Civil and Human Rights Looking Deeper into the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Israel is portrayed as a democracy that shares American values. Is this true? Do all its citizens enjoy the same civil rights before the law? What about the human rights of those under occupation?
Friday, August 29, 2003
(AMMAN -- August 27, 2002) -- An Israeli organization has published detailed plans for the 'complete elimination of the Arab demographic threat to Israel' by forcibly expelling all Palestinians, including Palestinians in the occupied territories and Palestinian citizens of Israel from the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea within a 3-5 year period.
Gamla, a group founded by former Israeli military officers and settlers, published these recommendations on its website in a nine thousand word manifesto titled 'The logistics of transfer,' penned by Boris Shusteff last July 3. The mass ethnic cleansing of every Palestinian, the author argues, is 'the only possible solution' to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and is 'substantiated by the Torah.' (www.gamla.org.il/english) Gamla receives tax deductible contributions from a New York-based charity that claims that its goal is greater Arab-Jewish tolerance [emph.Ed.].
The manifesto recognizes that Israel will never win widespread support for expulsion, but argues that it needs 'only a modicum of support from its closest ally -- the United States,' in order to carry out the plan.
Under the plan, Israel would launch an information campaign and increase economic strangulation of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to force them to leave 'voluntarily.' One measure would be to deprive Palestinians of employment, literally starving them out (one could say that this policy is already being implemented). Palestinian citizens of Israel would face complete apartheid and religious coercion as Israel would 'pass a law that will stipulate in some form that non-Jewish citizens of the state, while retaining full and irrevocable ci"
Gamla, a group founded by former Israeli military officers and settlers, published these recommendations on its website in a nine thousand word manifesto titled 'The logistics of transfer,' penned by Boris Shusteff last July 3. The mass ethnic cleansing of every Palestinian, the author argues, is 'the only possible solution' to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and is 'substantiated by the Torah.' (www.gamla.org.il/english) Gamla receives tax deductible contributions from a New York-based charity that claims that its goal is greater Arab-Jewish tolerance [emph.Ed.].
The manifesto recognizes that Israel will never win widespread support for expulsion, but argues that it needs 'only a modicum of support from its closest ally -- the United States,' in order to carry out the plan.
Under the plan, Israel would launch an information campaign and increase economic strangulation of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to force them to leave 'voluntarily.' One measure would be to deprive Palestinians of employment, literally starving them out (one could say that this policy is already being implemented). Palestinian citizens of Israel would face complete apartheid and religious coercion as Israel would 'pass a law that will stipulate in some form that non-Jewish citizens of the state, while retaining full and irrevocable ci"
High Court decision: security forces cannot automatically deport a terrorist's relatives
haaretzdaily.com | A man bears the consequences of his own crimes
Yesterday's High Court's ruling, which authorized the deportation and confinement on the Gaza Strip of two relatives of suicide bombers and disallowed another such expulsion, circumscribes Israel's punitive power. It sets a limit to punishment - even in the case of the most heinous crime.
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It holds that, 'The residence of a person who does not pose a danger cannot be restricted, even if such confinement were to deter others.'
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The practical meaning of yesterday's High Court decision is that security forces cannot automatically deport a terrorist's relatives. They must first prove to a court that a candidate for deportation has had a part in terrorism. "
Army rounds up 21 relatives of Palestinians suspected of carrying out bus attack and double suicide bombing
"This is basically a collective punishment, prohibited by the Geneva convention, Israel law and Jewish morals," said Lior Yavne, a spokesman for B'Tselem. "We take it to be a very, very serious threat to one of the most fundamental principles of the rule of law that one person cannot be punished for the actions of another.
"We Israelis like to think of ourselves as the most moral society in the Middle East, and the most moral army in the world, but what we are saying here is that the law of the street is taking over from the law of the state." "
A false sense of victory that repressed and ignored an entire system of official discrimination.
A family argument -- Ha'aretz - Article Thursday, July 18, 2002 By Meron Benvenisti [former major of Jerusalem? [Ed.]
Demonstrators protesting against the Druckman Law in Jerusalem on Sunday. The sigh of relief heaved by the anti-racism fighters created a false sense of victory that repressed and ignored an entire system of official discrimination.
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The outrage over the Druckman Law was attributed to its being the first time that the country's lawbooks would explicitly refer to different laws for Jews and non-Jews, other than the Law of Return. But in the 54 years of the state's existence, an entire lexicon of laundered euphemisms have obviated the need to bluntly define ethno-national discrimination - ranging from "the absentees," to "army veterans" and "those eligible for citizenship according to the Law of Return." Most of the national-ethnic discrimination is carried out by the Zionist institutions - the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Agency - and they were deliberately established so the state would not be accused of deviation from universal norms.
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It's not the Druckman Law and Adel Ka'adan's house that are the test of racism of Israel, but the collective discrimination against sectors that do not belong to the Jewish group - the Bedouin, the internal refugees, "unrecognized villages," cities and towns suffocating because of lack of room to expand, economic discrimination and racial prejudice camouflaged as "concern for security."
Can Israel be a Jewish and democratic state? Is there any such animal?
Ha'aretz - Article Friday, June 28, 2002 | A Jewish demographic state By Lily Galili
Having lodged itself close to the top of the national agenda, the issue of demography is forcing both the right and the left to grapple with the difficult dilemma at the heart of the state's character. Can Israel be a Jewish and democratic state? Is there any such animal? [emph Ed.]
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"The binational framework is the only one that allows the separation of Jewish existence from the demographic issue. In demography, the Jews are losing. It exposes all the internal contradictions of Zionism. The binational approach is aimed at solving this problem, and there really are Arabs who accuse me of supporting binationalism in order to preserve the Jewish people."
Throughout the conversation, Raz-Krakotzkin calls Israel a "Jewish-demographic state," usually as a slip of the tongue. In the atmosphere of the past months, this is perhaps the most accurate definitionewish and democratic state? Is there any such animal"
Jobless in Gaza ... preventing [Palestinian] development
Jobless in Gaza By Amira Hass Ha'aretz - Article Thursday, June 27, 2002
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Since 1967, Israel's economic policy regarding the territories, and especially the Gaza Strip, has been based on two principles - bringing cheap Palestinian labor into Israel and preventing the development of an independent economic sector in the territories. (The latter was achieved by restrictive laws and by blocking the development of infrastructure, despite the fact that Palestinians paid taxes to the state). So the families of those working in Israel achieved relative economic prosperity on a personal level, while the community as a whole remained economically backward.
PARIS, Aug. 28 — A Paris-based human rights group says Israeli bosses routinely violate the rights of the 300,000 migrant workers making up 13 percent of the country's workforce, with conditions in some cases ''equivalent to slavery.''
Workers brought in from Asia and Eastern Europe as a cheap replacement for displaced Palestinian labourers are underpaid and treated as their employers' property, the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) said in a report this week.
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''Israel is a democratic and a law-abiding country where people enjoy all the freedoms and rights of a democracy, and that goes for citizens, foreign visitors and workers,'' an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jonathan Peled, said in a statement.
ted as their employers' property, the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) said in a report this week
Thursday, August 28, 2003
Why does practically no one have an Arab friend?
Israeli Arabs first Ha'aretz - Article
"Why is unemployment highest in the Arab community? Why is the level of investment per pupil the lowest for Arab children? Why do government companies not employ Arabs? Why do none of us learn Arabic? And why does practically no one have an Arab friend?
This is not a tale that began two years ago with the events of October 2000. This is their reality and ours since the founding of the state."
Examples of Institutionalized Discirmination?
Ha'aretz - Article | Israeli Arabs first By Nehemia Strasler
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But it is fitting for the Jewish majority to make a personal accounting. Are its hands clean? Was it ever ready to accept the Arab minority as an equal among equals? To give some indication of the mood among Israeli Arabs, here are reports of some recent conversations with four of them. "
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M. is 25 years old. Three years ago he graduated from the College of Technology under the auspices of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and received a degree in electrical engineering. He is married, has two daughters and lives in Jaljulya. Like many other young men in his village, M. is unemployed. I asked him why. "I applied to dozens of companies," he replied, "filled out dozens of questionnaires, but every time they notice that I am an Arab, they say, `We'll phone you,' and that's all. They never call. [Ed.] I am willing to work as an entry level electrician with a low salary, but no one is willing to hire an Arab. Even the big companies like Bezeq and the Israel Electric Corp. don't hire Arabs. How do they want me to make a living?"
T. ... phoned a cable television company and asked to be hooked up ... until it came to the inevitable question of the address. A. said Tamra. A heavy silence hung in the air at the other end of the line until the customer service person finally said "we don't do installations in Tamra." "Why?" asked A. "I don't know," she replied. "But that's what it says on the computer." [Ed.]
V. ... applied for a mortgage at one of the large banks, at which he has his accounts, but was told quite bluntly by the clerk that there was no chance his application would be approved.
S. is a driver for a cooperative cab company ... I have been a driver with the company for 15 years already, but every time I applied to become a member, they laughed in my face and said, `There's no chance.' Jews who started working three or four years ago are already being accepted as members, and I, who am recognized as a dedicated and professional driver, cannot become a member."
Israeli court exiles militant's relatives ... State Dept. blasts decision to deport terrorists' relatives
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Israeli court exiles militant's relatives | Ewen MacAskill in Jerusalem | Wednesday September 4, 2002
Israel's supreme court ruled yesterday in favour of sending relatives suspected of helping a Palestinian alleged to have planned a bombing into internal exile despite protests from human rights groups that the action contravenes international law.
The landmark ruling will mark the first time since the intifada began two years ago that Israel has opted to deport relatives of those linked to bombings and other attacks.
Israel has punished Palestinians by demolishing family homes but deportation has not been used since a mass expulsion to Lebanon in 1992."
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State Dept. blasts decision to deport terrorists' relatives
By Nathan Guttman and Moshe Reinfeld, Ha'aretz Correspondent, Ha'aretz Service and Agencies
The U.S. State Department reiterated Tuesday its criticism of the Israeli decision to expel relatives of suicide bombers found to have been involved in terror to the Gaza Strip.
The State Department spokesman on Middle Eastern affairs, Greg Sullivan, said that the United States expects that Israel's actions in the war against terror would be based on information against specific suspects, and not against their relatives.
He added that this message was passed on to Israel's political leadership by the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv last week, when the original decision to expel the Palestinians was first taken. "Punishing the innocent will not help Israel's security," he added
Suspects beaten near minister
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Suspects beaten near minister | Jonathan Steele in Jerusalem | Monday August 12, 2002
An unusual exercise in fact-finding backfired when it emerged yesterday that the Israeli attorney-general, Elyakim Rubinstein, was nearby as soldiers badly beat a Palestinian child and two men at an Israeli checkpoint in Ramallah last week.
Mr Rubinstein spent five days at the checkpoint on volunteer service as a reservist. His presence was only publicised afterwards. Newspapers quoted him as saying he wanted to get a proper look at how Palestinians were treated.
It now turns out that while he was there soldiers arrested and, without his knowledge, beat the men and boy so badly that a judge freed them.
According to yesterday's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Judge Michal Agmon wrote: 'The sight was shocking. The backs of two of them were bloody and bruised, and the back of one of them was still bleeding. There is no explanation.' "
'Reducing the Minorities': Settler rabbi: Grant all Jews citizenship to counter gentiles
Settler rabbi: Grant all Jews citizenship to counter gentiles | Friday, August 16, 2002 By Nadav Shragai, Ha'aretz Correspondent
In an article entitled 'Reducing the Minorities,' a leading settler rabbi is calling on the state to grant citizenship to Jews living abroad so long as they serve in the IDF, pay taxes and purchase a home in Israel.
Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, head of the Atarot Cohanim yeshiva ... centers on three main groups of 'gentiles' living in Israel: Arabs, foreign workers and new immigrants who are not Jews.
He recommends the immediate expulsion of 150,000 Arabs living in Israel illegally. The remaining Arabs, both those living inside the Green Line and in the territories, a total of 3.9 million, should be allowed to stay only if they accept the state of Israel, obey its laws, pay taxes and carry out any national service that is required of them, he says.
As for the foreign workers, Aviner calls for the immediate expulsion of the 170,000 he estimates to be in Israel illegally. He also wants a gradual reduction of the remaining 110,000, whom he describes as 'a ticking bomb of mixed marriages and other trouble.'
Aviner also warns of the dangers posed by the '280,000 new immigrants who are not Jews,' because they managed to 'deceive the rabbis' who converted them"
Supreme Court temporarily blocked the expulsion of relatives of Palestinian terror suspects
Excite News : Israeli High Court Halts Expulsions Aug 13, 10:48 AM (ET) By MARK LAVIE
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's Supreme Court temporarily blocked the expulsion of relatives of Palestinian terror suspects from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, as troops demolished the homes of two Palestinian militiamen.
House demolitions and expulsion orders are part of Israel's intensifying effort to prevent attacks by punishing the assailants' families. Human rights groups say the measures amount to collective punishment and violate international law.
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Moshe Negbi, a legal analyst, said Dorner's temporary injunction signaled that 'the court does see legal difficulties for Israel,' possibly action against the state in the international criminal court, if the expulsions are carried out. "
Israel's Two-Tiered Citizenship Law: Non-Jews From 93 Percent of Its Lands
Israel's Two-Tiered Citizenship Law.., by Roselle Tekiner: "Israel's Two-Tiered Citizenship Law Bars Non-Jews From 93 Percent of Its Lands By Roselle Tekiner January 1990, Page 20
On a bus tour through the Galilee several years ago, the guide commented that the government was having difficulty preventing Arabs from encroaching on the land through which we were passing. I asked why Arabs were being kept off this land and he replied that it was national land. I told him I didn't understand what 'national land' meant if it has to be secured against Arabs. 'Aren't Arabs citizens of Israel?'
... No Israeli nationality applies to all citizens, as does a US nationality in the United States.
Zionist uses of the term 'nation,' 'national, ' and 'nationality' are indeed difficult to understand and to explain because they derive from concepts that are unfamiliar to Americans. Moreover, their true meanings are deliberately obscured by usually incorrect translations from Hebrew into English.
The prime example of deception, from which the others flow, is the accepted translation of Israel's Law of Citizenship as 'Nationality ' Law. In the original Hebrew text, the word is ezrahut, the correct translation is 'citizenship.'
It would not occur to the average English peaking observer to object to translating ezrahut as 'nationality' because 'citizenship' and 'nationality' are interchangeable terms in the United States, as well as in most democratic societies.
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To refer to "Arab nationals," as this law does, is a deceptive translation of ezrahut, because Arabs or others who are not Jews cannot be "nationals" of Israel. Only Jews can e "nationals." Their nationality rights are granted by the Law of Return. No Israeli nationality applies to all citizens
Jenin War Crimes Investigation Needed
Israel/Occupied Territories: Jenin War Crimes Investigation Needed (Human Rights Watch Press release, May 3, 2002)
Human Rights Watch Report Finds Laws of War Violations Hebrew Fran�ais Arabic
(Jenin, May 3, 2002) Evidence suggests that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) committed war crimes in the military operation in the Jenin refugee camp, Human Rights Watch charged in a report issued today after a week-long investigation. Human Rights Watch did not find evidence to support claims that the IDF massacred hundreds of Palestinians in the camp.
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'The abuses we documented in Jenin are extremely serious, and in some cases appear to be war crimes. Criminal investigations are needed to ascertain individual responsibility for the most serious violations. Such investigations are first and foremost the duty of the Israeli government, but the international community needs to ensure that meaningful accountability occurs.'
Peter Bouckaert, Senior Researcher
Human Rights Watch Report Finds Laws of War Violations
(Jenin, May 3, 2002)
Evidence suggests that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) committed war crimes in the military operation in the Jenin refugee camp, Human Rights Watch charged in a report issued today after a week-long investigation. Human Rights Watch did not find evidence to support claims that the IDF massacred hundreds of Palestinians in the camp.
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'The abuses we documented in Jenin are extremely serious, and in some cases appear to be war crimes. Criminal investigations are needed to ascertain individual responsibility for the most serious violations. Such investigations are first and foremost the duty of the Israeli government, but the international community needs to ensure that meaningful accountability occurs.'
Peter Bouckaert
Senior Researcher
Just before the arrival of American envoy Anthony Zinni, and in the wake of severe terrorist attacks that took many lives, the IDF is completing wide-scale operations in the refugee camps and cities of the West Bank and Gaza. On Monday, forces raided Ramallah and the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza. A day earlier, they took over Qalqiliyah and the Deheisheh refugee camp, as well as conducting operations in Tul Karm, Nablus and Jenin. Some 160 Palestinians have been killed, many under disputed circumstances. During the course of the raids, the men of the camps were gathered, blindfolded, and their hands tied, and they were identified and interrogated before being released. Some 2,000 men were questioned, and only a few remained under arrest as suspects as belonging to terrorist groups
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The idea of humiliation has apparently seeped down to the soldiers from the government. Ariel Sharon wanted to humiliate the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, by jailing him in Ramallah. His aide, Uri Shani, said as much on Monday when he said of Arafat, "he can only go from one cage to another." No wonder, then, that officers and soldiers act in the spirit of the supreme commander and his aides.
Actions that harm the population and involve humiliation of civilians sabotage the chances - in any case, minimal - of reaching a cease-fire, and eventually an agreement and reconciliation.
Suzanne Goldenberg reveals the extent of abuses against civilians in Israel's four-week military offensive
Saturday April 27, 2002
The Guardian
Arif Said Ahmed's life ended at 5.05am on April 9 when two Israeli helicopter gunships soared over the hillside, firing a rocket at him and his cousin Naif as they walked home from morning prayers.
The helicopters returned, firing their machine guns for several terrifying minutes as Arif's wife, Samira, stumbled out to their bodies with her infant daughter. Mother and daughter were saved from serious injury by her brother Farooq, who flung himself over them.
A bullet pierced his side and fragments ripped his leg.
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The most grievous abuses break down into four categories: the killing of Palestinian civilians, the denial of medical care, the wanton destruction of civilian property, and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields for house-to-house searches.
Apartheid in the Holy Land
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Apartheid in the Holy Land : Desmond Tutu Monday April 29, 2002
In our struggle against apartheid, the great supporters were Jewish people. They almost instinctively had to be on the side of the disenfranchised, of the voiceless ones, fighting injustice, oppression and evil. I have continued to feel strongly with the Jews. I am patron of a Holocaust centre in South Africa. I believe Israel has a right to secure borders.
What is not so understandable, not justified, is what it did to another people to guarantee its existence. I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about. "
When killing becomes routine
Ha'aretz - Article : When killing becomes routine By Gideon Levy
At the beginning of June, Nabil Jirdath, 48, a clothing merchant and the father of eight, drove
from his store in Jenin to his home in the village of Silath al-Harthiya. With him in the car were
seven of his family members, including children.
Suddenly the car came under light-arms fire from a tank that was stationed on the main road. Jirdath was critically wounded and died a few days later
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Of the 2,235 Palestinians that have been killed by the IDF, indictments against soldiers have been handed down in only eight cases. No one has yet been convicted
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In an interview to Haaretz last Thursday, the judge advocate general, Major General Menahem Finkelstein, stated that "it is impossible to carry out 2,000 investigations into 2,000 cases of death when, in a large percentage of the cases, we are talking about military activity par excellence." That is an infuriating statement, because at the time Finkelstein's unit decided to stop investigating cases of killing, fewer than 200 Palestinians had been killed. "
Justice delayed, justice denied or justice painstakingly investigated?
Report into events of Oct. 2000 to be published next week Haaretz - Article: "in which 13 Israeli Arabs and one Jewish citizens were killed and hundreds wounded, will present its findings to the government on September 1"
Haaretz - Article: "The committee published a statement in the Arab press calling on the Arab community 'to take all possible measures in the struggle against the racist contempt for our blood and the blood of our children.' "
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
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