People and Politics / Too close a shave for justice |
A petition by a new group calling itself the "Forum of Holocaust survivors
and descendants to halt the deterioration of Israeli humanism" is cautiously
maneuvering between the murder of the yeshiva students in Otniel and Holocaust
denial in the Arab world, between the horrors of the occupation and the stories
of abuse of Palestinians by soldiers and settlers.
"Palestinian terror is
a despicable crime," says the petition by Zvi Gil, the forum coordinator, and
journalist Raoul Teitelbaum, immediately following that obvious statement with
"we cannot clear our conscience in light of the mass, arbitrary destruction of
civilians' homes, uprooted olive trees, and orchards shaved to the ground. We
cannot accept the extensive disruptions of daily life and abuse, for its own
sake or not, at the checkpoints."
Since the petition first began making
the rounds on December 15, dozens of Holocaust survivors and descendants have
been adding their names daily. They agree that "Israeli society is descending
into a quagmire of violence, brutality, disrespect for human rights, and
contempt for human life." They agree that "domination of another people against
its will contradicts the lessons of the Holocaust, morally, humanely, and
politically."
Among those who have signed are Prof. Hannah Jablonsky from
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, one of the world's leading researchers in
the field of Holocaust survivors, and Aryeh Barnea, principal of Gymnasia
Herzliya and the founder of Lapid, a movement of Holocaust
researchers.
Gil says that authors Savyon Liebricht and Miriam Akiva have
signed, as have actors Gila Almagor and Shmuel Atzmon. Nava Semel, Ofra
Gelbert-Avni, Benny Handel, Dr. Gad Kenar, and Dr. Yehudith Feuer have all
joined the call, "based on the ruthless lessons of life we have experienced,"
for Israel to liberate itself from the occupation.
All refer to the
Holocaust as "an element in Israeli identity" and warn the conflict with the
Palestinians is not only turning Israel into a place where it is dangerous to
live, but making Jewish communities worldwide insecure.
The petition
organizers asked in the past for a meeting with then-chief of staff Shaul Mofaz,
explain their views. They never received an answer.
Haircut
practice
Two weeks ago, a letter was quoted in these pages in which a
Military Police investigator asked B'Tselem, the human rights monitoring group,
to find four Palestinians who complained about some soldiers at a checkpoint who
stole their money. It very quickly was discovered that one of the Palestinians
was easy to find - he was in the Megiddo detention center for Palestinians
arrested in recent months. The Military Police investigator also wanted B'Tselem
to help it with some translation work. B'Tselem people thought the
investigator's letter was the height of arrogance, but then Najib Abu Rakiyeh, a
B'Tselem field worker found a new letter from a Military police
investigator.
The army detective (his name is known to this reporter)
reports to Abu Rakiyeh that another complaint has come to the Military Police,
from two Palestinians saying they were used as human shields during IDF
searches. But this time, the investigator doesn't make do with asking the
B'Tselem people to find the Palestinian complainants. The investigator, a
sergeant major in the Military Police, wants Abu Rakiyeh to take the
Palestinians' "detailed testimony about the incident." Just to make sure
B'Tselem understands what he wants, he added to the letter a photocopy of
B'Tselem's own petition to the High Court of Justice regarding IDF violations of
the court order banning "neighborhood practice," in which Palestinians who live
near wanted suspects are used as human shields while the army makes the
arrest.
Before the B'Tselem people could recover from that absurdity, the
organization's legal adviser, Yael Stein, received another letter, this time
from the IDF Spokeswoman's Office. In response to B'Tselem questions about a
case of soldiers abusing Palestinians in Hebron, the head of the assistance
department, Capt. Henrietta Levy, "calls" on B'Tselem field researchers "to talk
with the relevant authorities in the IDF to help locate the soldiers involved in
the case, so it can be investigated."
They are having a difficult time
trying to decide at the B'Tselem offices whether to laugh or scream. Someone
proposed that Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon grant lieutenant's bars to the head
of B'Tselem's field work team in Hebron, Mussa Abu Hashash, so the cooperation
he gets from "the relevant IDF authorities," isn't the usual "get out of here
before I throw you in the calaboose."
In any case, according to evidence
taken by Hashash, the four soldiers the IDF can't seem to find, walked into a
barbershop in H2, the Palestinian part of Hebron, four weeks ago, today. One of
the soldiers ordered the owner of the barbershop, Bassem Masawde, 24, to sit in
one of the barber chairs. The soldier then began to shave Masawde's head with
the electric razor. Masawde tried to ask what the soldier was doing, and was
smacked and told to be silent. The soldier kept shaving, ignoring Masawde's
request to stop. When he finished cutting off Masawde's hair, the soldier
ordered Wayal Abu Rumeila, 19, who was in the barber shop at the time, to sit in
the barber chair, and he too was given a close-cut hair cut by the
soldier.
Then, say the eyewitnesses, the soldier approached the
19-year-old with a bottle of shampoo, and ordered the youth to open his mouth.
When Rumeila refused, the soldier struck him with a metal bucket in the shop,
knocking Rumeila to the floor with a bloody nose, crying. The soldier kicked him
in the stomach, saying if Rumeila didn't shut up, the soldier would shoot him in
the head. The entire time, the other three soldiers were slapping around three
other Palestinians in the barber shop - and one of the soldiers grabbed Bilal Al
Jerby, and using Jerby as a shield, and Jerby's shoulder as a resting place for
his rifle barrel, began shooting at children who started throwing
stones.
This horrifying testimony, was sent, as usual, to the IDF by
B'Tselem. Now the IDF wants B'Tselem to find the suspected soldiers.
If
not for the international interest in the death of Shadeen Abu Hilja, perhaps
B'Tselem's people would be searching on behalf of the IDF for the soldier who
shot her, as well. Abu Hilja, 60, was shot dead on October 11, while sitting on
her porch and embroidering. Her husband, a doctor, and her son, a university
lecturer, were also wounded by the burst of bullets fired from a military jeep
at them.
It is possible that because he knows that President Bush is
personally waiting for the results of the inquiry into how Abu Hilja, an
internationally known peace activist, was killed, Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon
decided to send the inquiry results back to the Judge Advocat General's office
for more investigation. According to a military source, the report Ya'alon
received on the incident said the woman was killed by a "stray bullet." The
Hilja family is saving all 15 bullets fired at them from the
jeep.
Sharon's decent Palestinian
According to the plan
announced by Sharon at the Herzliya conference, if Arafat were to be so good as
to evaporate and a decent Palestinian is named prime minister, it will be
possible to discuss a Palestinian state. When discussing Palestinians whom
Sharon might choose as prime minister of Palestine, people usually mention
Mahmud Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen. So, it's interesting to see what Abu
Mazen thinks about the likelihood Sharon will be reelected prime minister of
Israel.
In a long interview that appeared last week in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat,
while visiting Abu Dhabi,. Abu Mazen said "Sharon wants war, and the march
toward peace is bound to remove him as it removed Netanyahu before him." He
explains that the Israeli public is focused on security, but the Likud doesn't
have an answer to the Palestinian question.
He details the strategy he is
recommending to the Palestinians: "Sharon is unfit for political work, but we
must not allow him to lure us into his battlefield. We must lure him into the
political arena."
Abu Mazen agrees with his interviewer's prediction that
Sharon will be reelected and proposes preparing for it. He says the election of
Sharon reflects the internal "contradiction" in Israel. "A large percentage of
Israelis want peace, but they also want security. This may be contradictory, but
that is the nature of the Israeli people.... Many of them want security and many
want peace. In fact, most of the Israelis approve of the idea of a Palestinian
state. The natural result of this is peace, and we must attract Sharon to the
peace process and the negotiation table, at which time his lack of interest in
peace will be exposed."
Asked by the interviewer if he really is the
Palestinian closest to Sharon, Abu Mazen says he won't be offering Sharon a
bargain basement solution to the Palestinian issue. "The issue is much deeper
than how close I am," he says. "We have demands that will not be surrendered.
When we went to Camp David, we had a vision and we still cling to it. We want
the land occupied in 1967 in accordance with UN Resolutions 242 and 338. We want
Arab Jerusalem and want Israel to acknowledge its responsibility for the plight
of refugees and guarantee them the right of return." That's no different from
what Israel could have received from Arafat since Camp David in 2000.