considerable risk to his own career. But Bush looks forward to the 2004 elections, where he will need the support of right wing Jews and Fundamentalist Christians. The Iraq War strengthened Rumsfeld and his band, to whose specifications it was conducted and who now have effective control of Iraq. But precisely the need to create a pro-American government in Iraq, with any credibility in the Arab World and in Iraq itself, will require the Americans to make some mollifying gestures on the Palestinian issue.
As this goes into print, Abu Mazen has at last formed his cabinet, after days of what looked like a titanic struggle with Arafat, especially over the key control of the security services -- finally decided by enormous and concerted American, European and Egyptian pressures. Yet also after this struggle -- and there will doubtlessly come more -- Arafat and Abu Mazen need each other and complement each other.
Arafat has no credibility and no standing left in Israel and the US, and even in Europe his position is tarnished and eroded while Abu Mazen gets enormous international credit. Bush seems eager to receive him in the White House, but Abu Mazen may have reservations about being the first visiting Arab leader since the invasion of Iraq. Indeed, Abu Mazen's position is at its nadir among his own people, most Palestinians regarding him with suspicion, his only claim to legitimacy being the fact that Arafat appointed him and that he has been Arafat's lieutenant for nearly four decades.
Together, Arafat and Abu-Mazen can provide Israel with a Palestinian partner -- a partner with whom peace can be made and the hell in which both peoples live ended. But the Abu Mazen Gambit can also end swiftly, as one more futile effort leading to still new rounds of bloodshed, suffering and hatred.
We will know, soon enough.
The Editors
***
'Action completed successfully'
On April 2, Gush Shalom addressed a letter to General Menachem Finkelstein, head of the Army's Legal Department. Copies of the letter were also spread to the Israeli and international press.
"An officer -- identified on Kol Yisrael Radio only by his first name, David, and by his function as commander of the Ephraim Brigade -- today took public responsibility for large-scale harassment of civilian population at Tulkarm Refugee Camp, in violation of International Law and of the Fourth Geneva Convention to which Israel is a signatory.
This "David" was at the head of the Israeli forces while invading the Tulkarm Refugee Camp. According to an eyewitness (a Tulkarm resident) and with several details confirmed on the radio, the slum was invaded by infantry, APC's and tanks supported by helicopter gunships. The soldiers ordered all men and boys between 15 and 45 to leave their homes and concentrate at two locations in the camp -- the UNRWA Girls' School and the courtyard of the Jipon Paint Factory. There, they were kept for many hours and interrogated, one by one.
After the army singled out eleven men which were said to be "wanted terrorists", the other men and boys were loaded on buses and lorries which took them several kilometers outside Tulkarm, where they were told to get off and left to fend for themselves: forbidden to go back to their homes for the coming three days and with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Some women of the camp who came to bring food and basic provisions to their husbands, brothers and sons, found that the soldiers would not let them back either.
'A successful action, with satisfactory results' was what Colonel David called it. However, the above actions constitute a violation not only of International Law but also of the IDF's own Military Code and of what the army claims are its policy guide-lines as regards treatment of civilian population.
Failure to point out to Colonel David -- whose full name must be familiar to you -- the grave legal and moral consequences of the acts to which he took responsibility would make yourself and the army's Legal Department share in that responsibility."
Gush Shalom also had an ad in Ha'aretz, on April 4
Dress rehearsal
In Tulkarm, IDF officers have deported about 2000 men from their homes and left them in the open air. Each one of them had to find shelter on his own.
Colonel David, commander of the Ephraim brigade, took responsibility for the action, but there can be no doubt that he acted on orders from the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff.
It looks like a dress rehearsal for "transfer", an army training exercise for mass expulsion.
The IDF generals exploit the opportunity, when the eyes of the world are turned towards Iraq, in order to intensify their war against the Palestinian people.
On the Road Map of Sharon, Mofaz and Ya'alon, there is only one direction: Palestinians Out!
Where is the voice of the Israeli conscience?
Help us to publish ads
Checks to: P.O.Box 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033
There came protests by other peace and human rights groups, and doubts were voiced about the temporary nature of the expulsions.
Former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin of Meretz stated: "The wholesale expulsion of thousand people from their homes is reminiscent of the most horrifying scenes in our history. Those capable of perpetrating such acts in Tulkarm today might do the same in Tel-Aviv tomorrow." The army came under increasing pressure to explain the exact circumstances and its intentions, and in the event the displaced men were allowed back to their homes after the passage of two days only. The army did not, however, admit having done anything wrong, but claimed that "The temporary removal of a thousand Palestinians was for their own good and safety" (sic!).
***
Flour against the occupation
On March 25, days after the Iraq War started, Gush Shalom called upon its supporters:
"While we stand prepared to disseminate to an worldwide Emergency Network any news of what could be the beginning of ethnic cleansing, Palestinians meanwhile find it difficult just to get through the day.
Through veteran activist Ya'acov Manor, who has many contacts, we heard about the plight of villagers in the Nablus area. Already struggling with ongoing closures and curfews, these people now have to get ready for worse. The first thing for every household: to store food. Oil they have -- we ourselves took part in harvesting olives, September and October 2002, in several villages. Most families also grow some herbs and vegetables around the house. What they must buy -- and money is lacking -- is flour.
One 50-kilo sack costs 75 NIS (approximately US$17). It is the kind of help UNWRA has always been providing in Refugee Camps. But now, the need in the Palestinian society is far more widespread. (...)"
The response was overwhelming: day after day, donors from inside the country and from all over the world phoned and emailed, some pledging to pay for one or two sacks, others giving five or even ten. Soon, there was enough to cover the first action decided upon -- delivering 15 tons of flour to two Palestinian villages -- but the donations continued to flow in, leaving a considerable surplus for further relief operations.
On the morning of Saturday, March 29, two dozen Gush Shalom activists set out to accompany the truck to its destination -- only to encounter a tight army roadblock at the Tapuakh Checkpoint south of Nablus, where they were held up and forbidden to proceed "out of concern for their own safety."
The fact that the Israeli activists had been invited by the Palestinian villagers themselves, and that they neither needed nor wanted the occupation army to escort or "protect" them, was discounted out of hand. Negotiations proceeded with two separate military commands, both of which seemed to have some jurisdiction and each of which seemed anxious to pass the buck to the other. Friendly Knesset Members, called by mobile phones, also tried to make their weight felt.
Finally, a compromise was reached: the army let the truckload -- 300 sacks of flour, as well as quantities of chocolate for children -- be delivered to its destination, but the Israeli activists were permitted to go with it only part of the way, and meet with Palestinians in a more centrally-located junction.
Disappointed at not being able to see the flour unloaded, the Gush Shalomers were consoled by the warm welcome from a Palestinian crowd at the designated meeting point. To the assembled villagers and local leadership, Uri Avnery and the Iraqi-born Latif Dori (who spoke in Arabic) explained that "this is not charity, we stand together battling occupation: Under the guise of 'fighting terrorism' Sharon is systematically strangulating a population of three and a half million people, with the intention of bringing the Palestinian people to their knees. In the face of such a cruel and inhumane policy, a humanitarian act has become political. To help you survive when Sharon wants you to break is a political act."
Gush Shalom, pob 3322, Tel-Aviv; www.gush-shalom.org
***
Through the hole
"Machsom" (Checkpoint) is one Hebrew word that is known to all Palestinians, since it denotes a phenomenon with enormous influence on their daily life. Machsom Watch is a group of Israeli women, originally based in Jerusalem but spreading, who are daily visiting the checkpoints, observing the conduct of the soldiers and police, publishing reports on what they see and try to intervene when possible.
The following excerpt from the weekly report issued by Machsom Watch on April 21 tells of the changing situation in one specific point: the wall erected in the middle of 2002 to separate the Palestinian suburb of Abu Dis from Jerusalem, which severely hampers the daily life of the Abu Dis residents.
Date: 13.4.03 -- Evening
Observers: R. Y., M. B-H, and a Canadian TV crew.
(...) [We found] no soldiers present. A big hole had been opened in the wall, just to the left of where people usually climb. There were no soldiers around. People told us it had been opened by locals that morning. As long as it lasts, the passage through in the direction of Jerusalem is actually almost decent. One guy remarked to us: "A good beginning". Further inquiry gave another version: the paving work was actually commissioned by the Jerusalem municipality, and along a line from the bottom of Mt. Olives (where the original Abu Dis Checkpoint was), the wall would be dismantled from its present place and moved about a block eastward. We cannot vouch for this information. (...)
Date: 15.4 -- Morning
Observers: RM., YYL., RR., MR. and a guest
More soldiers than usual (8-9 most of the time), and a mass movement of people. The soldiers were quite hostile and screamed all the time. The ID checks were relatively quick, but many, including elderly people, were denied entry. Two men caught on the western side of the wall were taken in a humiliating way to the area near the petrol station. The contents of the sacks that they carried were dumped onto the dirty road, while three soldiers seemed to really enjoy dumping the stuff, laughing and taunting all the time. With the help of the Moked [Jerusalem-based legal aid center] we enabled a doctor from Augusta Victoria Hospital to get past the checkpoint, after he was delayed for an hour.
Date: 15.4.03 -- Evening
Observers: TG. YN. EK. and a guest.
The improved passage at the wall serves the population well. Many people crossed to both sides, with no soldiers or police in sight. We talked to someone who has a business around there: because of the wall they have two cars, one on each side. That is called survival. Up the hill, 5 Border Police were sitting in the yard, resting. (...). The wall covers the entrance to the College, so the students have to walk around.
Date: 17.4.03 (Pesach) -- Morning
Observers: NE. MM.
It is a day of closure because of Passover. En route to Abu-Dis we encounter an improvised check-up. A van is stopped, one man with a blue ID [Israeli citizen or resident] and the women (without permit) are allowed to continue, the rest of the men (about ten, a couple are old) are being turned back. We see them later by the wall in Abu-Dis. Meanwhile, the opening at the wall has been broadened and it is almost a free passage. No army at 6.45AM. People cross freely. The army is up the hill, and a few detainees. The officer tells us that there is going to be a regular "terminal" there (his term). The guy who organizes the taxis says that the army is going to close the wall passage and leave only the one up the hill.
Date: 18.4.03 -- Morning
Observers: RM, YO, BS
The break in the wall opposite the gas station is still there, enabling people in good physical condition to pass with little effort. However, there is a new buildup of concrete slabs just behind the old wall. On some of them somebody painted cheerful paintings, so out of place in the tristesse of the wall area. A van driver on that side told us that the drivers had collected 500 Shekels [$ 100] to build a few stairs to make it easier for people to pass, but that the new construction was destroyed by border police the same day.
We asked the checkpoint commander what gives "us" the right to destroy property on their side. First, he pointed out that it was just we leftists saying that it is theirs at all and second, he explained that he had ordered the destruction of the stairs "as a mental preparation for the fact that soon they won't be allowed to pass at all". An acquaintance who lives very close to the wall told us that a few days ago, soldiers had come to his home in the middle of the night, destroying the main entrance (and later two mobile phones) and throwing tear gas inside the house, allegedly in an attempt to find "wanted terrorists".
Date: 19.4.03 -- Afternoon
Observers: RW., MH.
No soldiers around the gasoline station, but we were told by the grocery man and others that just before we arrived, soldiers had taken 15 Palestinians up the hill. Halfway up the hill, a Military Police jeep coming down stopped, and the soldiers asked us, with deep concern in their voices, if we knew where we were going. On top of the hill stood a group of adults, and when they saw us they just disappeared. In the courtyard of the Hotel we found six MP's just finishing their break, eating Matzos [unleavened bread eaten on the Pesach holiday]. They denied having taken any people up here. We did see one Palestinian, just leaving with a very stormy face, who obviously didn't want the soldiers to see him talk to us and who was just concerned to walk away fast. The soldiers went down to the break in the wall next to the gasoline station and started checking arbitrarily chosen people. On the Mount of Olives and all around East Jerusalem there was heavy presence of Police and MP's, checking all passing cars.
Contact: Machsom Watch noralbendersky@yahoo.com
Weekly email reports at request.
***
From hand to hand
Based on the account by Bryan Atinsky on Indymedia
On the morning of March 22, a group of approximately 300 Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel, together with a sizeable international contingent, answered the call of the Arab-Jewish Ta'ayush organization -- to join a semi-truck loaded with some 40 tons of flour, collected from among Israel's Arab community as well as from Jewish individuals. A long cavalcade found its way to the Palestinian village Karawat Bani Hasan.
Situated in the Salfit District of the central West Bank, not far from the large Israeli settlement-city of Ariel, there is grave fear that the line of the planned "Security Wall" will encompass the bulk of the village's lands and get them annexed to Israel.
In all directions, the village is flanked by a conspicuous settler presence topping the surrounding hills: the two full-fledged settlements of Barkan and Kiryat Netafim; a smaller, newer "settlement outpost" established in the recent settlement expansion drive; and the settler-dominated Barkan Industrial Zone, where Palestinians may enter as manual workers, but never as entrepreneurs.
Some time ago the military dug up the main road into the village and put up a series of four earthen barricades across the road, every twenty or so meters. Villagers can not go in or out of the village by automobile, but must park their car at the first barricade, which has become a makeshift parking lot, and walk the approximately 150 meters to the final barricade before they reach the unblocked portion of the main road.
The day went quite smoothly. A chain was formed, and activists efficiently passed the 60-kilo sacks from hand to hand, over the barricade and into waiting tractors, which went into the village. It took at least 15-20 tractor loads to transport all the flour.
At least, there were no obstacles other than the barricades. There was no settler harassment, and the army had only a token presence of some six soldiers standing in the olive groves, watching with bored looks. And the one who showed some real interest was actually rather friendly and sympathetic.
After filling the tractors with the flour sacks, activists made their way up the hill road into the village, sat and talked with the villagers and each other. A couple of speeches were made, but both Israelis and Palestinians felt that the real message had already been delivered.
Ta'ayush, pob 59380, Tel-Aviv 61593, www.taayush.org
bryan@indymedia.org.il, www.indymedia.org.il
***
Shalom Ken -- Bush Lo!
Feb.15 in Tel-Aviv
The setting was familiar. We have done this many times before, in moments of crisis when the need for a mass protest was evident: gathering in front of the Tel-Aviv Cinematheque, with contingents arriving by bus from all over the country; marching in our thousands down the wide Ibn Gvirol Street; a living forest of colorful banners and placards and hand-painted signs, Jews and Arabs together with slogans chanted alternately in both languages and occasionally in English; reaching the Museum Plaza for a prolonged rally, with speakers addressing the crowd from the steps of the Public Library (as always, the allocation of speaking slots had been accompanied by some undignified infighting between the various participating groups...)
Still, this night was also different and new: never before had Israeli peace activists found themselves so much an integrated part of a world-wide movement of protest; never before did our particular concerns, in this miserable torn country, mesh so closely with the anxiety and alarm and anger of so many people in so many countries around the world. Somebody had taken the initiative of producing an Israeli version of the "No War" sticker, familiar from CNN reports of the protests in Europe and the US; it was avidly taken up and placed on clothes together with Gush Shalom's Two Flags or the competing emblems of the Hadash and Balad parties.
The veteran slogan "Shalom Ken -- Kibush Lo" (Peace Yes -- Occupation No") needed only a slight change in order to be transformed into an anti-Bush chant. And demonstrators accustomed to sending Sharon to the Hague War Crimes Tribunal simply consigned Bush to the same destination, with the same cadence. "Bush, Blair and Sharon are the true axis of evil" was an improvised new slogan, chanted as the banner "Israelis and Palestinians oppose the war" was unfurled.
It was not just a slogan. Underlying the cheerfulness and some ribaldry was a deep anxiety about what was in store for the country once the war breaks out: speculations about attacks on Israel by non-conventional Iraqi missiles alternating with worries of Sharon using the coming war to perpetrate some terrible deed against the Palestinians. "What plans are already prepared in meticulous detail at some headquarters, just waiting for Bush to provide the smoke screen for their implementation? How many trees are already slated for uprooting? How many houses are to be demolished? How many people have already been placed under a secret sentence of death?" cried Haim Hanegbi of Gush Shalom.
"The darkness is fast approaching, threatening to engulf us all" said the feminist writer Rela Mazali, on behalf of the Women's Peace Coalition -- part of "An open letter to a friend who did not come to this event", addressing the very many Israelis who share our abhorrence of the coming war and whom we nevertheless failed to bring to our "too radical" or "too Arab" event.
Indeed, some of the Tel-Avivians seemed a bit alienated when long speeches in Arabic followed each other from the podium -- (the kind of feelings usually preserved for Arab participants who come to join in Tel-Avivian peace manifestations). Haneen Zuabi and Aida Toma, two young and fiery women spoke Arabic while representing respectively Balad and Hadash, giving only a summary in Hebrew.
Dr. Haidar Abdel Shafi, old and respected Palestinian statesman, addressed the rally in surprisingly strong and confident words of solidarity in Arabic and English, by phone from beleaguered Gaza.
There was much cheering when Yesh Gvul speaker Dan Tamir, a reserve captain and refuser of service in the occupied territories, read a letter written on the same morning by the young refusniks incarcerated at Military Prison 4 and calling upon American and British soldiers to follow on the path of refusing service in oppressive and aggressive warfare.
Azmi Bdeir of Ta'ayush, who moderated the event concluded: "This coming war which looms over us is not a natural disaster. It is man-made. Human beings planned it, human beings intend to carry it out, and will bear the full responsibility to its short and long-term consequences. We, too, will share this responsibility if we don't cry out in protest."
On the late afternoon of Saturday, April 12, a procession under the motto "U.S.A. out of Iraq, Israel out of Palestine!" marched through the crowded Ben-Gurion Blvd in the German Colony neighborhood of downtown Haifa, to the main gate of the Haifa port -- used by the U.S. Navy as a temporary anchorage. Several hundred Jewish and Arab activists, mostly youthful, have answered the call of the Haifa Peace Forum. Red flags as well as intertwined Israeli and Palestinian flags and banners were flying, and the placards read 'War is state terrorism', 'No blood for oil!' and 'Occupation isn't Liberation'. A popular chant among the mostly youthful was 'Bush, Bush and Sharon, how many children did you bomb?' (It rhymes also in Hebrew and Arabic).
Throughout the march, there were vivid discussions of the previous day's televised scenes of the Saddam statue being overthrown in Baghdad, and what it meant for the anti-war movement. The overwhelming opinion: that while Iraqis may rejoice at the fall of a dictatorial regime, this did not change the essential fact that the Americans were occupiers, who did not come to "liberate" but to further imperial interests.
One participant held a placard with two nearly identical photos: a row of blindfolded, handcuffed prisoners -- guarded by Israeli soldiers in Nablus; by British soldiers at Basra. The procession ended with a rally blocking the Haifa Port's main gate for half an hour. Police did not intervene at the time. But after the crowd dispersed one of the organizers was detained and interrogated on charges of "violating the terms of the permit" and threatened with prosecution.
(The above is based on the account of veteran journalist/activist Hans Lebrecht who (85+) walked the whole march, and on what multiple-peace group member Danny Grimblat told on the phone.)
***
[In all actions of Israeli peace groups there are the two elements of, on the one hand, solidarity with the Palestinians and, on the other hand, trying to get the message to the Israeli public. Here follow reports on some new, creative efforts of achieving the latter.]
Dancing in the rain -- at Sharon's farm
Report by Adam Keller of the 'Rave Against the Occupation', Friday Jan 3.
We came to protest against the occupation -- but first we had to contend with the elements. When our cavalcade arrived at Ariel Sharon's farm in the Negev and we emerged from the cars, we found a real thunderstorm in progress, a rare event for this part of the country.
There we were, all getting soaked together -- anarchists who disdain all political parties as parts of a corrupt power structure, left-wing party activists who hoped to garner some votes in the ongoing elections campaign, hundreds of young people who intended to have a good time and take a political stand in one and the same act, and also the famous DJ Doctor Motte who had come especially all the way from Berlin.
The long preparations seemed futile, as the specially designated field was fast becoming a quagmire into which the truck with the sound equipment might venture but would surely never come out again. Across that field and beyond the sheets of rain, it was possible to see the formidable defences of the PM's sheep farm: a moat, now full of rushing flood water; beyond it, a high fence; beyond that, a patrol road with armed guards in a jeep...
"This is one of the biggest private farms in the country, and Sharon got it from the state for next to nothing. There is enough land over there for a whole kibbutz" remarked Meretz Knesset Member Avshalom Vilan, himself a member of a nearby kibbutz.
"But don't you know that before 1948 Sharon's farm used to be a Palestinian village? When he got his hands on the land, he immediately had the last of the old Arab houses bulldozed, leaving no trace" remarked one of the anarchists.
Meanwhile, a group of volunteers was working furiously under the driving rain. A huge plastic sheet with the words 'Rave Against the Occupation' was dismantled, turned horizontal, lashed to the sound truck, which was parked at the side of the road and secured to stakes driven into the ground.
A more or less sheltered space was created, and the loudspeakers boomed: "Attention, please! We are starting -- rain or no rain! As you know, we have come here to hold a Party of Salute and Thanksgiving for our Prime Minister, to thank him for the two wonderful years he had given us since the glorious moment of his accession to power. Thank you for the peace, Mr. Sharon, and thanks a lot for the security! And now for the most important news yet: we have been informed that the PM is right this moment in residence, in the house just behind the trees over there. Surely we are not going to disappoint him. Dance -- everybody is going to dance! Everybody!" And we did.
When the hypnotic music began, feet started moving as if of themselves, and everybody joined in -- also the old fogies from Gush Shalom who helped sponsor the event, and came to observe and perhaps distribute a few leaflets, but had no intention of taking such an active part.
The space under the improvised awning was far from enough, and many dancers spilled out into the rain and mud, dancing with abandon, discarding coats and sweaters as their bodies heated, dancing and dancing and dancing in pride and defiance. (It did help that the rain was gradually slackening off.)
And then everything was abruptly cut off by the policeman who climbed unto the truck and simply turned off the music. We have broken the terms of the permit, he informed us. We had been dancing in a place some 30 metres distant from the spot designated in the organisers' negotiations with the police. The fact that the original spot was ankle-deep in mud did not matter, a permit was a permit and its terms were precise.
The frustrated dancers were furious. 'Police state! Police state!' they shouted, and 'Rave -- Yes, Occupation -- No!' But demonstrating and chanting slogans seemed pale in comparison to the hypnotic dance. There is no way to dance and hold a rave without music, and the sound equipment was in unbreakable police custody.
There was one thing left to do. "OK, they say we have to go to that field -- let's go there, then, even without music! Let's get as close to Sharon as we can!" called Shahaf, one of the young organisers. And several dozens did follow him, splashing through the heavy mud, shaking weary fists at the security guards across the fence. Somebody held up a sign, reading: 'We will not be sheep in Sharon's herd!'
The police immediately followed, splashing ahead to block the way, even though the mud spattered their neat uniforms. "No further, no further! This is as far as your permit allows!" A longhaired Tel-Aviv youth did stride boldly forward - and urinated straight into the moat. "The police may tell me where to dance or demonstrate, but where to piss I decide!"
Rave Against the Occupation, pob 23479, Tel-Aviv
chicky99@netvision.net.il
***
Yes to truth!
'We decided to bring reality into the heart of affluent, artsy Tel-Aviv', wrote Women's Peace Coalition organizer Gila Svirsky in her report, 'and do it on their terms -- using music, art, cinema, and street theater.'
On December 27, 2002, over a thousand people attended a mass Women (and Men) in Black vigil. Mostly black-clad activists from all over the country, together with visitors from Europe and North America, spread out on the five corners of one of the busiest intersections of Tel-Aviv.
The twin slogans -- 'End the Occupation' and 'No to Racism' -- were visible everywhere: white lettering on black smocks, black umbrellas, black banners, and on the traditional black 'hands' of Women in Black. The weather was auspicious -- sudden bright, hot sun after a week of cold winter rains -- and while the message was highly serious, the event turned into a protest happening rather then a demonstration.
Two drummers were doing Middle Eastern rhythms, and a few metres further, five "Angry Old Ladies" were singing subversive political lyrics, which they had written to nursery rhymes and Zionist foot-stompers.
Further on, a group of German peaceniks based in Tamera, Portugal were performing peace songs with guitars and hand clapping -- near where crates of olives and olive oil, packed into empty soda bottles, were being sold by activists who had helped Palestinian peasants harvest them.
Another well-sold item were T-shirts with the slogan 'War is not my language', produced by the Fifth Mother movement (carrying on the tradition of Four Mothers, the group of soldiers' mothers which had a decisive influence on getting the army out of Lebanon). And enormous stickers with 'Transfer = War Crime' were given free to anybody promising to place them on top of the extreme-right ads calling for "population transfer", i.e. ethnic cleansing, which had recently sprouted all over the country.
The most popular attraction was the showing -- on a big screen set up on the pavement -- of Mohammed Bakri's controversial 'Jenin, Jenin', with its moving testimonies by Palestinian inhabitants on the April 2002 conquest of their refugee camp. The film had been banned by the Film Censorship Board, but by law such bans apply only to showings in cinemas for which admittance fees are collected.
Nevertheless, policemen showed up, informing organisers that the Chief of Police had given strict orders to forbid the screening. Encountering their determination to go ahead, the guardians of law and order went over to the owner/operator of the equipment and told him that if he did not turn off the projector, they would smash it.
The situation was saved by veteran activist Debby Lerman, who pulled out her checkbook, and handed to the video equipment owner a blank, signed check: "If the police smash your equipment, just write in the amount that it's worth." The crowd gathered in great numbers and the film ran for over an hour. The police did not smash any equipment -- in fact, they kept a small noisy group of right-wing counter-demonstrators from coming too near.
The scene was captured in the report on that evening's TV news, with Adv. Yoni Lerman stating on behalf of the Women's Coalition: 'One should not hide the truth, even not an unpleasant one.'
Women's Coalition, pob 8083, Jerusalem 91080
www.coalitionofwomen4peace.org
***
Policeman refuse - you too will go hungry!
Tuesday, March 18. In the morning, the Jaffa Military Court remanded the 18-year old refusenik Shimri Tzameret in custody, pending the end of his court-martial on charges of refusing to join what he considers an army of occupation.
Among the crowd of family members and sympathizers filling to capacity the small hall were three International Solidarity Movement volunteers -- Greg, Wil and Alice -- who had witnessed the death of Rachel Corrie under the military bulldozer at Rafah, two days earlier (see article on p.19, 20).
The judicial proceedings in such cases had already become a routine -- this was the fourth refusenik to be remanded in as many weeks. At the end of the proceedings, Israelis and internationals filed out, shaking Shimri's manacled hand and saying a few words of encouragement. The escorting military policeman seemed quite friendly, in no hurry to take his charge off to detention.
Then, many of the courtroom crowd -- particularly the younger ones -- took the direct bus from Jaffa to Tel-Aviv's Rabin Square, where a curious event was about to begin: Drummers' March Against Exploitation, Discrimination, Occupation and Racism. The idea was to make this message part of the carnivalesque atmosphere of the Purim Holiday.
More than a hundred people had gathered, from several slightly overlapping groups: anarchists with their black and black-and-red flags; activists of Gush Shalom, some fresh from an emergency meeting with Palestinians in Ramallah; the young refuseniks -- including a large contingent of the militant refuser girls, who are spared the imprisonment of their male counterparts but still have to undergo many difficulties and humiliations before gaining an exemption from military duty; various vegetarians, vegans and animal rights activists; the alternative communications people of Indymedia; the lesbians and gay men of Kvisa Shora (Black Sheep/Dirty Laundry).
As befitting the occasion, most have come in fanciful costume (with a significant number of witches and demons). Conspicuous was a smiling George W., holding missiles and bombs in his hands and with a pair of red horns sprouting from his forehead.
And everywhere there were drums, of all possible kinds: children's tin drums and the professional instruments of musicians, the traditional darbuka of Arab society as well as pots and pans and large empty tins. Those who could not be trusted to keep a cadence were issued with whistles.
"We want to hold a drumming march through the streets of Tel-Aviv, as far as we can get. We also want to bring certain messages to the attention of the society in which we live," said one of the organizers on a megaphone. "To combine these two aims, please be careful about the combination of drumming and chanting of slogans. Let's go!"
And so the march set off -- drumming, whistling, shouting, some dancing and jumping up and down along the Ibn Gvirol Boulevard. The slogans, to which dozens of throats lent their force, were clearly audible through all the other racket.
Surprisingly, there was little or no hostility from passers-by, even at the calling of such slogans as The IDF is a terrorist organization/ Refuseniks are the true heroes -- which is as radical as you can possibly get in today's Israel. Rather, the main reaction was curious staring as the procession passed by. The freedom of the jester?
The theme of the slogans shifted constantly, according to both location and mood. Each of the two McDonalds on Ibn Gvirol got subjected to a quick vigil, with slogans directed against meat eating and the slaughter of animals as well as the exploitation of workers by multinationals.
Later, at the London Ministore Shopping Mall, they were denouncing the consumer society and slightly skirmishing with the security man at the entrance. "To get in you must present yourselves for a security check, one by one. Regulations!" he said. Some of the witches made the evil eye signs at him while others blew him kisses, and then the procession was off again down the street.
It was while they were going into a series of saucy digs at Finance Minister Netanyahu and his economic austerity plan that the first police appeared on the scene -- and were greeted with Shoter, shoter, tesarev -- gam ata tihye ra'ev! (Policeman, refuse -- you too will go hungry!). The four police turned aside, one of them talking animatedly into his communicator.
A brief vigil at the entrance of the Egg & Poultry Board headquarters (Free the chickens/No more eggs!), walking from there through a backyard -- and the procession reached the three-storey building housing the offices of the Military Censorship and the Army Spokesperson.
In the past half-year, the latter position is held by a woman for the first time in the history of the state of Israel -- which did not endear her to the feminists in the procession. "Ruth Yaron -- serial liar!" they shouted.
The young soldiers peering out of the windows seemed curious and amused, possibly glad of an unexpected break in their dull work schedule. But in the building's lobby a muscular major suddenly appeared, running with his face contorted in anger and slamming the heavy glass door in the face of the first demonstrators -- who burst out laughing.
Thereupon, some five youngsters started covering the door with thick layers of graffiti, the officer continuing to expostulate soundlessly on the other side. Others discovered in the yard an enormous waste-paper container, made of iron, which quickly turned out to be an incomparable instrument for very loud drumming.
Suddenly, a hush. A slender, soberly dressed young woman takes up the megaphone and speaks in English: 'You inside the building, stop your lying! I was there in Rafah. I saw how Rachel died. I saw it with my own eyes; it was no accident. No, it was no accident; the bulldozer driver killed her on purpose. Stop lying!'
The next port of call -- World Zionist Organization headquarters -- proved a bit of a disappointment. Though the procession halted for ten minutes, with youngsters loudly calling out naughty things about Zionism, there was no sign of life in the huge edifice taking up an entire block, not a single official or simple clerk coming out to protest on behalf of the maligned state ideology. But if somebody missed having a confrontation, it was more than compensated for after a further short walk to the Defence Ministry gate.
It may have been due to hearing the speech of Alice, the American activist, back at the censorship building. Or in response to the attitude of the knot of soldiers blocking the gate. Anyway, much of the earlier flippant, care-free atmosphere of the march disappeared, and the slogans became more and more militant as demonstrators and soldiers stood glaring at each other: Down with the occupation! The occupation kills! - Refuse, refuse, refuse! Every soldier is an accessory to murder! - War criminals, war criminals, war criminals!
Suddenly, several soldiers ran forward, and tried to grab a demonstrator and drag him into the camp -- which would have been illegal, since soldiers have no authority to arrest civilians. Other demonstrators held on to their comrade, and a large-scale scuffle ensued, with insults and curses filling the air. Finally the captive was released, and organizers urged the marchers to move on. "This is not our purpose! Move on, move on!"
The procession continued along the huge compound housing the nerve center of the Israeli military machine. At each of the many gates along the route there was a halt and a few minutes of concentrated slogan chanting, then moving on before a new clash could develop. The hostile soldiers seem to have remained in their part of the camp, and those at the other gates were more bewildered than hostile.
By then, however, the civilian police began to appear in force -- members of the notorious Yasam (Special Patrol Unit) in their distinctive grey uniforms. "This is an illegal demonstration -- disperse!" shouted a senior officer. "The occupation is illegal" answered the crowd, to the sound of renewed drumming and whistling, and forged on ahead.
At the corner of Petach Tikva Road, where the Twin Azrieli Towers overlook the Defence Ministry, the police suddenly pounced. As trained at their academy, tough officers came running, grabbing demonstrators and dragging them off towards the waiting patrol cars. Once again, demonstrators held on tightly to
each other, and several captives were freed. In the end, three were snatched out and carried into the cars, which immediately set off to Harakevet Street Police Station. The rest of the demonstrators set off on foot in the same direction, to settle down after some twenty minutes for a long sit-in in front of the police building.
A lawyer was called in to help free the detainees, and was told that they were held "on suspicion of assaulting policemen." Finally, the three emerged at a late night hour, to the cheer of those who had stuck out on the outside. "Go home, take a rest. The war is coming. See you at the US Embassy." (Already some time before, Hadash had informed all and sundry that a protest would be held on the day when Bush's offensive in Iraq started.)
***
Evidence hereby submitted
On March 7, the column of B. Michael in Yediot was the topic of the day, at least in our circles.
My army killed a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy. I know that, her husband knows that, her brother knows that, her kids know that, the hospital team at Dir-El-Balakh knows that, those who dug her grave and covered it know that.
Only my army does not know. Brigadier General Gadi Shamani, the man in charge of the Gaza Strip, notified us publicly that "evidence was not found" for the Palestinian claim.
"Evidence was not found..." What a perfect bureaucratic phrasing. An under-clerk in the customs office would not have phrased it better. Probably Reduction Form AC/6416, for the sum of 1 FCP (Fetus Carrying Palestinian) was not filled out properly.
Following, Mister Brigadier General, please find enclosed the evidence: The name of the buried was Nuha Al-Makadma, and she was 33 at the time of her death. Nuha, RIP, was buried alive in her house, in front of her husband and children.
You could easily identify the house; this is the ruin next to the other ruin that your soldiers demolished deliberately. Her husband's name, by the way, is Shukri, and for an unknown reason he has been very sad lately. Perhaps because he saw his wife's body at the hospital, namely -- found the evidence to account for the fact that she is dead. The fetus in her womb died with her (attached Enemy-Fetus Termination form in three copies).
A dead fetus is a very unpleasant thing from the explanatory aspect. Therefore, Mister Brigadier General, it is worthwhile for you to quickly find evidence that Nuha's womb was indeed a munitions cache, in which a potential Sha'hid was hidden, caught attached with his navel to a bleeding cord. There is no doubt that the majority of the Israeli people will eagerly buy the evidence brought forth. They are good at that.
Refusal is patriotic!
Friday April 11 -- a demo in support of the growing number of refusers, both men and women, who resist going to the military in the service of the occupation. The event was initiated and led by a coalition of refuser-related organizations: Shministim (High School Seniors), New Profile, Yesh Gvul, Courage to Refuse, Druze Initiative Committee, Refusers' Parents' Forum. The following description was sent to the TOI email list on April 14.
Refuseniks and CO's of all hues and members of many groups in solidarity with their ongoing struggle, many activists of the Women's Coalition, of Ta'ayush and of Gush Shalom -- among them Uri Avnery -- and the gays and lesbians of Kvisa Sh'hora, all together walked in procession along the triangle of busy highways opposite the Tel-Aviv railway station, culminating with a rally in the green park caught up between the rushing traffic.
'Lo namit velo namut/Besherut Hahitnachlut!' they chanted ('Neither kill nor die/In the service of the settlements'). Colorful banners were unfurled and waved at the goggle-eyed stalled motorists: 'Occupation is terror -- the refuser is a hero' - 'The army puts conscience behind bars' - 'I refuse to serve in the occupation army and to buy settlement products.'
In the park, all of the 1500-strong crowd got together; young refuseniks who just embarked upon their struggle with the military authorities; reservists who had been at it since the 1982 Lebanon War and earlier; veteran Israelis and immigrants from the former Soviet Union (imprisoned refuseniks had recently discovered among their fellow prisoners several Russians who had been struggling all by themselves, unaware of the existence of support organizations).
Then there was the distinctive group of Druze from the Galilee, parents of imprisoned refusers, with their signs in Hebrew and Arabic 'My son will not serve in an army of occupation!' (Druze are the only part of Israel's Arab citizens subject to conscription -- and many of them resent it). And there were the girl refusers, often ignored because unlike boys they don't get into prison -- but they are going through a hell of humiliation and verbal abuse by officers and officials before getting their discharge. All enjoyed being together and feeling that "the refuser community" is growing.
When he climbed the podium with the big banner 'Refusal - that is Zionism' Ishai Shagi of Courage to Refuse ('Officers Letter') aroused the opposition of some youngsters, greeting him with 'Zionism is Racism.' 'No -- Zionism is not! Zionism is a dream, which since 1967 has been captured and perverted. But it can and should be recovered.'
Then came Noa Kaufman of the Shministim (High School Letter group): "When I was in the Kindergarten we were told to make gift packages for the soldiers. Refusal is also to let a new generation send packages to hospitals and not to the army." The Yesh Gvul veteran Peretz Kidron let Itai Rib speak to the crowd -- from prison through the cellular phone: "The State of Israel has made the whole West Bank into one big prison; the choice before us: to which prison do we go, and whether as guards or as prisoner."
From the podium a call was made of solidarity with the 3 UK soldiers and a US marine, imprisoned for their refusal to join the War Against Iraq.
Two outside personalities gave the happening extra flavor: Grand Lady of the left, Shulamit Aloni who fulminated against the lawlessness of imprisoning conscript COs again and again on the same charge; popular singer Aviv Gefen who sang the song which he wrote himself: "Let's march into the dream/Where there are no races and nations/Let's try/Until things get better. Let's bury the guns/And not the children/Let's try/Until things get better. Let's conquer peace/And not the territories/Let's try/Until things get better."
Veteran refuser and poet Yitzchak Laor, very calm this time, made sure that nobody could become too self-satisfied: "It's not enough to refuse military service! Our friends of the International Solidarity Movement remind us that we have to be there, protecting the Palestinians with our bodies." When he said it, some of us felt a bit annoyed: isn't our task as Israelis in the first place to erode the "occupation consensus"? But retroactively, he spoke those words at the very moment that in Rafah the 21-year old Briton was shot in the head while trying to act as the human shield to two Palestinian children.
"After coming home from a good demonstration in support of the increasing number of refusers of military service in Israel, we found the terrible news on the Ha'aretz site. Another ISM activist shot at and in extreme condition. Tom Hurndall from the UK is in the Jarusi Hospital in Khan Younes." is the start of the email sent out later that day by the TOI-staff.
The words of Laor were resounding:
'Not Enough!'
The road map
Jeff Halper
Potential & weaknesses
31.3.03
For all of us who have worked over the years for a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this seems to be our moment of truth. For the past eight months the "Quartet" -- Europe, the UN, Russia and the US -- have been formulating their "road map" for ending the Occupation and establishing, in the words of the December draft, "an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state" by the year 2005.
Tony Blair, who is desperate for progress in the Middle East that will offset his participation in the war against Iraq, has spoken passionately of an "even-handed" approach. He has prodded Bush to make several formal, if terse, statements of support for early implementation of the road map. Coming at a time when Israel is putting the finishing touches on its 35-year campaign to render the Occupation irreversible, this seems to be an initiative that we cannot afford to sit out. It opens a window of opportunity for us that, if not seized, will put off subsequent efforts to resolve the conflict for years, with all the implications that holds for Palestinian aspirations of self- determination.
We need to engage in an urgent discussion of the road map. Do we see it as a document that could lead to a just outcome, or does it contain fatal flaws? We must be careful not to dismiss the initiative in an automatic knee-jerk reaction just because it comes from Bush and Blair. We must be certain that it is totally inadequate, or that it truly leads nowhere, before we pass it by.
Those who feel that it is has no positive potential should explain why, and set out alternative concrete ideas on what should be done to address the urgent situation of the Occupation. Those who feel that the document does have potential and that we should engage with our political leadership should point to the elements of the plan that are weak or missing, so that our advocacy can be as effective as possible.
For my part, I would like to offer the following analysis, based on the December 20 draft that the Quartet has affirmed is the final document. If a new version suddenly appears that differs significantly, it may require reevaluation, especially if Israel succeeds in removing any reference to "occupation" or if conditionality replaces mutuality. As of now, however, the road map appears to have a promising potential. Let me explain why.
(1) The goals of the road map conform to the broad outlines of peace most of our groups advocate. In the words of the December draft, "A settlement, negotiated between the parties, will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors. The settlement will resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and end the occupation that began in 1967.in the context of a comprehensive settlement." Negotiations are based on the terms of reference of the Madrid Conference and the principle of land for peace, on UN Security Council Resolutions 242, 338 and 1397, on agreements previously reached by the parties, and on the Arab initiative proposed by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, as endorsed by the Arab Summit in Beirut (March 2002). And they are far more explicit than those of Oslo. This means that Israel will be forced to articulate explicitly its concept of a final settlement, bringing into the open its unwillingness to countenance a truly viable and independent Palestinian state.
As set out in the December 20 draft, the road map's goals include: * A negotiated agreement leading to a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005, including issues of borders, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, and a comprehensive agreement among Israel, Lebanon and Syria; * An end to the occupation; * The emergence of an independent, democratic Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors; and * Addressing Israel's strategic goals of security and regional integration.
The fact that the road map uses the term "occupation" is in itself positive. It indicates that the Americans, who would never have used such a term, did not dictate its language. It reflects the more critical approach of the Europeans, the Russians and the UN, conforming to our long-standing desire to "internationalize" the peace process. The document's language also indicates the presence of forces within the American Administration and Congress who advocate an end to the Occupation, who understand the realities on the ground.
Hopeful, too, is the fact that the road map, backed repeatedly by remarks from Bush and Blair, refers to a "viable" Palestinian state, and not merely "a Palestinian state" which, in Sharon's terms, would be a bantustan. The December draft requires the Israeli government to publish a declaration expressing its commitment to the establishment of an "independent, viable, sovereign" Palestinian state that will live in peace and security beside Israel."
(2) Besides being "goal driven", the road map is "performance-based", detailing the steps that the Israelis, Palestinians and Arab countries must take to advance from phase to phase. "Performance" is defined by clear phases and benchmarks agreed upon by the parties in advance, in contrast to the "constructive ambiguity" of Oslo. And "performance" is defined as a mutual obligation. The December draft calls for "an immediate end to violence against Palestinians anywhere", as well as end to expulsions, harm to civilians and destruction of Palestinian property. All official Israeli institutions will be required to "cease incitement against Palestinians." For their part the Palestinians will simultaneously issue a declaration affirming Israel's right to exist and an immediate, unconditional end to the armed Intifada, including all violent activity against Israelis, everywhere. The phases are defined in detail, and each is accompanied by a timetable.
(3) The mechanisms for supervising implementation and moving from phase to phase are promising, especially as they involve a wider international set of players -- the Quartet -- than did the American-centered Oslo process. One key element of the road map is the convening of an international conference at the start of Phase II, five months into the process.
This conference, which would also begin the process of achieving a comprehensive Middle East peace involving Lebanon and Syria, places the peace process squarely at the center of the international arena. International involvement could be strengthened, says Ghassan Khatib, an insightful Palestinian analyst (and PA Labor Minister), if the UN Security Council would pass a resolution formally adopting the road map peace plan.
To lend the road map legal backbone, Khatib also proposes that the Palestinian and Israeli leaderships issue an explicit commitment to abide by international humanitarian law.
(4) In terms of a political process, the road map is "the only show in town." Since governments still have the power to determine negotiations, we -- the Israeli, Palestinian and international civil society -- must engage with them when there is a possibility of influencing events for the positive, just as we must oppose and resist their policies when necessary. Other proposals exist, such as the Nusseibeh-Ayalon plan, but the road map has taken a central place on the international agenda, and to advocate other plans and programs at this time would only confuse things.
We should use this opportunity, I contend, to harness the positive energy going into the road map while insisting that elements we find missing or problematic are addressed. By "going with the flow", by taking the road map at face value and engaging in the process in good faith, we can bolster the initiative and make it very difficult for parties that attempt to undermine or destroy it.
Let me also point out some of the more serious shortcomings in the road map that should be addressed:
Goals: "Occupation" must be defined in territorial terms rather than administrative or political ones. The Occupation should be defined as control over the territories conquered in 1967, meaning that "an end to the Occupation" is the full withdrawal of Israel from all those areas in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. This definition is crucial because in Phase III Jerusalem and the settlements are up for negotiations. How can that be if a goal of the road map is to "end the Occupation"?
If the Occupation in a territorial sense is ended, then the issues of the settlement and Jerusalem are resolved without negotiations Israel withdraws (although the principle of return to the 1967 borders permits border adjustments agreed upon by the two sides). If "occupation" is defined administratively or politically, as Israel wants, then it can use power negotiations to force the Palestinian side to accept some or all of the major settlement blocs, claiming that this "compromise" de facto "ends" the occupation. Israel could insist on retaining Palestinian East Jerusalem, the West Bank "settlement blocs" and parts of Gaza while still "ending the Occupation." Indeed, in its response to the December draft, the Israeli government stated: "The purpose of the road map should be an end to the conflict, rather than an end to the occupation."
While the refugee issue is mentioned as a final status issue, the need to find a just resolution should be stated explicitly and up-front as a major goal. This is the "hidden" issue that is seldom addressed. Israel has made it clear in its "15 comments" that unless the Palestinians renounce the Right of Return, it will not participate in the road map process. Certainly Palestinian NGOs, together with Israeli and international organizations, should endeavor to bring the refugee voice into the discussion. Here three aspects of the issue seem crucial, each in its own right: adherence to the principle in international humanitarian law that refugees have an inalienable right to return to their homes and properties; acknowledgment on the part of Israel that it played an active and major role in creating the refugee situation; and negotiations over the just disposition of the issue which include representatives of refugee communities.
Protection of the Palestinian people during the negotiating process, prevention of a further "creating of facts on the ground" by the Israeli government and the eventual dismantling of Israel's occupation will be facilitated if it is done in the framework of international humanitarian law and UN resolutions. These provide a "road map" that is already agreed upon by the international community -- and to which Israel is a signatory. Israel's contention that its rule over the Occupied Territories does not constitute an occupation, a position aided by America's reclassification of the Occupied Territories as "disputed", effectively neutralized international law during the Oslo process and completely undercut the Palestinians' ability to negotiate from a position of parity.
The road map obviously interferes with internal Palestinian politics. It insists that the Palestinians adopt a constitution, even though Israel does not have one. Its insistence on an "empowered" prime minister is a transparent attempt to get rid of Arafat, since there is nothing inherently wrong with a presidential system of government (as the Americans should appreciate). And so on. Nevertheless, many of the changes have already been made, so if a Palestinian government is allowed to develop within the context of an emerging sovereign state, these are conditions with which the Palestinians can probably live. More problematic is the danger of a Palestinian Authority doing Israel's "security" bidding. This is an area that will require our close monitoring.
To be sure, there are a lot of dangers and shortcomings in the road map. Many are extremely skeptical and suspect that the United States, and therefore Sharon would have veto power over each and every decision of the Quartet. I am not so sure. There are forces in the American Administration, certainly today in the British government, in other European governments, in Russia and in the UN who understand that the Occupation must go and that a viable Palestinian state must emerge. We of the international civil society must engage with them, offering our constructive criticism and views where necessary, monitoring the process in order to keep it transparent and honest (unlike Oslo), supporting the progressive elements in the various political establishments who can help advance the cause of a just peace.
This is not an easy task for us. Development agencies, relief services and human rights organizations are used to working with governments. Political groups, especially those marginalized on the "left", have much less experience or inclination interacting with governments. We see ourselves by nature as oppositional groups that carry a deep distrust of governments. But the road map does not only deserve our serious attention, it requires our involvement. We cannot claim that the voice of international civil society is not heard if we do not engage with the political establishments. The thousands of NGOs, faith-based organizations, political and university groups, trade unions and concerned individuals that are engaged in the struggle for a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis must become active participants. The Quartet should become at least a Quintet. The time has come to direct our growing grassroots clout at the political decision-makers so that the road map truly leads to Palestinian self-determination in a viable state free from any trace of occupation or control.
***
To tell you the truth...
Uri Avnery
A road map to nowhere
5.4.03
This could have been an important document, if...
If all the parties really wanted to achieve a fair compromise.
If Sharon and Co. were really prepared to give back the occupied territories and dismantle the settlements.
If the Americans were willing to exert serious pressure on Israel.
If there were a president in Washington like Dwight Eisenhower, who did not give a damn about Jewish votes and donations.
If George Bush were convinced that the Road Map serves his interests, instead of being a bone to throw to his British poodle.
If Tony Blair thought that it serves his interests, instead of being a crumb to throw to his domestic rivals.
If the United Nations had any real power.
If Europe had any real power.
If Russia had any real power.
If my grandmother had wheels.
All these ifs belong to an imaginary world. Therefore, nothing will come from all the talking about this document. The embryo is dead in the womb of its mother, the Quartet.
In spite of this, let's try to treat the matter in all seriousness. Is this a good document? Could it be helpful, if all the ifs were realistic?
In order to answer this seriously, one has to distinguish between the declared objectives and the road that is supposed to lead to them.
The objectives are very positive. They are identical with the aims of the Israeli peace movement: an end to the occupation, the establishment of the independent State of Palestine side-by-side with the State of Israel, Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Syrian peace, the integration of Israel in the region.
In this respect, the Road Map goes further than the Oslo agreement. In the Oslo "Declaration of Principles" there was a giant hole: it did not spell out what was to come after the long interim stages. Without a clear final aim, the interim stages had no clear purpose. Therefore the Oslo process died with Yitzhaq Rabin.
The Road Map confirms that there now exists a worldwide consensus about these objectives. This fact will remain even if nothing comes out of it. Those of us who remember that only 35 years ago there were hardly a handful of people in the world who believed in this vision can draw profound satisfaction from this Road Map. It shows that we have won the struggle for world public opinion.
But let's not exaggerate: in this document, too, there is a gaping hole in the definition of the aims. It does not say what the borders of the future Palestinian State should be, neither explicitly nor implicitly. The Green Line is not even mentioned. That by itself is enough to invalidate the whole structure. Ariel Sharon talks about a Palestinian state in 40% of the "territories" - equivalent to less than 9% of Palestine under the British Mandate. Does anyone believe that this will bring peace?
When we pass from poetry to prose, from the mountaintop of the aims to the road that is supposed to get us there, the warning signs become more and more frequent. This is a perilous road with many curves and obstacles. Even a very brave athlete would shudder at the thought of having to run this course.
The road is divided into phases. In every phase the parties must fulfill certain obligations. At the end of each phase the Quartet must decide whether the obligations have been completely fulfilled, before entering the next one. At the end, the hoped-for peace will come, God willing.
Even if all the parties were imbued with goodwill, it would be extremely difficult. When David Lloyd-George, as British Prime Minister, decided to end the British occupation of Ireland, he observed that one cannot cross an abyss in two jumps. The initiators of the Road Map propose, in effect, to cross the Israeli-Palestinian abyss in many small hops.
First question: who is this "Quartet" that has to decide at every point whether the two parties have fulfilled their obligations, and a new phase can be entered?
At first glance, there is a balance between the four players: the United Nations, the United States, Europe and Russia. It is rather like a commercial arbitration: each side appoints one arbitrator, and the two arbitrators together choose a third one. Judgment is reached by majority decision and is binding on both parties.
This could work. The United States are close to Israel, Europe and Russia are acceptable to the Palestinians. The UN representative would have the casting vote.
Not at all. According to the document, the Quartet must take all decisions unanimously. The Americans have a veto, which means that Sharon has a veto. Without his agreement, nothing can be decided. Need more be said?
Second question: When will it end?
Well, there is no clear-cut timetable for passing from one phase to the next. The document vaguely mentions several vague dates, but they are difficult to take seriously. The first phase should have started in October 2002, and come to a close in May 2003. In the real world, the Map will be shown to the Israelis and the Palestinians for the first time in May, and only then will the serious haggling begin. Nobody can foresee when the implementation of the first phase will actually begin. And in the meantime?
It should be remembered: in the Oslo agreements many dates were fixed, and almost all of them were missed (generally by the Israeli side). As the good Rabin declared: "There are no sacred dates."
Third question: Is there any kind of balance between the obligations on the two parties? The answer must be "no."
In the first phase, the Palestinians must stop the armed Intifada, establish close security cooperation with the Israelis and recognize Israel's right to exist in peace and security. They must also appoint an "empowered" Prime Minister (meaning, in effect, the neutralization of the elected president, Yasser Arafat) and start the drafting of a constitution that will meet with the approval of the Quartet.
What must Israel do at the same time? It must enable Palestinian officials (note: officials. This does not apply to the rest of the population) to move from place to place, improve the humanitarian situation, stop attacks on civilians and the demolition of homes and pay the Palestinians the money due to them. Also, it should dismantle "settlement outposts" erected since Sharon came to power, in violation of the government's guidelines. Who will decide where this applies? There is also no mention of freezing settlement activity in this phase.
Does anyone believe that Prime Minister Abu Mazen could put an end to Hamas and Jihad attacks without any political quid pro quo at all, and while the settlements keep expanding?
After this phase, the Palestinians must reform their institutions and create a constitution "based on strong parliamentary democracy" (they will not be allowed to have an American-style presidential system, for fear of Arafat retaining some powers). Only then, "as comprehensive security performance moves forward", will the Israeli army "withdraw progressively from areas occupied since September 28, 2000." Not immediately, not in one withdrawal, but bit by bit, "progressively." Not from areas B and C, but only from area A. They will be where they were before the present Intifada.
(There is an old Jewish joke about a family that complains about being crowded together in one room. The rabbi advises them to bring in a goat, too. Later, when the family complains that life has become intolerable, the rabbi tells them to take the goat out again. Suddenly they feel that they have a lot of space. This time the Israeli army is told to remove the goat, but the Palestinians are told to remove father and mother.)
After all this, the next phase will start; the Palestinians will adopt their constitution and hold free elections, the Egyptians and Jordanians will send their ambassadors back to Israel and the Israeli government will, at last, freeze settlement activity.
The next phase will focus on the "possible" creation of an independent Palestinian state with "provisional borders." So, long after all attacks have been stopped, there will be an "option" of creating a Palestinian state in Area A, a tiny part of what used to be Palestine. According to the Roadmap, this should happen by the end of 2003, but it is clear that, if at all, this will come about much later. It is also stated that "further action on settlements" will be a part of the process. What does this mean? Not the dismantling of a single settlement, not even the most remote and isolated one. After all this comes about, the Quartet will decide (again: unanimously -- only with the agreement of the Americans) that the time has come for negotiations aimed at a "permanent status agreement", hopefully in 2005, including discussion of items such as borders, Jerusalem, refugees and settlements. If Sharon or his successor wants it, there will be an agreement. If not, then not.
The truth is, in this whole document there is not one word that Sharon could not accept. After all, with the help of Bush he can torpedo any step at any time.
To sum up: Much Ado about Nothing. As evidenced by the fact that neither Sharon nor the settlers are upset.
We add here what Uri Avnery wrote two weeks later.
More than just 'Abu against Abu'
23.4.03
The clash between Abu-1 and Abu-2 -- Abu-Amar v. Abu-Mazen -- is not a personal matter, as it is presented by journalists in Israel and all over the world. Of course, the egos of the two personalities do play a role, as in all political fights. But the controversy itself goes much deeper. It reflects the unique situation of the Palestinian people.
An upper class Palestinian defined it this week on Israeli television as "the move from the culture of revolution to the culture of a state." Meaning: the Palestinian war of liberation has come to an end, and now the time has come to put the affairs of state in order. Therefore, Yasser Arafat (Abu-Amar), who represents the first, must go and Mahmud Abbas (Abu-Mazen), who represents the second, must take over.
No description could be further from reality. The Palestinian war of liberation is now at its height. Perhaps it has never been at a more critical stage. The Palestinians are faced with existential threats: ethnic cleansing (called in Israel "transfer") or imprisonment in powerless, Bantustan-style enclaves.
How has this illusion -- that the national struggle is over and that the time has come to turn to administrative matters -- arisen?
The situation of the Palestinian people is indeed unique. As far as I am aware, it has no parallel in history. Following the Oslo agreements, a kind of Palestinian mini-state came into being, consisting of several small enclaves on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. These enclaves have to be administered. But the national Palestinian aim -- a viable, independent state in all the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including East Jerusalem -- is far from being attained. In order to achieve it, an arduous national struggle lies ahead.
Thus, two different -- and contradictory -- structures exist side by side: a national liberation movement requiring strong and authoritative leadership, and a mini-state that needs a regular, democratic and transparent administration.
Arafat represents the first. He is much more than a "symbol", as he is often described. He is a leader possessing an unequalled moral authority among his own people and vast experience in international affairs. He has steered the Palestinian national movement away from subjugation to Arab and international interests and led it from near oblivion to the threshold of independence.
Abu-Mazen and his colleagues represent the second reality. They have no solid base among their own people, but do have connections with powerful players, most importantly the United States and Israel, with all that entails.
The debate between the two hinges on an assessment of the intifada. For two and a half years, the Palestinian people have been suffering immense losses: about 2500 people killed, ten thousand disabled and injured, a whole stratum of young leaders wiped out, the economy destroyed, immense damage to property. Was this worthwhile? Can it continue?
Abu-Mazen and his supporters say No. They believe that the whole fight was a mistake. Even before the present debate, Abu-Mazen called for the cessation of the "armed intifada." He believes that the Palestinians can achieve more in negotiations with the US and in a political process with Israel. He relies on the mainstream Israeli peace movement and personalities like ex-Labor minister Yossi Beilin. In his opinion, the violence undermines the political process and harms the Palestinian people.
Abu-Mazen's opponents deny all this. In their opinion, not only has the intifada not failed, but, quite the contrary, has had important results: the Israeli economy is in deep crisis, the tensions in Israeli society have reached a peak, Israel's image in the world has sunk from a democracy defending itself to a ruthless occupier. Security has worsened to the point that there are armed security guards everywhere. The casualties seem to them a price worth paying. If the war of attrition continues, they believe, Israeli will in the end be compelled to accede to the minimum demands of the Palestinians (a state, the Green Line border, Jerusalem as a shared capital, dismantling the settlements and a negotiated solution of the refugee question.)
Moreover, Abu-Mazen's opponents believe that his basic assumptions are wrong. The US will never pressure Israel, whose agents control Washington. Israel will never concede anything without being forced to do so. Sharon will continue building settlements, creating facts on the ground and pulling the land out from under the feet of the Palestinian people even while pretending to conduct negotiations.
Abu-Mazen's position may, perhaps, have been stronger if the US and Israel had not been so obviously trying to impose him on the Palestinian people. The examples of poor Karzai in Afghanistan and the miserable gang of emigres whom the Americans brought to Iraq are certainly not helping Abu-Mazen, despite his being one of the founders of the Fatah movement.
A large group of mediators have tried to achieve a compromise. They say, in effect, that there is an ideal division of labor: Arafat will continue to lead the struggle for liberation; Abu-Mazen will administer the Palestinian enclaves.
However, this raises many practical problems. For example: where will the money for the liberation struggle come from? What will happen to the armed organizations, and who will control the security forces? Who will possess the supreme authority -- the Palestinian people as a whole, including the Diaspora (Arafat as Chairman of the PLO) or the administration of the enclaves (Abu-Mazen)?
And, most important of all: would Abu-Mazen be prepared to risk a fratricidal war? The US and Israel demand that he liquidate the armed organizations and confiscate their weapons, even before the Palestinians move one step towards a state of their own. This will, of course, involve a bloody internecine struggle that will fill Sharon's government with joy and consolidate its position still further. Or should national unity be maintained, at least until Israel stops all settlement activity and agrees to a Palestinian state in all the occupied territories?
This debate is much wider than the personal struggle between Abu and Abu, ego against ego. For the Palestinian people, this is a debate about existential questions -- just like similar debates in the Jewish community in Palestine, which ended only with the founding of the State of Israel.
***
# Sharon shouldn't be prime minister. He was declared indirectly responsible for Sabra and Shatila by an Israeli court. I think that somebody who was declared responsible for a massacre, albeit indirectly responsible, should not be prime minister of that country" (Daniel Barenboim on BBC Radio, 21.1).
- But Sharon came to power after a series oof very brutal suicide attacks. What does the fact that he is the leader of Israel tell you about the country now?
- It has to be said once and for all: we arre not talking now about the survival of Israel. We are talking about the identity of the Palestinians, so that Israel can live in peace.
We are not talking of chapter two of the Holocaust. You know the roles have been developed. I will not say reversed as some people say, absolutely not. But we as Jews have to understand that when we speak about "the other", we are not speaking about "the other" who is above us and trying to kill us, like the Gestapo. We are now speaking about "the other" as somebody who at the moment depends on us, somebody whose territory we are occupying.
Israel should withdraw from the Occupied Territories and accept the establishment of a Palestinian state, sooner rather than later. We are already very late. But from the beginning, this has to be a state with whom Israel is obliged to co-operate. In the end, in the best of cases we are going to end up in the Middle East with the Benelux arrangement like Belgium and Holland. Let's face it, they didn't like each other and they've learned to live together.
It is important that Palestinians come out in the streets and speak against suicide bombers. The paradox of the whole situation is that the Palestinian violence is actually serving the policies of the government of Israel, and the government of Israel's policies are serving Palestinian terrorism.
Daniel Barenboim who grew up in Israel is the musical director of the Berlin State Opera and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
***
ISM targeted
In April 2002, "human shields" of the ISM (International Solidarity Movement) managed to outwit the Israeli forces invading the West Bank cities, and established themselves in Yasser Arafat's besieged headquarters in Ramallah and later at the beleaguered Nativity Church in Bethlehem. Their presence proved a major embarrassment for the Israeli decision-makers, and may have been one of the factors leading to Arafat emerging unscathed from the prolonged siege.
It was therefore no surprise that the government came to regard them as a threat, and that then Interior Minister Eli Yishay started an active policy of immediately expelling any international volunteer on whom the army or police laid hands, while denying entry at Ben Gurion Airport to new ones (and to many other foreign peace activists, since the immigration officials had little interest in organizational nuances).
Still, despite the tightening of checks at both the airport passport control and the army checkpoints on the ground, ISM activists continued to arrive in the country and establish an effective network of activist groups throughout the Occupied Territories. Relying on their privileged position as citizens of the US and other Western countries, they felt able to openly confront the occupying forces in a way, which Palestinians could not; and being outsiders, they could arrive and stay for prolonged periods in places where embittered and suspicious Palestinians would not accept the presence of Israelis -- not even of peace-minded Israelis.
ISM activists did many daring things: helping to maintain basic medical services in curfew-bound cities; bringing food to Palestinian families whose houses were taken over as military positions, and which were made virtual prisoners in one or two rooms; confronting the army's practice of demolishing houses and making whole families homeless as a retaliation for an act committed by a single one of the family members...
Their presence was felt at many particularly troubled areas: the West Bank villages and towns where the so-called "Separation Wall" is being built, with the concomitant destruction of fields and olive groves and the effective confiscation of the villagers' best land; the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, where the army asserts that some Palestinian houses along the Egyptian border are used by arms smugglers to hide the opening of tunnels -- and not knowing which houses are so used, the generals embarked on a ruthless policy of destroying all houses along the border. "The presence of these people hinders our forces' freedom of action," complained Lieutenant-General Moshe Ya'alon, the Israeli Army's Chief-of-Staff, in an interview to the Army Radio.
For their part, some Israelis -- such as the well-known Neta Golan -- took part in the ISM actions. Many others turned up when the International Solidarity Movement was itself in need of solidarity. When on the last day of 2002 the Tel-Aviv District Court ordered the deportation of British activist Angie Zelter, a large group of Israeli peaceniks led by Rabbi Arik Asherman of Rabbis for Human Rights surrounded the deportee and for half an hour prevented the police from taking her -- until themselves forcibly removed from the courtroom by security personnel.
Two months later, Gush Shalom helped publicize the long saga of American activist Susan Barclay: arrested in Nablus after six months' intensive activity in the city; taken to the Women Illegal Aliens Detention Center in Hadera and becoming immediately the spokesperson for the grievances of the inmates (mostly Eastern European prostitutes); getting a court order for her release and nevertheless forcibly put on a KLM flight; passively resisting until the pilot refused to take of with her on board; getting released after a second court hearing when the judge sharply reprimanded the immigration authorities; finally leaving the country, but only after her Israeli lawyer, the persistent Shamai Leibowitz, started proceedings to get compensations for illegal detention...
Rachel, Brian, Tom
It was precisely two weeks later that terrible news arrived, on the afternoon of March 16 -- fast spreading by phone and email: Rachel Corrie of the ISM had been crushed to death by an army bulldozer, while trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home at Rafah. Yonathan Pollak, a young Israeli anarchist who had himself participated in ISM actions, took the initiative to call an immediate protest vigil in Tel-Aviv.
Within little more than an hour after the news broke through, some sixty people were out on the parking lot in front of the Defense Ministry -- a whole group of young people, the Tel-Avivian part of the "refuser community", chanting 'it is my friend who was murdered', as well as such veteran activists as Uri and Rachel Avnery. A week later, ICAHD (Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions), rebuilding a destroyed Palestinian home at Anata north of Jerusalem, decided also to erect there a monument to Rachel Corrie.
The army hotly denied that the killing was in any way intentional, dubbing it "a regrettable accident". But in the following weeks, two other ISM activists were on the receiving end of the military shooting: at Jenin, American ISM volunteer Brian Avery was shot in the face and will need to undergo a series of facial reconstructive surgeries; at Rafah again, British ISM volunteer Tom Hurndall was shot in the head and is currently on life support. Apparently, the army simply decided to treat the internationals in more or less the same way as it treats the Palestinians...
The toughening of policy may also have been inspired by the decision of Bush and Blair to go ahead with the bombing of Baghdad, despite the presence of American and British "human shields" -- a decision taken in the same week that Rachel Corrie was killed.
'I am allowed to go see the ocean'
I don't know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me, 'Ali' -- or point at the posters of him on the walls. (...) Nobody in my family has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown. I have a home. I am allowed to go see the ocean.
When I leave for school or work I can be relatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting half way between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint -- a soldier with the power to decide whether I can go about my business, and whether I can get home again when I'm done. So, if I feel outrage at arriving and entering briefly and incompletely into the world in which these children exist, I wonder conversely about how it would be for them to arrive in my world.
Fragment from what Rachel Corrie wrote to her parents Feb. 7, 2003.
Rachel Corrie's writings and other witness reports at the ISM website: http://www.palsolidarity.org
ISM Beit Sahour: ph +972-2-2774602
***
I was a human shield
Billie Moskona-Lerman
The weekend supplement of the March 28 Ma'ariv newspaper introduced to its readers a report, giving a glimpse of what they rarely hear about. Already Ma'ariv's introduction -- not easily skipped over -- was exceptional.
The death of Rachel Corrie -- the human rights activist crushed to death when trying to stop an army bulldozer -- was what brought correspondent Billie Moskona-Lerman to Rafah Refugee Camp. She spent 24 hours at the most miserable place in the Gaza Strip. A place where shooting never stops, where shells whistle by the windows, the walls are covered with bloodstains, houses turn into ruins and people walk the streets barefooted and desperate. She came back a different person. In a rare human document she describes her encounter with death.
I visited hell and I came back in one piece. It happened on the night between Thursday and Friday last week [March 20-21] when I accompanied Joe and Laura, two 20-year old human rights activists, in acting as a human shield facing the IDF. When they asked me do I join in and I answered "yes", I did not fully realize what I was getting myself into.
It was my first experience under fire: so close to death, so anonymous, my life so easily abandoned in somebody else's hands. Never did I feel so weak, so defenseless. I did say "I am coming" and we set out. It was 7.30 PM. we walked through the main street of Rafah, a town which is in fact just a big refugee camp. We walked in darkness, through ruins, potholes and puddles, torn bits of nylon and plastic, barbed wire and piles of rubbish.
Here and there some stores were open. Groups of young boys were walking around us, shouting "Sa'lam Aleikum, Sa'lam Aleikum." Suddenly, one of them picked up a stone and threw it at us. It flew through the air and fell near us. Joe and Laura were not very disturbed. "We represent for them the American culture which they hate," said Laura.
I vaguely knew that we were walking towards Rafah's border with Egypt. We walked towards the last house in the last row of Rafah houses. The home of Muhammad Jamil Kushta.
At a certain stage, after ten minutes of fast walking in empty alleys, we went aside into a long and narrow one at whose end I could see a big pillar. When we came nearer I saw it was a huge guard tower. Upon approaching the tower, Joe and Laura raised their hands high and signaled to me to do the same.
I did as they asked and walked towards the IDF guard tower with my hands high above my head, walking quickly -- but not too quickly -- through the empty alley. Our clothing was fluorescent orange, with silver strips to make it even more conspicuous in the night. Joe held a big megaphone in one hand and a big phosphorescent sheet in the other. 20 metres from the tower we could see, even in the utter darkness, that we were facing a major fortification -- an Israeli strong point at the exact border between Rafah and Egypt.
A few steps before the tower Laura abruptly pushed me into a small, dark entrance and whispered, "Quick, it's here." I went over the doorstep, feeling the way with my foot, with the eyes gradually getting used to the sight of a high, dark corridor. Five steps, and my brow hit strongly against a concrete block. Passing under it, I went up ten wining stairs at whose end was a door. A short ring and the door opened to reveal the smiling face of Muhammad Kushta.
Standing in the door, smiling back, I felt relieved that the damned walking was over and that we got to somewhere looking like a hospitable house. I did not realize what kind of night was waiting for me. I had not the slightest idea.
Muhammad Jamil Kushta, whose house we have come to defend, opened the door to see two young human rights activists who had been spending the nights in his home for the past few weeks, plus a woman introducing herself as a French journalist. The French journalist was me. At that moment nobody knew I was actually an Israeli from Tel Aviv. "Tfatdal, Tfatdal" he said as he opened the door, the greeting joined by his young wife Nora holding little Nancy in her hands.
It was already a quarter past eight when we all sat down on the floor by the little heater and suddenly it started. A noise, which to my ear sounded very very close, a rolling noise, an ear-shattering noise, a noise that sounded like hell. It was the first time that night that the house came under fire, and for me the very the first time to be under fire. I started shaking. My entire body was shaking. The noise was rolling by my ears like a series of giant fireballs. Shooting, shooting, shooting. I understood this is how an encounter with death looks like.
With first burst Jamil moved his tea glass slightly. Up and down, up and down. Nora held Nancy tightly. Joe and Laura went to the baby Ibasan who slept in the corner and her brother the young Jamil and crouched over them. It lasted half an hour, and for an hour and half afterwards my body was till shaking. But I did not yet realize it was just the beginning. I watched Jamil without words and he said: "I goes on like this every night. For two and a half years."
"What are they shooting at?" I asked. "In the air" he shrugged. "Why?" "Out of fear" he said simply. "They are also afraid, alone there in the dark. They are very young." "Why aren't you taking your children elsewhere, away from here?" I asked after getting my voice under control. "I have no money," he answered. "I have no money for another house, every penny I had was invested in these walls, and I got into debt even so" (...).
I lived with the group for 24 hours. Crazy hours, very frightening, hours of fear and apprehension in which I felt at my nerve endings, a wildly beating heart and wet underwear. I understood what it means to live with death for 24 hours a day. A bad death. With guns, tanks and bulldozers targeting your home, your bedroom, your kitchen, your balcony, your living room. No way of defending yourself, nowhere to run to. At Midnight in Jamil's home, facing the shooting tanks and feeling that these may really be my last moments, I decided to open my cards. I threw aside the instructions not to expose myself because of Hamas and Tanzim and all the others who may murder me at a moment's notice. With a feeling of profound finality I suddenly said: "Ladies and Gentlemen, I must tell you the truth. I am an Israeli journalist from Tel Aviv.
There was a moment's silence, then Jamil smiled and started speaking in fluent Hebrew: "Welcome, Welcome, Ahlan Ve'sahlan [Arab greeting which became part of colloquial Hebrew]. I lived for four years on Sokolov Street in Herzlia. I was the shawarma cutter in the Mifgash Ha'Sharon Restaurant. I have also worked on Abba Eban Street in Netanya and at the Hod Hotel in Herzlia Pituach. What I liked most was to eat cherry ice cream at the Little Tel-Aviv Restaurant. Is it still open?" Rains of ammunition bullets came down on us on that one single night. A single night, for me.
The shooting went on continuously from 1.30 to 4.15, near the first light. Only then it calmed down. My teeth did not stop chattering. "Rrr it's very near," was the only thing that came out of my mouth for four consecutive hours.
Jamil and Nora, with their three babies, tried to calm me. "The soldiers know us, they know we're clear. You hear it so close because they are shooting at the wall near us." "So they never hit your house itself?" I ask him with an enormous burst of hope. "Oh, sometimes they do. Look at the bullet holes." I raise my head and look to the sides. The ceiling is full of holes; the side walls are cut up. So is the kitchen wall near the tap, near the table, in the toilet, one centimeter from the children's beds.
Some of the holes have been filled up. Every night, once the shooting ends, Jamil closes the bullet holes with white cement. The walls are patchwork, and if you dare approach the window you can see that Jamil and Nora's home is surrounded by ruins on all sides. Everybody escaped, only he remained because of having no money to take his family away from here.
The bullets are whistling and Jamil makes for his family salad and omelets and bakes pita bread on a traditional tabun oven. The bullets whistle and we are eating. With a good appetite. We bend down whenever the shooting seems to come closer. It is incredible what human beings can get used to, I think.
A week ago, Jamil took up a big black marking pen and wrote on a piece of cardboard: "Soldiers, don't shoot please. There are sleeping children here." He wrote in big Hebrew letters, and Rachel Corrie had climbed on the building's outer wall to hang it. Now Rachel's face appears on a Palestinian martyr's poster, which hangs on the living room window. Jamil smiles sadly and tells me and my chattering teeth and my clenched hands and my widely beating heart: "What can we do? When Allah decides our time has come to die, we die. It is all in Allah's hands." It does not reassure me. (...)
I never saw a flesh-and-blood Israeli soldier. From the Palestinian point of view the enemy has no face, no body, no human form. The enemy is hidden behind giant D-9 bulldozers, monsters as big as a house themselves, at whose top there are squares of opaque reinforced glass. The enemy is hidden behind bunkers, guard towers, metal tanks. The enemy has no face, no expressions, which could be interpreted. The enemy is hidden behind tons of khaki-colored steel. Massive steel, frightening, belching fire without warning.(...) There, in Jamil's house under the ceaseless shooting, guns, missiles, rockets and only the devil knows what else, for four consecutive hours, truly feeling that these might be my last moments, I gambled and revealed my identity.
I said that my own sons might be among the soldiers shooting at us, not knowing that I was there in the house they were shooting at, or it might be one of my sons' friends who had visited my home. And that was the moment we started to look at each other and laugh. Three babies, two Americans, a Palestinian couple and an Israeli woman all sitting around a big bowl of salad, with bullets whistling through the air, we started to laugh. A laughter of despair, of apprehension, of relief at the human closeness that we suddenly found.
I knew that with some luck I would get through the night and run for my life, but Jamil and Nora had no escape, that they were doomed to raise their three babies under live fire. And then Laura opened her mouth to reveal that she was Jewish too, and rather an observant Jewess, at that. And it turned out that the fiery Alice, the group's "Jean d'Arc" which I earlier saw haranguing Palestinian crowds, was Jewish too. "And the soldiers" said Jamil "they too are just 20-year old children who have to stand out there, alone in the dark, shaking, within the cold steel."
We were all agreed: life is short and human beings are stupid creatures.
Excerpted from a three times longer article; full text at:
www.gush-shalom.org/archives/shield_eng.html
+++ On the morning of Feb.1, a group of peace activists spread out in a ragged line on the dingy pavement across from Harakevet Street Police Station, with signs reading Neta -- We are proud of you! Neta Golan -- Israeli peace activist and founding member of the ISM (International Solidarity Movement) had been that morning summoned to police investigation for her "human shield" presence in Yasser Arafat's Ramallah headquarters, during the whole of the month-long siege by the Israeli army last April (see TOI-103, p. 2,10). Her presence there had been a media sensation, and Deputy Police Minister Gide'on Ezra started a personal crusade to have her prosecuted.
Neta Golan -- now in an advanced stage of pregnancy -- arrived on the scene, shook hands with the protesters and gave an interview to the recently-established Israeli TV in Russian, which more than other media took interest in her case. Then she went in.
To all the investigators' questions she answered: 'I choose to keep my legal right to remain silent, as some of our prominent politicians did when investigated on suspicion of corruption.' She was, however, relieved to find herself faced only with the essentially technical charge of "illegally entering a closed military zone" -- rather than the charge of treason with which Ezra had threatened her.
On emerging, she set out on the difficult track back to the Old City of Nablus, where she lives with her Palestinian husband Nizar. A few days before this issue went into print, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
***
Saga of the court-martials
Adam Keller
Back in 1948, the Israeli army took over what had been the mansion of a wealthy Arab family in Jaffa. In the early years of the state, it served as part of the military government ruling over the Jaffa Arabs. Fifty-five years later, it is still a military enclave in the heart of Jaffa's impoverished Arab quarter, used as the military court where soldiers are brought to be judged for various misdemeanours and breaches of military discipline. And nowadays, its narrow courtrooms have become habitually crowded with peace activists, journalists and international human rights delegations, come to witness or express solidarity for an increasing number of court-martialled refuseniks and CO's.
Until recently, the idea of such multitudinous court-martials would have seemed far-fetched. In the whole previous history of the state of Israel and its armed forces, there have been only a small handful of such cases -- Amnon Zichroni in 1954, Giora Neuman in 1971, Gady Elgazi in 1981, perhaps one or two more.
The Elgazi court-martial, in particular, proved especially traumatic to the army command -- with the accused and his lawyer making effective use of the court to denounce the occupation and gain media attention and considerable public sympathy; though found guilty, the army was soon forced to grant Elgazy a pardon.
Since then and for more than two decades, the military system altogether avoided court-martialling refusers. As late as the middle of last year, the army adamantly refused the request of Captain David Zonsheine - reserve paratrooper officer and refuser of service in the Occupied Territories - to have his case brought before a court-martial.
The army's long-standing policy had been to let refusers undergo "disciplinary proceedings", i.e. an instant trial held in camera by the commanding officer, with no lawyers or witnesses, and with punishments limited to one month. Ever since the 1982 war, the constant stream of reservist refuseniks -- called up for their annual service and refusing to go to Lebanon or the Occupied Territories -- were usually sent to one month in prison and then went home till the next year.
Youngsters refusing to join the army altogether, for reasons of conscience, had a route more difficult and complicated, but still practicable. The army's Conscience Committee, in theory charged with exempting CO's, was in practice a dead-end, turning down virtually everybody who applied.
What the young refuseniks had to do was endure patiently three or four consecutive one-month prison terms; when they had accumulated 90 to 100 days behind bars the army almost invariably brought them before an "incompatibility committee" -- which almost invariably granted them a swift and unceremonious discharge.
To be sure, the incompatibility committee had not been specifically created for CO's or refuseniks. Mostly, it deals with unruly and "chronically undisciplined" soldiers who have no coherent ideological or political reasons and whom commanding officers judge to be "not worth further investment."
It suited well the army's purpose to dump the principled refuseniks into the same all- encompassing sack, and get rid of them without too much fuss or publicity. Still, the youngsters themselves could also live with this solution, without feeling they have compromised their principles. After all, what could be more "incompatible" with military service than a person's total opposition to it?
The arrangement was never formalized. Young refuseniks deduced its existence from their own or their predecessors' experience, and from chance remarks by officers or sergeants. At the end of 2002, the current crop of refuseniks were left to deduce its termination from the stark fact that they continued to be imprisoned again and again, far beyond the 100-day limit.
Soon it became clear that the military authorities were determined to embark on a head-on collision with the draft resisters -- undeterred by the increased media attention to the issue, the protests by Israeli and international human rights organizations, or the weeks-long hunger strike of two imprisoned refuseniks, Noam Bahat and Hillel Goral.
An army in trouble
The termination of a policy which had worked quite smoothly for years seems the result of the sharp increase in the number of young refuseniks -- no more a few isolated individuals, but a big and growing organized group known as the Shministim (High school seniors), numbering in the hundreds (see TOI-105, p.14). Evidently, the army's high echelons came to regard them as a threat, a threat serious enough to justify spending much of the time and energy of two generals - Gil Regev of Manpower and Menchem Finkelstein of Legal Affairs -- and of many of the two's underlings.
The refuseniks' growing defiance apparently intersected with wider issues disturbing these two generals and the army's high command in general. The army in the Territories is overstretched -- for example lacking the manpower to impose curfew on all the West Bank cities at once. Commanders on the ground constantly complain that their troops are overworked and denied minimum sleeping hours.
An attempt to extend the annual active service terms of reservists, so as to relieve the overworked conscripts, encountered enormous resistance -- with reservists organizing to defy the new measure, in virtually the manner of unionized workers threatening a strike. And to top it all, defence budget cuts demanded by the Finance Ministry in the name of economic austerity may require even further reduction of the forces facing the restive Palestinians.
Moreover, together with the issue of the refuseniks, the army command was faced with other conspicuous "threats to discipline in the ranks." In February, it was announced that a whole battalion of the IDF's Golani Brigade had been disbanded due to "severe discipline problems."
According to Stuart Cohen's article in the Jerusalem Post (7.3), "the troops concerned, who chose to nickname themselves 'Messengers of Satan', apparently indulged in a complete breakdown of discipline. Failure to carry out guard duty was the least of their crimes. Over a protracted period they also subjected junior members of the unit to physical and mental torture; they insulted and abused their officers; and in order to duck operational assignments they deliberately sabotaged military vehicles. The military police personnel who came to investigate their crimes were on one occasion bombarded with eggs and refuse, while other officers were locked out of the base."
These 'Messengers of Satan' had little in common with the refuseniks -- except that they landed on the same desk of "severe disciplinary problems" -- and in both cases, the decision was to take drastic measures, rarely used before: disbandment in the one case, court-martials in the other.
Finkelstein tries 'divide and rule'
General Dr. Menachem Finkelstein, head of the army's Legal Department, seems to take very seriously his duty of confronting the phenomenon of refusal. His zeal seems to have something to do with his nationalistic interpretation of Orthodox Judaism, and his links with like-minded jurists and philosophy lecturers at the National Religious Bar Ilan University.
Apparently, it was Finkelstein who took the definite decision to go ahead with court-martials, for the first time in more than two decades. For their part, the newly-established Forum of Refusers' Parents decided to hold every Friday afternoon a protest vigil across from Finkelstein's private residence in the city of Petach Tikva, standing quietly while holding the photos of their imprisoned sons and the slogan 'Conscience behind bars.'
It got quite a bit of attention from Israeli and foreign media, was visited by a delegation of the German Green Party, and also aroused a rather pathetic counter-demonstration by local Likudniks (a few youngsters shrieking "cowards, shirkers, traitors" was all that Israel's ruling party could muster for the occasion).
As he once let slip in public, Finkelstein himself is quite aware of the vigils and disturbed by them. Not that it stopped him from selecting the primary targets for court-martial -- two refuseniks perceived as "ring-leaders", of whom "an example" was to be made by court-martials carrying the maximum penalty of three years' imprisonment.
First to face the charges was Yoni Ben-Artzi, longest-serving of the imprisoned refuseniks, who had several times appealed to the Supreme Court and had been very much in the media focus -- first because of being the nephew of former PM Binyamin Netanyahu, later because he developed into a quite a bit of a celebrity in his own right.
Then Haggai Matar, one of the main initiators of the Shministim Letter, which grew from a few dozens to some 300 signatories - as much of a leader as such a diverse and anarchic group, has any.
The two cases were not identical. Ben-Artzi is a pacifist, opposed to all wars and all violence and rejecting all military service in any army, wherever and whenever -- though feeling an even greater repugnance towards the Israeli army and its present role then to armies in general. Matar, on the other hand, is opposed specifically to serving in an army of occupation, doing what Israel's armed forces are at present doing to the Palestinians. In other times and places he might have been willing to join an army fighting a war which he considered justified.
The distinction makes no difference to the Shministim, who are vowed to solidarity with all imprisoned members regardless of their reasons for refusal. The same is true for the Forum of Refusers' Parents and for other organizations of the "refuser community" such as Yesh Gvul and New Profile. The army, however, makes much of the distinction.
In a position first enunciated by Chief-of-Staff Ya'alon during a lecture to high scoolers in Haifa and since then repeated ad nauseam by the military prosecutor in the Jaffa Military Court, the army is willing to recognize "true pacifists" but would not tolerate "political refusers."
The rub, of course, is that the army seems congenially unable to recognize a true pacifist even when face to face with him. Yoni Ben-Artzi -- a young man who became convinced of the futility and crime of war ever since visiting the huge military cemeteries of Verdun, where hundreds of thousands of French and German soldiers killed each other in 1916 -- should have had no problem getting an exemption in any country recognizing Conscientious Objection at all.
From the opening session so far, the prosecution in his case is reduced to the rather formalistic argument that the Conscience Committee is the body authorized to define who is and who isn't a pacifist, and that Ben Artzi should have bowed to the committee's decision that he is no pacifist rather than "taking the law into his own hands" by refusing to be enlisted.
Perhaps recognizing that this is not an entirely promising line, the army apparently tried to avoid entanglements with other pacifist refuseniks. Uri Ya'akobi, who had shared many prison terms with Ben-Artzi, was informed that he would be court-martialled too -- only to have the army perform an incredible volte-face on the following day, with Ya'akobi brought suddenly to the long-denied incompatibility committee, and released on the spot from both prison and army.
Another pacifist refusenik -- Dror Boymel, whose case had been taken up by ACRI (Civil Rights Association) -- was referred again to the Conscience Committee, which in the past had rejected his request for exemption. This time he faced the Committee together with Adv. Avner Pinchuk of ACRI, and made a concrete detailed proposal to undergo alternative civil service -- to which the committee responded by dragging its heels and after a month informing Boymel that his case will be "deferred for eight months" and that he could stay home meanwhile. He plans to start his community service anyway.
The non-pacifist refuseniks got no such respite. Under the army's declared new policy, they would undergo five month-long prison terms through "disciplinary proceedings" and if not recanting would be court-martialled .
The army was, however, caught off-stride when refusenik Matan Kaminer -- facing his third disciplinary proceedings -- chose to cut the process short and exercise his right to have a court-martial right away. (The right exists in military law, whenever a soldier asks for it -- but it is very long since it had been exercised in practice).
Kaminer was added as a second accused to the Haggai Matar proceedings. And others took up the theme, week by week -- Shimri Tzameret, Adam Ma'or and Noam Bahat. Altogether, a compact group of five "non-pacifist refuseniks" facing the judges together. The prosecution had clearly gotten more than they had bargained for. On the other hand, Ben-Artzi got no "running mates" in his own trial, the army having avoided charging other pacifists.
The first order of the day, when the six were brought one by one to Jaffa to be remanded in custody, was to secure good detention conditions. In what started in stiff debate between the defence and prosecution but soon hardened into routine, the court ruled that pending the end of their trials, the accused would be held in "open detention" -- i.e., held in an ordinary army camp where conditions are rather better than in the military prison, but still kept inside and forbidden to go out except for special occasions. And they might have to stay there for a considerable time, until the proceedings finally resolve themselves.
In February and early March, the unfolding refusenik court-martials provided an extra reason for anxiety about the coming Iraq War: the possibility that the trials would reach their climax while the Israeli and international press -- and even the international anti-war movement -- had little or no attention for anything but Iraq. Without a media spotlight on the courtroom, the accused might get a short shrift indeed.
In the event, there was no need to worry: the time of the Iraq War was spent as the defence continued skirmishing with the prosecution on preliminary issues, before the trial proper could begin. With considerable erudition and skill, technical points were raised actually involving many issues of substance.
The most ambitious of these was an appeal to the Supreme Court to have the whole proceeding moved from the military court to a civil one. Adv. Michel Safard -- associate of the well-known Avigdor Feldman -- brought a wealth of precedents and legal arguments to bolster his case: In all Western democracies which instituted conscription and prosecuted citizens who refused to join up, such prosecution took place in civil courts according to civil laws, not in military tribunals -- e.g., the US during the Vietnam War.
"This is not the case of a soldier, who is part of a military unit, who has a commanding officer and who refuses to obey the orders of that commander. It is the case of a civilian, a civilian with strong and firm pacifist convictions, who refuses to become part of the army in the first place. If it is an offence at all, it is an offence against the civil law that tells civilians they have to become soldiers.
Moreover, the sincerity of Ben Artzi's pacifist convictions is a central issue here. Without casting any doubt on the honesty and capabilities of the military judges, a military court -- which is composed of military officers and whose primary raison d'etre is to maintain discipline within the army -- is not a competent forum to rule on pacifism. It would cast no aspersion on rabbis to assert that a Rabbinical Court is not the most competent forum to rule on the sincerity of a Muslim's beliefs and his conformity with Muslim religious doctrine."
Two international organizations -- the London-based War Resisters International and FIDH (International Federation of Human Rights) from Paris -- sent observers to be present at the proceedings in the great hall of the Supreme Court in Jerusalem. So, they observed how -- after a session of juridical fireworks and a week-long recess -- the Supreme Court rejected the appeal, apparently not wishing to take responsibility for what might be considered a far-reaching overturning of established hierarchies and spheres of influence in the judicial world.
However, the Supreme Court judges held out one consolation: they fully expect that eventually the cases of Ben-Artzi and of the other five will come under the purview of civil judges -- namely themselves, since all verdicts of military courts can be appealed. By the time the Supreme Court rendered its verdict, the Iraq war was already drawing to its close.
Crowded courtroom, puzzled judge
On the morning of April 15, the trial of "The Five" was about to formally begin, at last. The narrow courtroom was far too small to contain all the family members, sympathizers, journalists and TV crews. Harassed military policemen tried to enforce the rules: "No standing in the aisles in this courtroom! Those without a seat -- get out, please!" The refusenik supporters refused to budge. "This is a political trial which arouses great public interest. It is your duty to provide access to the public, to everybody who wants to be present!" Dr. Gady Elgazi called out, who had himself been in the dock back in 1981 -- nowadays history lecturer at Tel-Aviv University and Ta'ayush founding member. At last, the court administration relented to point of moving to the biggest hall at their disposal (still insufficient for the entire crowd).
The proceedings started with Defence and Prosecution sparring, often raising technical points and nuances comprehensible only to learned jurists. But when the prosecutor, Captain Yaron Kostelitz, reiterated once again the familiar "pacifists yes -- political refusers no" doctrine, Defence Lawyer Dov Henin suddenly pounced:
"My learned colleague has explained at length the army's position. He explained that anyone whose objection is to serving in an army of occupation, rather than an army in general, is automatically ineligible for exemption from service. Yet here I have a letter which I would like to place into the record of this court -- a letter sent a few months ago by a young person to the army, stating 'For the past thirty-five years, Israel is cruelly oppressing the Palestinian people. Serving in the army which carries out this oppression is completely against my conscience, and I ask to be exempted from this duty.' And the army granted that wish. I also have here the discharge document issued to the same person -- an official IDF document stamped 'discharge for reasons of conscience'."
It was a bombshell. The perplexed prosecutor clearly had no idea that such a document existed, undermining his entire case. He was at a loss to account for it. The mystery was cleared up a few minutes later. The applicant who got the desired discharge had been the 18-year old Hadas Goldman - a girl.
Thus was exposed in the courtroom a reality of which the "refuser community" is long aware: the army has completely different standards for men and for women. Women's right to conscientious objection is enshrined in law; that of men is not. The Conscience Committee for men gives virtually no exemption to anybody; that for women exempts virtually everybody.
"Different conscience committees with different criteria -- that would mean discrimination. I had no idea of all this" said the visibly shaken presiding judge. "It must be thoroughly looked into. This court is recessed."
The next session is due only at the end of May. It is going to be an interesting trial.
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Israeli-Palestinian call for reason
We, Israelis and Palestinians, wish to state at these critical moments that war is always a tragedy by itself. However, the present illegal American war on Iraq and its consequences can seriously impede the realization of our hopes and expectations of a just Palestinian-Israeli peace. Especially so when the extremist Sharon government, which strongly supports this war, makes use of this opportunity to undertake additional unilateral measures of oppression against the Palestinian people living under the Israeli occupation.
The experience of more than 50 years of conflict between the State of Israel and the Palestinian people proves, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the problem cannot be solved by force. The continued occupation creates resistance to it in various forms. It is responsible for the suffering of both Palestinians and Israelis, condemning them to a life of physical insecurity, economic crisis and social disintegration.
At the same time, we wish to express our profound concern about the incidents of extreme violence, resulting from the intensification of the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian Territories and of the Palestinian attacks inside Israel.
We condemn the brutal policy of the Israeli government aimed at destroying the Palestinian society, the Palestinian economy and the elected Palestinian leadership headed by President Yasser Arafat. The erection of the 'Apartheid Wall' is a further device to help the ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people.
Therefore, we believe that there is no way to put an end to the acts of all forms of violence without a just peace based on ending the occupation and the co-existence of two states for the two peoples, based on the June 4, 1967 borders, with two capitals in Jerusalem, the evacuation of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and a just solution to the refugee problem by agreement between the two sides and cooperation between them and the international community, based on the relevant UN resolutions.
We emphasize again our call for complete termination of all attacks on civilians, both on the Israeli and Palestinian sides. We believe that on both sides there are forces that are willing to reopen the way to peace. We call on the international community to urgently intervene in the interest of ending the violence on both sides and concluding a final peace agreement.
We finally call on everybody who supports these ideas to speak out now in support of an Israeli-Palestinian peace alliance against the occupation, for mutual recognition and peace between the two nations.
In order to facilitate cooperation between the supporters of peace on both sides and their joint efforts on a day-to-day basis, we hereby establish the: 'Joint Action Group for Israeli-Palestinian Peace' and invite you to join us
On April 16, the above manifesto was published in Ha'aretz, as a full-page ad. It also appeared in prominent Palestinian newspapers. The names of about 650 Israeli and Palestinian intellectuals appeared as signatories -- among them many well-known names. It was the culmination of ongoing meetings between Israeli and Palestinian initiators, held discreetly over more than a year. Anxiety about effects and side effects of the Iraq War added urgency to the mutually felt need to address the conflict, which turned so very bitter during the past few years.
The huge adds were paid by the signatories themselves and raise the hope that Israeli-Palestinian dialogue is in the process of revival.
phone: 972-(0)56-263145 / 972-(0)3-5404996
hassib@lawsociety.org / ye_harel@netvision.net.il
List of signatories at request
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Last minute news:
A short news item on the radio, on the evening of Saturday, April 19: two Israeli peace activists had been wounded from the shots of a settler in the South Hebron Mountains. Salomka Dunaevsky gave the following account: 'We went, seven people from Ta'ayush Jerusalem, to the Tu'ani Village south of Hebron which is often attacked by settlers. We try to be present when the settlers come. We were in the tent of somebody we know, drinking tea and talking, when we heard loud shouting from outside. Everybody started running. It was a 70-year old woman, herding sheep on the hill between the village and the Ma'on settlement. A settler came and just ordered her away, from land that the village is using for years, and when she refused started beating her with his rifle butt and she started crying for help.
Running in front were three middle-aged men, later we found that they were her sons; then we Israelis; then many of the villagers. We had a video camera with us; we brought it precisely for situations like this.
We arrived and saw this settler, later we found that his name was Hezy, shooting at the earth near the old woman's legs and shouting 'Go Away! Go Away!' She had wounds in her face and arm from shrapnel. Around him was a whole group of teenage settlers looking at him shooting, looking with admiration as if he was a big hero. I thought if I came near he would stop shooting but he didn't. He shot near my feet, too. Suddenly my arm started to bleed, it looked horrible but in fact it was very superficial. A small piece of shrapnel. He continued shouting: 'Go Away! Go Away! Don't interfere!' He also threw big stones. The shooting was near my feet, but the stones were intended to hit. More settlers were arriving, one was screaming in French mixed with Hebrew and trying to smash our video camera. One of the settler boys pushed down the old woman, then her sons and grandsons pushed him away and helped her rise.
When the police arrived, the settlers started to accuse the Palestinians of having attacked them. They pointed to two Palestinian men, quite at random, and the police wanted to arrest them. We went into the patrol car and said if they arrest the Palestinians they will have to arrest us too. We demanded that they arrest two settlers, the one who shot (Hezy) and the one who had beaten the old woman.
In the end the police arrested nobody, just took names and ID numbers. One policeman told us that if they arrest settlers they will get angry phone calls directly from government ministers. We went to the police anyway, to make a complaint. We gave the video footage.
Now I hear that they took Hezy's gun away, because we gave them objective proof that he used it wantonly. Without the video camera, nothing would have happened.
Contact: Salomka +972-(0)2-5637986
On April 13, the B'Tselem human rights group published an extensive, thoroughly researched paper on the implications of Sharon's decision to construct "The Separation Wall" so as to effectively annex to Israel large parts of the West Bank. According to B'Tselem's estimates, the planned route of the Wall will directly harm over 210,000 Palestinians living in sixty-seven towns, villages, and cities. 11,700 Palestinians living in 13 communities will be effectively imprisoned in isolated enclaves to the west of the Wall, 128,500 residents from 19 communities will be in enclaves to the east of it, and tens of thousands of Palestinians will be separated from their farmland. Bringing this to the attention of a wider public before the logic of the accomplished facts takes its full course is a priority for Palestinians and Israeli peace groups.
On April 26, as this goes into print, Ta'ayush -- with other groups lending a hand -- got 250 activists to show up for a joint demonstration with Palestinian villagers affected by the Wall. Leaving the buses at the Israeli Arab village of Ivtzan, they splashed through the deep mud covering the fields after unexpected spring rains. In this sector the Wall is partially erected already, but there is a gap near a Palestinian irrigation pool whose fate is now the subject of a complicated judicial struggle with the government. Through the remaining opening the Israelis went in, soon meeting with several hundred villagers from the nearby Dir Lachson and A-Til.
These two villages don't stand to lose from the Wall as much as other villages -- still, what they will lose is considerable, and their condition is difficult already. There was a rally near the half-finished Wall, with speeches by Israelis, by local Palestinian leaders and by specially arrived representatives of Palestinian NGO's involved in the anti-wall struggle.
+++ Mes'ha is a town deeper inside the West Bank, and it stands to lose nearly all of its lands because of the Wall being built in its immediate vicinity.
Over the past weeks, the Mes'ha people had been maintaining a protest tent very near the Wall, on land that would become inaccessible once the Wall goes up. At every given moment, at least two Israelis are present in the tent, sometimes as many as ten. Of Palestinians sometimes as many as forty stay during the daylight hours, and internationals also arrive to complete the cast. Oren Medicks of Gush Shalom, and Yonathan Pollak, of the anarchist/animal rights One Struggle were there. During the day they sit in the tent, talking and discussing the Wall (and other issues), or offer guided tours of the bulldozer-ravaged landscape to arriving journalists -- some Israeli, many international.
The tent is erected on the very edge of the area where the bulldozers are working, and sometimes the noise is unbearable. The organizers decided not to try to interfere directly with the bulldozers' work. In other villagers who tried it, the people were immediately and violently pushed very far back and were unable to come near again. The Mes'ha people prefer to maintain a presence as near as possible, in order to keep up the campaign and de-legitimize the Wall.
A small victory -- since the villagers demonstrated and protested, they are allowed to take up the olive trees uprooted by the bulldozers and plant them elsewhere. Before their protest, even that had not been possible. For the first week of May, a larger demo on the spot is planned, with the active involvement of Gush Shalom.
+++ Yesh Gvul reports: Saturday's vigil above Military Prison #6 passed off successfully, despite rain (which spared us) and mud (present in abundance). Attendance was over 100, representing all sections of the 'refusenik community.'
We chanted slogans and waved banners, and our loudspeaker sent out messages of support. The imprisoned refuseniks responded enthusiastically.
Yesh Gvul pb 4620, J'lem cherryk@zahav.net.il
Refusal debate gets momentum
Wednesday evening, March 12 -- the Throne of Justice Hall at the Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law. The Association of Public Law and the Minerva Human Rights Center co-host a panel discussion on 'Conscientious Objection: Legal Right or Civil Disobedience.' The large hall quickly fills up, as does the anteroom where extra chairs had been placed.
General Menachem Finkelstein, head of the army's Legal Department who personally masterminds the army's anti-refuser campaign, is accompanied by a phalanx of officers and military lawyers at this lion's den of the refusenik movement. Facing him is Adv. Avigdor Feldman, prominent both as practising lawyer and frequent appellant to the Supreme Court and as a formidable juridical theorist, the originator of innovative concepts and categories.
The discussion starts with the moderator, Adv. Tzvi Inbar, and Philosophy Professor David Hed of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, both setting out neat categories and distinctions: Conscientious Objection defined as the essentially private act of an individual as opposed to Civil Disobedience which is a public defiant act by a group.
Then comes Finkelstein's turn: "These people who demonstrate every Friday outside my home and who place big ads in the papers accuse us of the military prosecution, accuse me personally, of being harsh and vindictive. The contrary is true: we have been lenient with these so-called refuseniks, we until now hesitated to use against them the full power of the law. But the repeated offences left us no choice [heavy shouting in the hall]. The army respects true pacifists, when they show up. It is willing to accommodate their conscience [shouting]. Yes, yes, I knew you would ask about Ben Artzi. I knew. Well, the committee competent to deal with such things examined his case and found that he is not a pacifist [loud boos]. Still, we were ready to be lenient with him, to let him serve without weapons. Yes, true, he will have to go through a process of enlistment, to become legally a soldier with a military serial number. That is the law. I can't change the law.
But about the other ones who call themselves refuseniks, the ones who give political reasons, who say they are "against the occupation." Well, this is beyond the pale, totally unacceptable. This is an ideologically motivated law breaking. Yes, personally they might be positive people, idealistic, dedicated. I grant that -- but it only makes them more dangerous. They can influence others; they can do enormous harm. Exactly because of who they are, we must punish them severely. We have no other choice."
Feldman gets up to respond, tearing Finkelstein's arguments to shreds. "This Conscience Committee which rejected Ben Artzi again and again, who are they? A colonel, a major, two lieutenants -- military officers all, to rule on who is and who is not a pacifist!. Oh, no, I am wrong. There is a single civilian on this committee; in the past month they added one. A very respectable civilian, too, a lecturer in philosophy. A specific philosopher who is so adamantly opposed to Conscientious Objection that he wrote a lone treatise against it, and then also provided an affidavit to General Finkelstein here, to be used in preparing the state's answer to refusers' appeal. Yes, a truly objective, unbiased philosopher. (...) But Ben Artzi and pacifism are not at the crux. They are just the military prosecution's alibi. I want to turn to the selective refusers, the ideological refusers whom my colleague so roundly condemned.
Precisely what do they refuse to do? In what are they unwilling to take part? Twenty years ago, there was a movement of refuseniks who refused to go to Lebanon. Some of them went to prison. In fact, I represented some of them. They were opposed to a war, a war that they felt was unjust. You could call them political refusers, and you would not be very wide off the mark.
But the refusers of today are different. They are different because they oppose something different, something new, something that was not there before -- at least, not in the form it now has taken. Let me spell out the word, a harsh and unpleasant word it is: W-a-r C-r-i-m-e-s [shouting, applause in the hall].
There is such a thing as International Law. There are rules and obligations that it imposes on an occupying power. Certain minimal obligations towards letting an occupied population enjoy a certain minimal standard of living, to maintain some basic services, health, education...
There was a time when Israeli rule was more or less within this framework. To be sure, always with violations, some of them serious, but the framework was discernable. Now it is not. Now it is totally broken, smashed, trampled upon. Not even the most basic rights for the population. The only consideration, overriding everything else, is maintenance of the Israeli settlements, settlements that in their very being constitute a severe violation of International Law. That, and only that, is what the army is doing there: defending the settlements and the settlers [applause].
This is what the selective refusers, the ideological law-breakers, are refusing to take part in. And here is what they uphold: the norms of International Law, which are becoming more and more entrenched, which are codified in the War Crimes Tribunal which this week started active functioning at the Hague. This the refusers uphold: not some bizarre ideology, but the norms of the International Community."
Those young who listen to their conscience cannot do it all alone. Please take part and send a check or cash earmarked for 'Legal Aid draft resisters' to: New Profile, POB 6187, Ramat HaSharon 47271, Israel