A few days ago we met with Meydad Ashkenazi of the DCL (District Coordinating Liaison), one of the higher-ups in the military around here. Actually, he claimed that the DCL was more of a civilian body and that he had little to do directly with the military, which made us wonder why he wore an army uniform and carried a gun. Before 2000, there were two bodies : the DCO (District Coordination Office) dealt with the military, and the DCL dealt with the civilian population. People still refer to the DCO today, but in fact they both merged into the DCL in 2000, blurring the distinction even more between military and civilian.
The most interesting, honest, and disturbing thing Meydad told us is that the Israeli army’s official policy is collective punishment. He didn’t use these words, of course. We had asked him why there have been so many army incursions into Hares and Marda in the past few weeks, and his response was the following: The army strategy is to make our presence known in all of the villages in the area. We try to throw as many sounds bombs and as much tear gas as possible, because 98% of the people want peace and oppose stone-throwing, and we want those 98% to encourage all the children not to throw stones. Kate asked if he realized that he just said the army’s official policy was to violate international law by using collective punishment. ‘It’s not exactly collective punishment,’ he responded. ‘It’s more like pressure on the population.’
‘This is democracy,’ I thought, repeating the phrase I’ve heard so many Palestinians say in the same sarcastic tone every time the army throws tear gas and sound bombs, destroys homes, beats people at checkpoints, opens fire on peaceful demonstrations, and arrests and detains people indefinitely with no charges.
Today I went with our friend and landlord to the northern part of Jenin where his son Rabia was to appear in court. Rabia was taken by Israel’s secret police two months ago and his parents hadn’t seen him since. Today was the day the court was to present charges. The drive was absolutely beautiful, and the amount of bright green, in addition to the olive green of the rest of Palestine, surprised me. We had some good conversation on our way, and arrived at the gate of the military base around 9 :30 Palestine time, 8 :30 Israeli time (Israelis changed their clocks on Tuesday night, but Palestinians have not yet done so, causing much confusion in meetings that have both Palestinians and Israelis). The gate of the military base is also the gate of the Wall, which is a series of fences and roads in this part of Jenin. Women were passing through first, so I went to the front of the line to try to get through, though it is strict policy only to let family members into the court sessions. I talked my way through the first checkpoint using my new fancy IWPS ID (we decided that if we pretend to be official, the soldiers might not know the difference, so an Israeli anarchist friend of ours designed IDs for us). At the second security check, the soldiers didn’t ask me anything or take my ID for about 5 minutes, and then suddenly an officer handed me a phone. ‘Hello ?’ I said. ‘Hello ?’ the man on the other line replied. This went on for a minute until I said, ‘I don’t know why I’m on the phone with you.’ ‘Why are you here ?’ he asked. ‘For the court,’ I replied. ‘Oh, for the court ? Give me the soldier.’ I handed the phone back. Apparently the soldier didn’t think to ask me why I was there but assumed it wasn’t for the court (even though everyone else was there for this reason). There was a bit more hassle when they found out I wasn’t family, but finally let me through because Rabia’s mother was not visiting, only his father.
We all went to a new waiting area outside a small building we could only assume was the court. Several of the women were crying. Abu Rabia listened to people’s conversations and occasionally translated for me. One couple talked about how one of their sons had been in prison, and another son went to see him. When that son arrived, he was arrested. The family was now here to see this second son.
The soldiers finally started bringing the prisoners into the room, and a few people stood up to see if they could find their sons or husbands. ‘Sit down !’ the soldiers would yell in Arabic. The whole day was full of random commands that made me wonder if the soldiers had really lost all their humanity or if they were simply practicing the rude phrases they knew in Arabic. ‘Shut up’ was another big one, which one soldier barked at a woman who said to her son, ‘Alla maak’ (God is with you) on his way out of the courtroom.
The most frustrating aspect of the day was the setup of the courtroom and the placement of the prisoners and their families. The prisoners were all brought into a tiny pen in the corner of the front of the room. The judge (a military officer) and other soldiers and lawyers sat in the front. In the opposite back corner, the families were forced to squish together on benches. If someone tried to move to one of the empty benches that was closer to his or her relative, the soldiers would yell and threaten to kick the person out of the courtroom. Completely arbitrary.
Three of the prisoners were women, and the soldiers escorted them to a different part of the room. I have to say that even though I knew there were women prisoners, it was slightly jarring for me to see people who looked like ‘typical’ Palestinian Muslim women, hijab and all, in handcuffs and shackles. The number of female soldiers surprised me less, although when I saw that most were wearing sandals instead of boots, I wondered if these were the ‘cushy jobs’ that I hear women so often get in the army. The judge was also a woman, and she looked more like a movie star than anything. Come to think of it, she looked a little like Amy Brenneman of Judging Amy.
As expected, we learned very little in court today. Rabia’s lawyer was presented with papers in Hebrew ; presumably these are Rabia’s charges. His next court date is November 24. This means he’ll be in prison for more than 4 months before even being able to argue his case in a court. He has it better than the hundreds in administrative detention, but he’s certainly a victim and not a beneficiary of Israel’s supposed democracy.
Meanwhile, Palestine is attempting to prepare for its first general election since 1996, and Israel is doing everything it can to prevent democracy from taking hold here. Two of us met with an election commissioner in Ramallah a couple weeks ago, and I must admit I was more excited by the meeting than I had expected to be. I don’t usually have much faith in electoral processes, but this seemed very hopeful and forward-thinking to me. I take our system for granted in the US and have never quite realized what it takes to set up an electoral democracy. He explained all the issues to us, and ways they’ll accomodate people who don’t have Palestinian ID. Many Palestinians came back during the Oslo years from Venezuela, for example, and now have only their Venezuelan passports and expired visas. They can’t leave their villages for fear of being caught and deported by Israeli authorities, but they will be taken into account by this election process if they can prove residency. Abu Rabia also told me that prisoners will be able to vote by proxy. I explained to him that prisoners in the US cannot vote, and that even when people are freed, some of them are never allowed to vote again (convicted felons in many states). Democracy, eh?
The registration process is happening this month and is being heavily monitored by international observers. The list of eligible voters will be revised and elections will be held sometime next year (if Arafat ever gets around to setting a date for them).
Israeli authorities have raided several registration offices in the West Bank, and have specifically gone out of their way to break into and shut down centers all over the Jerusalem area, so as to deny Jerusalemites their Palestinian identity and intimidate them into not registering. Another excellent example of democracy.
I’ll end on a positive note with a story that exemplifies the democracy I truly believe in : citizen participation in society. A group of Israelis from Shalom Achshav (Peace Now) dismantled a settlement outpost last week. They used a crane to take a few containers in order to ‘demonstrate to the Israeli public that it is possible to dismantle outposts.’ Good for them !
Below I’m including an excerpt from a daily e-mail we get called ‘Today in Palestine,’ a compilation of articles from various media sources. To subscribe, e-mail Shadi at f_shadi@yahoo.com.
Today in Palestine (Sept 21):
U.S. to sell Israel 5,000 smart bombs The Pentagon told Congress that the bombs are mea! nt to maintain Israel's qualitative advantage, and advance U.S. strategic and tactical interests. Among the bombs the air force will get are 500 one-ton bunker busters that can penetrate two-meter-thick cement walls; 2,500 regular one-ton bombs; 1,000 half-ton bombs; and 500 quarter-ton bombs. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/479587.html
Three Palestinains shot in Anti Wall Protest in Budrus Three Palestinians were wounded in the village of Budrus in clashes with soldiers on Tuesday morning during a protest against the construction of the West Bank separation wall. Five left-wing Israeli activists were also arrested in the protest. Israel resumed construction on Monday, after a long halt forced by the High Court order to re-route the wall section http://www.imemc.org/headlines/2004/September/week3/092104/budrus.htm
Rasmi Sweity from Beit Awa/Um Khashrom: "This is Our Third Expulsion" Apartheid Wall which is being built by the Occupation steels land and property, and has taken all of ! my lands and leaves me nothing, not for my brothers nor for my family. This is the land that we live off of, our main source of income and we do not have another source. Where do we go? They expelled us one time (1948), and a second time (1967), and this is the third http://stopthewall.org/communityvoices/757.shtml
Six Palestinian Women Arrested by Israeli Troops in Nablus The Israeli occupation forces arrested in less than a month six Palestinian women from the West Bank city of Nablus, IPC correspondent reported. According to data collected by IPC, the Israeli troops arrested the women between August 26 and September 16, in separate incidents. http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/e_News/news2004/2004_09/123.html
Syria says it supports intra-Palestinian dialogue "Syria wishes the Palestinian dialogue to be successful, because any dialogue would lead to unifying our positions, consequently, to achieve the natural aspirations of the Palestinian people," al-Abrash said. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=479646&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Egypt asks PNA to unite Fatah movement Palestinian sources said Tuesday Egypt had asked the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to unite Fatah movement led by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat before starting any expanded Palestinian dialogue. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-09/21/content_2004350.htm
