No Comment: Jerusalém, no dia 01 de setembro de 2008
Em setembro de 2008, houve uma certa oficialização do processo de judeinização de Jerusalém, alienando os palestinos cristãos e muçulmanos de seus direitos de propriedade além dos de nacionalidade.
Infringindo as leis internacionais, Israel incrementou várias estratégias paralelas com o objetivo de inviabilizar a divisão da cidade e "limpá-la" (é o termo usado desde 1948) de seus legítimos proprietários. Como por exemplo:
1. Limitando autorização de reunificação familiar - concretamente significa que se o filho sair de casa para fazer universidade alhures, perde os direitos sobre sua casa e não pode nem voltar a morar com os pais; quando estes morrem, os bens da família são confiscados para colonos judeus ou para membros do governo ou do Knesset;
2. Retraçando as fronteiras municipais da cidade. Extendendo as fronteiras para que incluam as colônias judias ilegais e concomitantemente, construindo cercas e muros para impossibilitar a circulação dos palestinos em sua cidade e marginalizar os que ainda permanecem em suas casas sofrendo abusos e ameaças diárias dos colonos estrangeiros. Até não aguentarem mais as agressões verbais que já estavam começando a concretizar-se em paulada e bala.
3. Expandindo as colônias/invasões/assentamentos de imigrantes judeus;
4. Estabelecendo novas colônias.
O Direito Internacional reza que a Linha Verde divide Jerusalém em Oriental e Ocidental, com a cidade antiga no meio. Apesar disso, desde 1967 que Israel vem ocupando ilegalmente a parte palestina com subterfúgios variados, que vão de violência a desapropriações e demolições abusivas.
Só em agosto de 2008, Ehud Olmert aprovou mais 1.761 unidades imobiliárias coloniais em Jerusalém Oriental, que pertence à Palestina.
A ONG israelense B'Tselem aproveitou para denunciar que já há cerca de 192 mil invasores judeus alem da Linha Verde, morando em 12 invasões ilegais em Jerusalém Oriental.
Conforme a ONU, 25 por cento dos 253.000 jerusalemitas palestinos estavam então cortados de parentes, amigos, escolas por obstáculos do ocupante - checkpoints e muro.
Suhail Khalilieh, diretor do Applied Research Institute in Jerusalem settlement unit, precisou que “The Israelis are implementing the final plan to Judaize Jerusalem completely. The plan began when Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967. The last stage of the plan involves the completion of the barrier with the specific aim of manipulating the demographics and limiting the balance of the Palestinian population to a mere 15-20 percent, with the remainder being Jewish.”
A importância de Jerusalém é crucial na solução ou eternização deste conflito. Isto porque a ONU a definiu como capital do "futuro" Estado da Palestina. Sem contar a importância cultural, educacional, religiosa e comercial que a cidade tem para os palestinos de várias gerações, antes da chegada dos israelitas Antes de Cristo e após sua partida no fim do século I.
A Mesquita Al-Aqsa é o segundo sítio sagrado islâmico. O local em que Jesus foi enterrado fica em Jerusalém Oriental, sem contar os outros sítios cristãos inclusive no Monte das Oliveiras. E não me canso de repetir que muitos palestinos são cristãos e muitos são impedidos de ir à missa.
A desapropriação dos nativos contraria a Quarta Convenção de Genebra, mas em muitos casos, como no Vale do Jordão e Jerusalém, é justificada por Israel como uso de "terra vazia". Ou seja, propriedades que os donos foram obrigados a deixar por livre e espontânea pressão militar.
B'Tselem explica: “Palestinians residing outside of Jerusalem for seven or more years lose their Jerusalem residency status unless they can prove Jerusalem residency within the municipal boundaries and the importance of the city in their daily life, which is imperative in order to keep their identity cards. This does not apply to Israelis in West Jerusalem."
As estatísticas da ONU mostram que em 2006, Israel revogou mais de 1.360 carteiras de residência de jerusalemitas palestinos. O quíntuplo de 2005.
Na verdade o problema começou a ficar crônico quando em 2003 o Knesset aprovou a lei Citizenship and Entry em Israel. Ela nega carteira de residência (além de nacionalidade) aos palestinos que se casam com israelenses. Portanto, quando um palestino-israelense se casa com uma compatriota dos Territórios Palestinos Ocupados, ele ou ela perde seu imóvel em Jerusalém, inclusive Oriental, ou em Israel.
É por isso que a Palestina é o único país do mundo em que cônjuges vivem separados.
Já os judeus estrangeiros que se casam com israelense são naturalizados automaticamente e têm direito de construir nos TPO.
"However, even before Palestinians are permitted to build they need to obtain the requisite building permits which are both expensive and extremely difficult to obtain,” disse Khalilieh, "Even if Palestinians are fortunate enough to get the permits, they are still restricted to building on only 25 percent of their land. Again, these restrictions do not apply to Jewish residents of West Jerusalem."
Jeff Halper do Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) disse que em setembro de 2008 havia "a housing shortage of 25,000 units in East Jerusalem, and fewer homes means higher prices. Despite the housing shortage, Israel’s municipality grants Palestinians only around 150 to 350 work permits a year, yet demolishes 150 or more existing homes at the same time.”
Casas que os palestinos constroem sem permits/autorização em lote devidamente adquirido são demolidas. Não durante a construção e sim depois. A perversidade israelense não tem limite. Esperam a família gastar suas economias com os gastos na construção, mobília, instalação da família e só depois chegam com seus caterpillars para destruir a casa com tudo dentro e dexá-los ao Deus dará.
"Both Israelis and Palestinians build illegally, but that the response of the authorities is not equal. Palestinians account for about 20 percent of illegal construction, yet more than 75 percent of the demolitions are carried out on Palestinian homes. While demolitions carried out in Jewish neighborhoods target either commercial buildings or additions to a house, in Palestinian neighborhoods such demolitions leave entire Palestinian families homeless,” diz a B'Tselem.
O ICAHD explicou que "Palestinians face discrimination in regard to budgeting and taxation as well as essential needs like water, sewage, roads, parks, lighting, post offices, schools and other services." Apesar disso tudo, a Autoridade Nacional Palestina continuava a tentar negociar diplomaticamente com Israel, mas como disse Khalilieh, “The Palestinians are in an extremely weak position. If they stopped negotiations on this basis, Israel would put the blame on failed talks squarely on their shoulders, with the support of the US, and continue with establishing facts on the ground irrespectively.”
Infringindo as leis internacionais, Israel incrementou várias estratégias paralelas com o objetivo de inviabilizar a divisão da cidade e "limpá-la" (é o termo usado desde 1948) de seus legítimos proprietários. Como por exemplo:
1. Limitando autorização de reunificação familiar - concretamente significa que se o filho sair de casa para fazer universidade alhures, perde os direitos sobre sua casa e não pode nem voltar a morar com os pais; quando estes morrem, os bens da família são confiscados para colonos judeus ou para membros do governo ou do Knesset;
2. Retraçando as fronteiras municipais da cidade. Extendendo as fronteiras para que incluam as colônias judias ilegais e concomitantemente, construindo cercas e muros para impossibilitar a circulação dos palestinos em sua cidade e marginalizar os que ainda permanecem em suas casas sofrendo abusos e ameaças diárias dos colonos estrangeiros. Até não aguentarem mais as agressões verbais que já estavam começando a concretizar-se em paulada e bala.
3. Expandindo as colônias/invasões/assentamentos de imigrantes judeus;
4. Estabelecendo novas colônias.
O Direito Internacional reza que a Linha Verde divide Jerusalém em Oriental e Ocidental, com a cidade antiga no meio. Apesar disso, desde 1967 que Israel vem ocupando ilegalmente a parte palestina com subterfúgios variados, que vão de violência a desapropriações e demolições abusivas.
Só em agosto de 2008, Ehud Olmert aprovou mais 1.761 unidades imobiliárias coloniais em Jerusalém Oriental, que pertence à Palestina.
A ONG israelense B'Tselem aproveitou para denunciar que já há cerca de 192 mil invasores judeus alem da Linha Verde, morando em 12 invasões ilegais em Jerusalém Oriental.
Conforme a ONU, 25 por cento dos 253.000 jerusalemitas palestinos estavam então cortados de parentes, amigos, escolas por obstáculos do ocupante - checkpoints e muro.
Suhail Khalilieh, diretor do Applied Research Institute in Jerusalem settlement unit, precisou que “The Israelis are implementing the final plan to Judaize Jerusalem completely. The plan began when Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967. The last stage of the plan involves the completion of the barrier with the specific aim of manipulating the demographics and limiting the balance of the Palestinian population to a mere 15-20 percent, with the remainder being Jewish.”
A importância de Jerusalém é crucial na solução ou eternização deste conflito. Isto porque a ONU a definiu como capital do "futuro" Estado da Palestina. Sem contar a importância cultural, educacional, religiosa e comercial que a cidade tem para os palestinos de várias gerações, antes da chegada dos israelitas Antes de Cristo e após sua partida no fim do século I.
A Mesquita Al-Aqsa é o segundo sítio sagrado islâmico. O local em que Jesus foi enterrado fica em Jerusalém Oriental, sem contar os outros sítios cristãos inclusive no Monte das Oliveiras. E não me canso de repetir que muitos palestinos são cristãos e muitos são impedidos de ir à missa.
A desapropriação dos nativos contraria a Quarta Convenção de Genebra, mas em muitos casos, como no Vale do Jordão e Jerusalém, é justificada por Israel como uso de "terra vazia". Ou seja, propriedades que os donos foram obrigados a deixar por livre e espontânea pressão militar.
B'Tselem explica: “Palestinians residing outside of Jerusalem for seven or more years lose their Jerusalem residency status unless they can prove Jerusalem residency within the municipal boundaries and the importance of the city in their daily life, which is imperative in order to keep their identity cards. This does not apply to Israelis in West Jerusalem."
As estatísticas da ONU mostram que em 2006, Israel revogou mais de 1.360 carteiras de residência de jerusalemitas palestinos. O quíntuplo de 2005.
Na verdade o problema começou a ficar crônico quando em 2003 o Knesset aprovou a lei Citizenship and Entry em Israel. Ela nega carteira de residência (além de nacionalidade) aos palestinos que se casam com israelenses. Portanto, quando um palestino-israelense se casa com uma compatriota dos Territórios Palestinos Ocupados, ele ou ela perde seu imóvel em Jerusalém, inclusive Oriental, ou em Israel.
É por isso que a Palestina é o único país do mundo em que cônjuges vivem separados.
Já os judeus estrangeiros que se casam com israelense são naturalizados automaticamente e têm direito de construir nos TPO.
"However, even before Palestinians are permitted to build they need to obtain the requisite building permits which are both expensive and extremely difficult to obtain,” disse Khalilieh, "Even if Palestinians are fortunate enough to get the permits, they are still restricted to building on only 25 percent of their land. Again, these restrictions do not apply to Jewish residents of West Jerusalem."
Jeff Halper do Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) disse que em setembro de 2008 havia "a housing shortage of 25,000 units in East Jerusalem, and fewer homes means higher prices. Despite the housing shortage, Israel’s municipality grants Palestinians only around 150 to 350 work permits a year, yet demolishes 150 or more existing homes at the same time.”
Casas que os palestinos constroem sem permits/autorização em lote devidamente adquirido são demolidas. Não durante a construção e sim depois. A perversidade israelense não tem limite. Esperam a família gastar suas economias com os gastos na construção, mobília, instalação da família e só depois chegam com seus caterpillars para destruir a casa com tudo dentro e dexá-los ao Deus dará.
"Both Israelis and Palestinians build illegally, but that the response of the authorities is not equal. Palestinians account for about 20 percent of illegal construction, yet more than 75 percent of the demolitions are carried out on Palestinian homes. While demolitions carried out in Jewish neighborhoods target either commercial buildings or additions to a house, in Palestinian neighborhoods such demolitions leave entire Palestinian families homeless,” diz a B'Tselem.
Marinha israelense icinera barco pesqueiro palestino - 02/09
Outro fato marcante foi na Faixa de Gaza. Além dos bombardeios e restrições de liberdade, a IDF pegou pesado nos pescadores. Havia meses que a área de pesca fora restrita ao mínimo, o que prejudicava bastante a pescaria, fonte de renda de muitos gazauís e de alimentação da maioria, devido à impossibilidade de importar carne e a produção interna ser limitada. Já que quando Israel bombardeia, bombardeia até os rebanhos.
No tópico dos pescadores, os vídeos abaixo são melhores do que palavras. Este conflito IDF vs pescadores durou cerca de dez dias durante os quais os gazauís resistiram como podiam. Mas a Marinha de Israel é tão potente quanto o Exército e a Aeronáutica. É impossível e perigosíssimo contrariá-la. A pesca em Gaza já ficara perigosa em 2006 e estava cada vez mais restrita a uma área limitadíssima.
Israeli Navy attacks Gaza's fishermen - 05/09
Os ativistas tinham também encontro marcado com representantes da União Européia e em seguida iriam a Dublin a convite da ONG irlandesa Trocaire participar de uma mesa redonda dos dias 14 a 19 de setembro.
Os europeus fizeram as reclamações de praxe, mas não mudou nada. Os três ativistas não puderam deixar a prisão Gaza.
A "prolonged administrative detention" é uma particularidade israelense contrária ao Direito Internacional. Ela não formaliza acusação nenhuma e o prisioneiro não dispõe de assistência jurídica porque oficialmente não está detido. Outra perversidade especificamente israelense. Em junho de 2008 havia 730 palestinos adultos em "administrative detention".
Um advogado explicou o sistema da seguinte maneira: Administrative detention is carried out solely on the basis of an administrative order, without a judicial determination, without an indictment being filed, and without a trial. Given that administrative detention infringes the right to freedom and due process, and in light of the clear danger of abuse, international law imposes rigid limitations in its use. Over the years, Israel has detained Palestinians for long periods of time without bringing them to court or even telling them of the suspicions against them. When detainees appeal their detention, neither they nor their attorneys are allowed to see the allegedly incriminating evidence. By acting in this way, Israel shows utter disregard for defenses available to suspects in Israeli and international law, which are intended to ensure the right to liberty and due process, the right of persons to state their case, and the presumption of innocence. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in administrative detention of minors in Israel, an especially grave phenomenon. The International Convention on the Rights of the Child states, in article 37, states that, “No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.”
Os palestinos aproveitaram a denúncia da B'Tselem para solicitar a libertação de todos os prisioneiros administrativos e o fim desta prática ilícita, argumentando que "if there is sufficient evident to prosecute a person being held in administrative detention, then an indictment should be filed and a trial held."
Falaram no vazio.
A B'Tselem não parou aí em suas denúncias, no dia 15, lançou outro relatório. Este sobre as invasões judias e o muro que recortava a Cisjordânia. Eis estratos: For years, Israeli authorities have both barred Palestinian access to rings of land surrounding settlements, and have not acted to eliminate settlers’ piratical closing of lands adjacent to settlements and blocking of Palestinian access to them. Blocking access is one of the many ways used to expand settlements. In recent years, Israel has institutionalized the closing of such lands in an attempt to retroactively sanction the unauthorized placement of barriers far from the houses at the edge of the settlements.
Settlers pave patrol roads and place physical obstructions on Palestinian lands adjacent to settlements, at times with the authorities’ approval, at others not. Settlers also forcibly remove Palestinians, primarily farmers, from their lands. B’Tselem has documented cases of gunfire, threats of gunfire and killing, beatings, stone throwing, use of attack dogs, attempts to run over Palestinians, destruction of farming equipment and crops, theft of crops, killing and theft of livestock and animals used in farming, unauthorized demands to see identification cards, and theft of documents.
The authorities entrusted with enforcing the law not only fail to take sufficient action to end the violence and prosecute lawbreakers, they join them and block Palestinian access themselves. Soldiers regularly expel Palestinians from their farmland, often under the direction of settlers. Israel has also established a physical system of barriers — barbed-wire fences, patrol roads, illumination and electronic sensory devices — far from the homes at the edge of the settlements, in effect annexing large swaths of land to the settlements.
Especially blatant in this context is the “Special Security Area” (SSA) plan, in which framework Israel surrounded 12 settlements east of the Separation Barrier with rings of land that are closed as a rule to Palestinian entry. As a result of the plan, the overall area of these settlements is 2.4 times larger, having increased from 3,325 dunams (a dunam is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters) to 7,793 dunams. More than half of this ring land is under private Palestinian ownership. The amount of land attached to settlements other than through the SSA plan is much larger, given there are no official limitations and less supervision of the piratical closing of land by settlers. B’Tselem estimates that such piratical closing has blocked Palestinian entry to tens of thousands of dunams, thus annexing them de facto to the settlements. Experience shows that this land grab will be perpetuated and become part of official policy to the extent that the plan is implemented at additional settlements.
Palestinian farmers seeking access to their lands must cope with a complex bureaucracy and meet a number of conditions. First and foremost, they must prove ownership of the land. They also have to “pressure” the Civil Administration time and again to set times for them to enter. Also, the defense establishment subjects Palestinian access to the good will and caprice of the settlers. On this background, many farmers give up and stop trying to gain access and to work their land...
...Israel allows settlers to enter freely, without supervision, the land, which ostensibly was meant to serve as a warning area free of people, but is, in effect, closed only to Palestinians. As a result, settlers move about on the Palestinian land regularly, steal their crops, and even live on and work the land. This practice breaches both the logic of a “warning zone” and the military orders closing the area.
The land adjacent to the settlement is part of a long list of areas that Israel closes to Palestinians in the West Bank: the Jordan Valley, East Jerusalem, military-training areas, the settlement areas themselves, and others. Every piece of land that Israel closes to Palestinians joins those areas previously taken, and together they limit the possibilities of millions of persons, principal harm being suffered by farmers and those who rely of farming for a living. In this context, it should be recalled that the poverty level of Palestinians in the West Bank is extremely high, and that agriculture is the main sector of the Palestinian economy. Blocking access also impedes urban development and limits recreation in the form of nature hikes and enjoyment of land resources.
Blocking Palestinian access to land adjacent to settlements is the direct result, and an integral part, of the illegal settlement enterprise. This enterprise continuously violates the absolute prohibition specified in international humanitarian law on settlements in occupied territory. Consequently, Israel is obligated to evacuate the settlers and return them to sovereign Israeli soil. If the settlers are not evacuated, there are ways, which are presented in the report, to protect them in ways that will harm Palestinians to a lesser extent. But the government of Israel is obligated to evacuate them in any case, and evacuation is the only legal way to meet the security need that stands, according to official spokespersons, at the basis of the regulated closing of the land."
Nesse ínterim, o conflito intestino ente Hamas e Fatah continuava na Faixa de Gaza. Na mesma segunda-feira, dia 15 de setembro, houve nova confrontação entre o clã Dughmosh e os policiais do Hamas. Quando terminou a troca de tiros no dia seguinte, havia 10 membros do clã mortos, um policial e 42 feridos, dentre eles 10 policiais.
O Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reclamou e exigiu o fim das hostilidades. Outros tentaram convencer os dois lados do absurdo desta guerra fratricida em vez dos dois partidos juntarem suas forças contra o verdadeiro inimigo comum que os oprimia. Entretanto, a reconciliação continuava fora de cogitação.
No dia 19 de setembro foi a vez da UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) responsável pelos refugiados palestinos divulgar relatório denunciando a violação dos direitos infantis nos TPO.
“In one of the gravest incidents in July, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy, Ahmad Husam Yousef Mosa, was shot in the head with live ammunition and killed by the Israeli border police following an anti-barrier demonstration in Nilin village in the central West Bank.
The following day, 15-year-old Yousef Ahmad Amira was declared brain dead after he too was shot in the head at close range with several rubber-coated metal bullets, also by Israel’s paramilitary border police.
Another 44 children were injured this month, all but one in the West Bank. Two children were killed and seven injured in Palestinian internal fighting in the Gaza Strip in July.
All these incidents brings the number of child fatalities to 95 Palestinians and four Israelis, while the number of child injuries has reached 386 for Palestinians and eight for Israelis since the beginning of the year.”
Muhammad Ayman, de 18 anos, da cidadezinha de Al-Mazraa al-Qiliya perto de Ramallah presenciou o assassinato de seu amigo Muhammad Shreitih que sangrou até morrer após levar um tiro na cabeça. Quem atirou nele não foi um soldado da IDF e sim um colono judeu. “I struggle to sleep at night as I continue to have nightmares, only to wake up covered in sweat after seeing Muhammad’s face in a pool of blood,” disse o adolescente. Muhammad estava com um grupo de amigos quando chegou seu assassino. Seu amigo traumatizado conta: “The settler started shooting towards us before we even reached the settlement. He got out of the bus and came towards us and shot from 50 meters away. We tried to evacuate our friend to hospital but he was dead on arrival. A subsequent Israeli police investigation ruled the settler had shot “in self-defense.”
O psicólogo Marwan Diab do Gaza Community Health Programme (GCHP) que acompanha crianças traumatizadas disse que o impacto psicológico da violência endêmica na Palestina vai ser grande nos futuros líderes: “A generation of Palestinian children face the danger of being psychologically damaged beyond repair unless there is sufficient urgent psychological intervention and an improvement in the political, social and economic conditions in the Gaza Strip.”
Patricia McPhillips, representante da UNICEF nos TPO acrescentou: “We are extremely concerned about the children. Last year alone, 37,500 Palestinian children in the occupied territories participated in our group counseling sessions, 1,200 in individual sessions, and over 18,000 care givers participated in parenting sessions. We also visited 800 families in homes and hospitals following acute episodes.”
Além do número alarmante de problemas psicológicos e deficiências físicas causadas por tiros de colonos e soldados, as crianças lidam diariamente com os efeitos da ocupação na Cisjordânia e da prisão na Faixa de Gaza - vigiada dia e noite por zepelins e drones espiões que zunem constantemente em seus ouvidos, o que em si já é uma tortura ininterrupta).
John Ging, diretor da UNRWA disse que 50-60 por cento das crianças gazauís nas escolas da ONU foram reprovadas nos exames de matemática e 40 por cento, de árabe por causa da dificuldade de concentração e acesso aos estudos. “School attendance has been seriously disrupted due to inter-factional fighting, repeated Israeli military raids, and unprecedented poverty where children come to school hungry and unable to concentrate.” A UNRWA proporciona ensino gratuito aos refugiados e a demanda é tão grande que estabeleceram dois turnos.
Segund a UNICEF, 70 por cento das crianças gazauís nessa data eram refugiados - 588.000 de 840.000 meninos.
O bloqueio gera subnutrição, doenças gástricas e raquitismo devido à água contaminada que Israel vende para a Faixa. "From birth itself Palestinian children are disadvantaged, with many infants dying from congenital malformation, low birth weight, premature birth and acute respiratory infection in the camps" disse a UNRWA. "his is compounded by high rates of malnutrition, economic privation and unemployment, exacerbated by the Israeli blockade of Gaza."
Como a B'Tselem denuncia acima, os meninos palestinos são frequentemente detidos e postos em prisões israelenses com criminosos adultos. " They receive practically none of the rights given to Israeli minors jailed."
O relatório do OCHA foi claro: "The Israeli army arrested around 700 Palestinian children in 2007, 30 of whom were held on administrative detention orders where they are detained without trial. The number of children arrested in 2007 brings the total number of Palestinian children arrested by Israel since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000 to approximately 5,900.”
O relatório descreveu também os abusos e humilhações que os meninos sofrem na prisão, além dos abusos psicológicos durante os "interrogatórios". Os meninos são detidos em checkpoints, nas ruas, ou durante batidas residenciais da IDF. Basta reagir ou demonstrar revolta contra o mau-tratamento que são presos. Qualquer que seja a idade. E na prisão, como diz B’Tselem, "some Palestinian children are held in solitary confinement in the “lock-up” — a dark cell one-and-a-half by one-and-a-half meters. Others are confined to the “closet,” a narrow cell one can stand in but not sit or move. The “grave” — a kind of box closed by a door from the top and measuring approximately one meter by 60 centimeters with a depth of about 80 centimeters is another favorite used by Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet." Acrescentando que "many of the children are jailed for 'political offenses' such as throwing stones." O que obriga a Defence for Children International - a concluir que "the penalties handed out to Palestinian children are generally very harsh".
"Geralmente duro" é eufemismo. Um menino palestino preso por responder a tiros com pedras são condenados a penas que variam de 10 a 20 anos... Um menino palestino acusado de "damage to an Israeli army facility" ou seja, até o arranhão de um escudo ou veículo da IDF, está sujeito até a prisão perpétua.... Um menino palestino acusado de insultar ou ameaçar (!) um soldado é condenado a 10 anos de prisão - pena apenas 5 anos inferior à de um israelense acusado de homicídio; de outro israelense, é claro, pois de palestino são absolvidos.
Contudo, Marwan Diab terminou com uma nota de otimismo inacreditável para quem não conhece a capacidade de resistência dos palestinos: “There is no question whatsoever that the plight of Palestinian children is inextricably intertwined with politics, and my reason for cautious optimism is the amazing resilience I have witnessed amongst these youngsters, despite the extraordinary difficulties they face.”
No dia 22 de setembro de 2008, 78 organizações de refugiados palestinos apresentaram uma carta aberta ao presidente da Autoridade Nacional Palestina e da OLP, Mahmoud Abbas-Abu Mazen, para transmitir uma mensagem contundente: O Direito de Retorno dos refugiados não é negociável.
Palestinian parties and organizations to Abbas: Right of return non-negotiable
Na leva de reclamações e reivindicações, no dia 26 de setembro, várias ONGs internacionais apresentaram um relatório dando cartão amarelo avermelhado ao Quarteto para o Oriente Médio e a Tony Blair, ao constatarem que os objetivos da Conferência de Annapolis não estavam nem sendo abordados como deviam: International orgs. give Quartet failing grade.
Fecho o mês publicando parte do balanço que a ONG palestina Al Mezan fez no dia 29. "Palestinians killed, killed either by the IOF or during confrontations with it, as well as material damages of Gaza Strip’s civilians during the last eight years shows that the death toll amounts to 3,143, including 611 children, 113 women and 22 disabled persons. It also shows that there are 7,650 demolished homes, including 3,014 pulled down. Furthermore, 33,948 dunums (a dunam is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters) were bulldozed, including 9,684 dunams that were bulldozed more than once. The IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces-IDF] destroyed 378 public facilities, 647 vehicles of different types and 899 manufacturing and commercial facilities.
The IOF continue to construct the Apartheid Wall in the occupied West Bank in defiance of the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion of 9 July 2004 on the legal consequences of the construction of the wall by the IOF on the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories]. The IOF accomplished the construction of approximately 57 percent of the wall’s final route. It is noteworthy that 329 kilometers of the wall are built in the occupied West Bank.
It is also important to note that the construction of the separation wall by the IOF not only changes the status quo of the OPT, but also inflicts gross damages to the civilian residents and their properties. Upon the completion of this Wall, the IOF would confiscate 50 percent of the West Bank. The Wall divides the West Bank, turning it into ghettos where villages are separated from their agricultural land and other cities. The Wall affects 875,000 Palestinians in addition to confiscating water resources and denying access of tens of thousands of Palestinians to medical centers, hospitals, universities and schools. Based on the resources of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, only 20 percent of farmers who used to cultivate their lands in those areas prior to the construction of the Wall were granted permits to cross through the Wall’s gates to reach their farms. Moreover, the number of stationary military checkpoints, built by the IOF on the roads inside and between the West Bank’s cities and villages, amounts to 630 checkpoints mainly used to humiliate and punish the Palestinians.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights strongly condemns the IOF’s continuous, grave breaches of the principles of international humanitarian law and standards of human rights, which are tantamount to war crimes. The Center calls on the international community, especially the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to take immediate action to bring an end to the IOF’s crimes and particularly the continuous collective punishment of the Gaza Strip that violates all human rights. Therefore, based on the repeated evidence proving that the IOF deliberately commit war crimes and that the Israeli judiciary overlooks them and fails to prosecute those responsible, Al Mezan Center calls on the international community to consider the establishment of war crimes tribunals for Israel and cease from politicizing the issue of human rights in the OPT and treating it as subject to political and economic interests of the international parties."
Artigos publicados na Electronic Intifada em setembro de 2008
No dia 1°, a ONG sueco-palestina IRIN denunciou a crise hídrica na Palestina: Palestinian water strategies subject to Israeli veto.
Enquanto isso, os hebronitas denunciavam a violência quotidiana que sofrem nas mãos dos colonos judeus que ocupam sua cidade: Settler violence against Palestinians on the rise.
No dia 04, o professor Zohair M; Abu Shaban publicou um artigo lembrando a Prisão Gaza: Israel turns Gaza into prison for Fulbright Scholar.
E David Wildman comentou a posição das igrejas protestantes dos EUA em relação à ocupação. US churches seeking justice in Palestine-Israel (Part 1). US churches seeking justice in Palestine-Israel (Part 2).
No dia 15, o mesmo jornalista alertou para a 'renovação' de Jaffa: Jaffa's "renewal" aims at expulsion of Palestinians.
No dia 19, Mahmoud Abbas recebeu essa carta aberta de compatriota refugiado: A refugee's open letter to Mahmoud Abbas.
No dia 23, Mohammed Omer denunciou a ignorância mútua de Hamas & Fatah por censurarem a imprensa: Mutual censorship in the West Bank and Gaza. IPS.
Os palestinos aproveitaram a denúncia da B'Tselem para solicitar a libertação de todos os prisioneiros administrativos e o fim desta prática ilícita, argumentando que "if there is sufficient evident to prosecute a person being held in administrative detention, then an indictment should be filed and a trial held."
Falaram no vazio.
Settlers pave patrol roads and place physical obstructions on Palestinian lands adjacent to settlements, at times with the authorities’ approval, at others not. Settlers also forcibly remove Palestinians, primarily farmers, from their lands. B’Tselem has documented cases of gunfire, threats of gunfire and killing, beatings, stone throwing, use of attack dogs, attempts to run over Palestinians, destruction of farming equipment and crops, theft of crops, killing and theft of livestock and animals used in farming, unauthorized demands to see identification cards, and theft of documents.
The authorities entrusted with enforcing the law not only fail to take sufficient action to end the violence and prosecute lawbreakers, they join them and block Palestinian access themselves. Soldiers regularly expel Palestinians from their farmland, often under the direction of settlers. Israel has also established a physical system of barriers — barbed-wire fences, patrol roads, illumination and electronic sensory devices — far from the homes at the edge of the settlements, in effect annexing large swaths of land to the settlements.
Especially blatant in this context is the “Special Security Area” (SSA) plan, in which framework Israel surrounded 12 settlements east of the Separation Barrier with rings of land that are closed as a rule to Palestinian entry. As a result of the plan, the overall area of these settlements is 2.4 times larger, having increased from 3,325 dunams (a dunam is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters) to 7,793 dunams. More than half of this ring land is under private Palestinian ownership. The amount of land attached to settlements other than through the SSA plan is much larger, given there are no official limitations and less supervision of the piratical closing of land by settlers. B’Tselem estimates that such piratical closing has blocked Palestinian entry to tens of thousands of dunams, thus annexing them de facto to the settlements. Experience shows that this land grab will be perpetuated and become part of official policy to the extent that the plan is implemented at additional settlements.
Palestinian farmers seeking access to their lands must cope with a complex bureaucracy and meet a number of conditions. First and foremost, they must prove ownership of the land. They also have to “pressure” the Civil Administration time and again to set times for them to enter. Also, the defense establishment subjects Palestinian access to the good will and caprice of the settlers. On this background, many farmers give up and stop trying to gain access and to work their land...
...Israel allows settlers to enter freely, without supervision, the land, which ostensibly was meant to serve as a warning area free of people, but is, in effect, closed only to Palestinians. As a result, settlers move about on the Palestinian land regularly, steal their crops, and even live on and work the land. This practice breaches both the logic of a “warning zone” and the military orders closing the area.
The land adjacent to the settlement is part of a long list of areas that Israel closes to Palestinians in the West Bank: the Jordan Valley, East Jerusalem, military-training areas, the settlement areas themselves, and others. Every piece of land that Israel closes to Palestinians joins those areas previously taken, and together they limit the possibilities of millions of persons, principal harm being suffered by farmers and those who rely of farming for a living. In this context, it should be recalled that the poverty level of Palestinians in the West Bank is extremely high, and that agriculture is the main sector of the Palestinian economy. Blocking access also impedes urban development and limits recreation in the form of nature hikes and enjoyment of land resources.
Blocking Palestinian access to land adjacent to settlements is the direct result, and an integral part, of the illegal settlement enterprise. This enterprise continuously violates the absolute prohibition specified in international humanitarian law on settlements in occupied territory. Consequently, Israel is obligated to evacuate the settlers and return them to sovereign Israeli soil. If the settlers are not evacuated, there are ways, which are presented in the report, to protect them in ways that will harm Palestinians to a lesser extent. But the government of Israel is obligated to evacuate them in any case, and evacuation is the only legal way to meet the security need that stands, according to official spokespersons, at the basis of the regulated closing of the land."
O Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reclamou e exigiu o fim das hostilidades. Outros tentaram convencer os dois lados do absurdo desta guerra fratricida em vez dos dois partidos juntarem suas forças contra o verdadeiro inimigo comum que os oprimia. Entretanto, a reconciliação continuava fora de cogitação.
Gaza fishermen resist Water cannon assault - 17/09
“In one of the gravest incidents in July, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy, Ahmad Husam Yousef Mosa, was shot in the head with live ammunition and killed by the Israeli border police following an anti-barrier demonstration in Nilin village in the central West Bank.
The following day, 15-year-old Yousef Ahmad Amira was declared brain dead after he too was shot in the head at close range with several rubber-coated metal bullets, also by Israel’s paramilitary border police.
Another 44 children were injured this month, all but one in the West Bank. Two children were killed and seven injured in Palestinian internal fighting in the Gaza Strip in July.
All these incidents brings the number of child fatalities to 95 Palestinians and four Israelis, while the number of child injuries has reached 386 for Palestinians and eight for Israelis since the beginning of the year.”
Muhammad Ayman, de 18 anos, da cidadezinha de Al-Mazraa al-Qiliya perto de Ramallah presenciou o assassinato de seu amigo Muhammad Shreitih que sangrou até morrer após levar um tiro na cabeça. Quem atirou nele não foi um soldado da IDF e sim um colono judeu. “I struggle to sleep at night as I continue to have nightmares, only to wake up covered in sweat after seeing Muhammad’s face in a pool of blood,” disse o adolescente. Muhammad estava com um grupo de amigos quando chegou seu assassino. Seu amigo traumatizado conta: “The settler started shooting towards us before we even reached the settlement. He got out of the bus and came towards us and shot from 50 meters away. We tried to evacuate our friend to hospital but he was dead on arrival. A subsequent Israeli police investigation ruled the settler had shot “in self-defense.”
O psicólogo Marwan Diab do Gaza Community Health Programme (GCHP) que acompanha crianças traumatizadas disse que o impacto psicológico da violência endêmica na Palestina vai ser grande nos futuros líderes: “A generation of Palestinian children face the danger of being psychologically damaged beyond repair unless there is sufficient urgent psychological intervention and an improvement in the political, social and economic conditions in the Gaza Strip.”
Patricia McPhillips, representante da UNICEF nos TPO acrescentou: “We are extremely concerned about the children. Last year alone, 37,500 Palestinian children in the occupied territories participated in our group counseling sessions, 1,200 in individual sessions, and over 18,000 care givers participated in parenting sessions. We also visited 800 families in homes and hospitals following acute episodes.”
Além do número alarmante de problemas psicológicos e deficiências físicas causadas por tiros de colonos e soldados, as crianças lidam diariamente com os efeitos da ocupação na Cisjordânia e da prisão na Faixa de Gaza - vigiada dia e noite por zepelins e drones espiões que zunem constantemente em seus ouvidos, o que em si já é uma tortura ininterrupta).
John Ging, diretor da UNRWA disse que 50-60 por cento das crianças gazauís nas escolas da ONU foram reprovadas nos exames de matemática e 40 por cento, de árabe por causa da dificuldade de concentração e acesso aos estudos. “School attendance has been seriously disrupted due to inter-factional fighting, repeated Israeli military raids, and unprecedented poverty where children come to school hungry and unable to concentrate.” A UNRWA proporciona ensino gratuito aos refugiados e a demanda é tão grande que estabeleceram dois turnos.
Segund a UNICEF, 70 por cento das crianças gazauís nessa data eram refugiados - 588.000 de 840.000 meninos.
O bloqueio gera subnutrição, doenças gástricas e raquitismo devido à água contaminada que Israel vende para a Faixa. "From birth itself Palestinian children are disadvantaged, with many infants dying from congenital malformation, low birth weight, premature birth and acute respiratory infection in the camps" disse a UNRWA. "his is compounded by high rates of malnutrition, economic privation and unemployment, exacerbated by the Israeli blockade of Gaza."
Como a B'Tselem denuncia acima, os meninos palestinos são frequentemente detidos e postos em prisões israelenses com criminosos adultos. " They receive practically none of the rights given to Israeli minors jailed."
O relatório do OCHA foi claro: "The Israeli army arrested around 700 Palestinian children in 2007, 30 of whom were held on administrative detention orders where they are detained without trial. The number of children arrested in 2007 brings the total number of Palestinian children arrested by Israel since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000 to approximately 5,900.”
O relatório descreveu também os abusos e humilhações que os meninos sofrem na prisão, além dos abusos psicológicos durante os "interrogatórios". Os meninos são detidos em checkpoints, nas ruas, ou durante batidas residenciais da IDF. Basta reagir ou demonstrar revolta contra o mau-tratamento que são presos. Qualquer que seja a idade. E na prisão, como diz B’Tselem, "some Palestinian children are held in solitary confinement in the “lock-up” — a dark cell one-and-a-half by one-and-a-half meters. Others are confined to the “closet,” a narrow cell one can stand in but not sit or move. The “grave” — a kind of box closed by a door from the top and measuring approximately one meter by 60 centimeters with a depth of about 80 centimeters is another favorite used by Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet." Acrescentando que "many of the children are jailed for 'political offenses' such as throwing stones." O que obriga a Defence for Children International - a concluir que "the penalties handed out to Palestinian children are generally very harsh".
"Geralmente duro" é eufemismo. Um menino palestino preso por responder a tiros com pedras são condenados a penas que variam de 10 a 20 anos... Um menino palestino acusado de "damage to an Israeli army facility" ou seja, até o arranhão de um escudo ou veículo da IDF, está sujeito até a prisão perpétua.... Um menino palestino acusado de insultar ou ameaçar (!) um soldado é condenado a 10 anos de prisão - pena apenas 5 anos inferior à de um israelense acusado de homicídio; de outro israelense, é claro, pois de palestino são absolvidos.
Contudo, Marwan Diab terminou com uma nota de otimismo inacreditável para quem não conhece a capacidade de resistência dos palestinos: “There is no question whatsoever that the plight of Palestinian children is inextricably intertwined with politics, and my reason for cautious optimism is the amazing resilience I have witnessed amongst these youngsters, despite the extraordinary difficulties they face.”
No dia 22 de setembro de 2008, 78 organizações de refugiados palestinos apresentaram uma carta aberta ao presidente da Autoridade Nacional Palestina e da OLP, Mahmoud Abbas-Abu Mazen, para transmitir uma mensagem contundente: O Direito de Retorno dos refugiados não é negociável.
Palestinian parties and organizations to Abbas: Right of return non-negotiable
Na leva de reclamações e reivindicações, no dia 26 de setembro, várias ONGs internacionais apresentaram um relatório dando cartão amarelo avermelhado ao Quarteto para o Oriente Médio e a Tony Blair, ao constatarem que os objetivos da Conferência de Annapolis não estavam nem sendo abordados como deviam: International orgs. give Quartet failing grade.
Fecho o mês publicando parte do balanço que a ONG palestina Al Mezan fez no dia 29. "Palestinians killed, killed either by the IOF or during confrontations with it, as well as material damages of Gaza Strip’s civilians during the last eight years shows that the death toll amounts to 3,143, including 611 children, 113 women and 22 disabled persons. It also shows that there are 7,650 demolished homes, including 3,014 pulled down. Furthermore, 33,948 dunums (a dunam is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters) were bulldozed, including 9,684 dunams that were bulldozed more than once. The IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces-IDF] destroyed 378 public facilities, 647 vehicles of different types and 899 manufacturing and commercial facilities.
The IOF continue to construct the Apartheid Wall in the occupied West Bank in defiance of the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion of 9 July 2004 on the legal consequences of the construction of the wall by the IOF on the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories]. The IOF accomplished the construction of approximately 57 percent of the wall’s final route. It is noteworthy that 329 kilometers of the wall are built in the occupied West Bank.
It is also important to note that the construction of the separation wall by the IOF not only changes the status quo of the OPT, but also inflicts gross damages to the civilian residents and their properties. Upon the completion of this Wall, the IOF would confiscate 50 percent of the West Bank. The Wall divides the West Bank, turning it into ghettos where villages are separated from their agricultural land and other cities. The Wall affects 875,000 Palestinians in addition to confiscating water resources and denying access of tens of thousands of Palestinians to medical centers, hospitals, universities and schools. Based on the resources of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, only 20 percent of farmers who used to cultivate their lands in those areas prior to the construction of the Wall were granted permits to cross through the Wall’s gates to reach their farms. Moreover, the number of stationary military checkpoints, built by the IOF on the roads inside and between the West Bank’s cities and villages, amounts to 630 checkpoints mainly used to humiliate and punish the Palestinians.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights strongly condemns the IOF’s continuous, grave breaches of the principles of international humanitarian law and standards of human rights, which are tantamount to war crimes. The Center calls on the international community, especially the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to take immediate action to bring an end to the IOF’s crimes and particularly the continuous collective punishment of the Gaza Strip that violates all human rights. Therefore, based on the repeated evidence proving that the IOF deliberately commit war crimes and that the Israeli judiciary overlooks them and fails to prosecute those responsible, Al Mezan Center calls on the international community to consider the establishment of war crimes tribunals for Israel and cease from politicizing the issue of human rights in the OPT and treating it as subject to political and economic interests of the international parties."
Displaced children in Gaza use Legos to tell their story
Enquanto isso, os hebronitas denunciavam a violência quotidiana que sofrem nas mãos dos colonos judeus que ocupam sua cidade: Settler violence against Palestinians on the rise.
No dia 04, o professor Zohair M; Abu Shaban publicou um artigo lembrando a Prisão Gaza: Israel turns Gaza into prison for Fulbright Scholar.
E David Wildman comentou a posição das igrejas protestantes dos EUA em relação à ocupação. US churches seeking justice in Palestine-Israel (Part 1). US churches seeking justice in Palestine-Israel (Part 2).
No dia 10, Ahmad Abed, refugiado palestino em Londres, prestou depoimento sobre sua terra: Growing up occupied in Gaza.
No dia 12, Jonathan Cook abordou um assunto dramático: os palestinos que são forçados pelo Shin Bet a trair sua pátria para receber tratamento médico: Israel's dark arts of ensnaring collaborators.No dia 15, o mesmo jornalista alertou para a 'renovação' de Jaffa: Jaffa's "renewal" aims at expulsion of Palestinians.
No dia 19, Mahmoud Abbas recebeu essa carta aberta de compatriota refugiado: A refugee's open letter to Mahmoud Abbas.
No dia 23, Mohammed Omer denunciou a ignorância mútua de Hamas & Fatah por censurarem a imprensa: Mutual censorship in the West Bank and Gaza. IPS.
No dia 26, Jonathan Cook deu um aviso que chegaria ao Vaticano e geraria medidas em 2015. Pois além das propriedades palestinas correrem perigo, os sítios sagrados do cristianismo também estão amaeaçados pela cobiça do ocupante: Archaeology used politically to push out Jerusalem Palestinians.
E no dia 30, Jonathan Cook soou o alarme contra o terrorismo judeu nos territórios palestinos ocupados: Israel's breeding ground for Jewish terrorism.
Reservistas da IDF, forças israelenses de ocupação,
Shovrim Shtika - Breaking the Silence
"Guys, cheer up. That's how it is"Rank: Captain; Area: Ramallah and al-Bireh area
I think that… the reason I'm sitting here and talking to you, well, lots of things made me sit and talk to you. It's not one specific event, but I think the first case that really turned some warning on in my mind… It wasn't the first, but was relatively the first in my time as an officer, a commander, but now, while I sit here and think about it, I realize there were earlier instances that made me understand I'm doing things that are wrong. I think the first case that got me thinking, or rather, the straw that broke the camel's back, happened in the Binyamin district. Yes, it was there and actually our mission was to secure the settler access roads from terrorist [resistants] attacks, shootings, laying explosive charges, all that stuff, which sounds legitimate to me, which is legitimate as far as I'm concerned. As long as Israeli citizens live out there we have to protect them, and if it's the most… some weak spot, I did the job willingly. These were lengthy ambushes along the roads, tying to detect any movement there, or armed militants reaching the roads and getting set up or laying charges, all of that. These are things that I know are being done and a lot, and it's important. In that same situation, there really was a shooting incident on one of the roads, which I didn't manage to lay our hands on in time. I mean, they came from some area that we couldn't cover, and they really hit the trunk of a car, the edge of it, and we were very upset. I mean, how could this happen, how could we not see it? We got there very fast to the site, and that's it, we stood there and waited. The scouts arrived. There were no tracks and no idea where the guy had run off too, but the scouts were there and said they had seen. I don't know, perhaps they are very competent, or they tried to prove it, or perhaps they really saw something. They said the tracks led to… tracks that really weren't there, but led to the closest village. Essentially that made sense. We really did come a long way. And we went in… We got to the edge of the village, there were two houses and we took out the people there and began to question them. No, I mean what happened was that I told my soldiers to cover and we asked the father and the adults there to go outside and they were interrogated. This was still legitimate, and we had a common language because the scouts spoke Arabic [scouts in the IDF are Bedouin]. and they really did question the people and it was carried out… It was relatively reasonable. I mean, there was an attack, these houses were on the periphery, perhaps they saw something. No doubt they didn't. I mean, no shooting could be heard, in our position we were closer to the incident than the village was, and they really said, "We heard nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing." That's not necessarily true, but it could be. And, still, it was legitimate. I mean, to take people out of the peripheral houses and interrogate them. Perhaps someone saw or heard something. So nothing was found, and we find ourselves walking on in those streets, very aggressively. I mean, not casually walking down, but flaunting our presence. It's important to note that it was about 1:30 a.m., if not 2, in the morning. Wee hours of the night. And we find ourselves in the middle of that village, at its main junction. Lots of our forces were already there. There were Border Patrol troops and the regional forces and our own unit and others. An extremely large show of armed soldiers in the middle of the village. Then the battalion commander arrives and says words that I'll never forget, I can quote him. I mean, I remember it with full certainty. He says, "Okay, guys, enter the houses so they'll understand. Make them understand." These were the two phrases uttered, this was the order. To my utter amazement, this was the order. Forces take off immediately, as if they know what… I don't know, to me this order sounded very bizarre. I mean, to do what? I find myself actually yelling, "Wait a minute! I don't really understand the order. What? To do what? Enter a house? Not enter a house? Take people out? Not take them out?" He tells me, "No, no, make them understand." He was very determined and angry, and said, "Make them understand." So I say, "What, am I supposed to take people out?" and he does not answer me. I say, "I don't have to take people out. I mean, my point is to make them understand that they can't do this, if they were, they can't give terrorists shelter". He says, "Yes, yes. Go on. Go." I find myself going, I mean areas were designated and each force went out to… There were forces that had already gone ahead, they didn't wait one moment. This didn't sound strange to them. I had half a Border Patrol force under my command, I mean I wasn't really their commanding officer but the battalion commander somehow told me,"You take charge of them", because of my experience or maturity or something. In fact I go out and say, "Okay, you take this part of the street and I'll take that row of buildings of this street". And then I began to realize what's happening as soon as I enter the home of the first family. I go in there and suddenly see myself there with a gang of thugs, when I say "thugs", I mean these are excellent, obedient soldiers standing behind me all wrapped up in bullet-proof vests and masses of mud on our feet. Incredible. The staircase is already full of mud, to say nothing of the carpets. I enter the apartment and begin to use mime so they'll understand. I mean, I want them to understand what's happened and I can't manage to communicate with them. I don't speak Arabic. No one spoke Arabic, no one understood Arabic. So I don't understand what they want. I sense their panic. I sense my own panic, because I have to be aggressive, and I am. I have to watch out for myself and I do. On the other hand, they are scared. And I think to myself, for heaven's sake, what am I doing? I don't explain, I'm not functioning properly, I don't know what to do, and I am very aggressive, I dirty up their place, and it's two o'clock in the morning. I decide to leave the family.
I assume that one of the things that made you function properly were your soldiers. You were in charge of how many there?
Officially, fifteen men at the time.
How many were your subordinates but not from your own unit?Another twenty, approximately. At my command. I must reiterate this was not all so clear-cut. It was somehow… I was told I'd be in charge of them. In short, I decided to get out. I realized I was not fulfilling my mission as I should and decided to get out. Without taking people out. Without I don't know what. And as I was going out, I saw Border Patrolmen banging at someone's door and yelling violently, terrible banging. With soldiers who… This was two o'clock at night, people don't just open their door straight away. It's not like you knock on a door and immediately someone's going to open it for you. After all, two a.m. So I run over to them, I leave my soldiers behind, telling them to cover me. I run over to those guys and say, "Wait a minute…" No, before I run over there, there is horrible banging on the door and yelling, "Come on, move it! Move it!" The door was not opened very fast. So a soldier was already running –without being ordered to, things I'm really not used to – and shattered a window. I run over and shout, "Who's the commander here? Hey, what's going on here?" And one of them says, "I am!" Another guy says, "I am the commander." Suddenly there are three commanders there. I say, "Who's really the commander? I want to talk to the commander". Another guy arrives. I say, "Hey, take it easy. Slow down. Let them open their door, let them… No one is firing at us." and he says, "No, no, no" and the havoc continues. The soldiers get people out of their houses in their underwear, and I am registering this… When I say a 'house", I don't mean a house where three people live. It's a building with three families and everyone's outside, and the soldiers are conducting searches. I yell, "Wait, explain to them. Let them know what happened, so they'll understand", and I realize no one is listening. Suddenly I look back and notice I still have these soldiers of mine to take care of. So I said, okay, my own soldiers and my own assignment are more important to me, and one moment before I leave I also see a little soldier, looking like he'd just gotten sworn-in today, with this long weapon, jumping up and down and yelling, "Action, action, action!" pointing his rifle at the people. I was stunned. So were my soldiers. I saw them stunned. They were right across the street, they saw it all. I go back and explain to the soldiers, "Guys, we have a mission. We need to carry it out. Like the battalion commander defined it for me – to explain to the people. We'll go in and clear things up.", and I continue to enter house after house. All in all, we went over five houses, or buildings rather. Later when I asked, "How many buildings did you do?" there were people there who had managed five times four, so that was twenty buildings, and woke everyone up. Actually, the entire village woke up. And the other scene there was at the same time, we got to another house and I … there was a sequence of events there and I must retell them. That was the night that broke the camel's back. The straw that broke the camel's back. I enter a house, there's a woman there. Again, I'm covered with mud, and I really, I look… I can imagine I looked really scary. I go in and there's this old woman and I ask her, "Where is the man of the house?" No one understands anyone. Then I see some mattress covered with a blanket. The blanket is moving as if in some earthquake, and I… I don't know, maybe he's hiding in there. I ask my soldier, "Go quickly, see what's under that bed" and he tries to pull the blanket, and no, it's… finally he grabs that blanket. I realize… I counted eight on one double mattress, eight children held together in some… dying of fright. Looking at us as if the next moment I'm going to do I don't know what. Each hiding behind the other's back. Like little cubs hiding… One behind the other, the other exposed so he scurries over and they all move… And I say, God almighty. I try to talk, I say, "Does anyone here understand Hebrew?", and with the Arabic… I don't speak Arabic but I manage to say a few broken words, and they say "No, no…" And my soldier asks me, "Listen, maybe we should search" and I feel there's nothing to search here but still I tell him, "You know what? Let's search". We're used to conducting searches in houses where we really search, so this one is… He began to search really thoroughly, knock on walls, check the place out for some hidden partitions. Finally I tell him, "Come on, they've understood. I hope they've understood". I know they haven't. Once more I go out. I come out of there in shock. I feel I lost this one. I'm defeated and the army is defeated. I mean, it's not I who lost. There's a whole village here that woke up at two o'clock in the morning. I think 90% of them didn't know why. I felt we did just the opposite here. All the looks I got were enough for me to understand that I did just the opposite. Regarding the Border Patrolmen, do you think that what you saw was… That's just the point. I know what you're going to ask me, so let me continue. We were stunned. I get inside the vehicle, an armored truck was brought on the spot, two of them. We were so many troops in the village. So I get on and a soldier, a commander, too, but not wearing his ranks, see that I'm rather stunned. I look at my mates, who are looking just as stunned as I am. So a soldier catches the two of us and says, "Guys, get used to it. This is how it is. That's it."
What soldier?A commander. Some sergeant from the Army, not Border Patrol, the regional brigade. He says to me, "Guys, cheer up. That's how it is. Nothing you can do about it. That's how it's done. That's what needs to be done." We returned, feeling very upset and said this was not right, what we'd done. We said this to our commander. We said what we felt, and I realized how unreasonable the situation was. I smoked my first cigarette after this event.
And you hadn't killed a terrorist [resistants]?
And I hadn't even killed a terrorist. I fired at people often before that, but here I felt the army had not done the right thing.
What is "often"? Had you been on combat duty?
I was on combat duty. Lots of it. I had killed terrorists {resistants]. But…
But smoked your first cigarette after that night?
Yes. It was one of the worst nights. … On our way (to the village) I was not with him, but a friend of mine was, and the battalion commander was very agitated. He suddenly stopped his jeep, caught a (Palestinian) transit van, told the driver, "Show me your IDs". The guy handed him the IDs. "What's this, why are you driving around at such an hour?" and all. He began to rip the whole upholstery inside the car. He trashed the vehicle, found nothing, let him go.
A lieutenant-colonel. A lieutenant-colonel in the Israeli army. A battalion commander, responsible for hundreds of soldiers.
Yes.
Erez II
Witch-hunt against left wing activist is the prologue to a Stasi state. One day, when things get out of control, some will be sorry that they collaborated or stood by, but by then it will be too late. By Gideon Levy.
When every fire is a potential arson attack. By Haggai Mattar
How Israel benefited from international double standard. By Norman Finkelstein
NEWS
Witch-hunt against left wing activist is the prologue to a Stasi state. One day, when things get out of control, some will be sorry that they collaborated or stood by, but by then it will be too late. By Gideon Levy. When every fire is a potential arson attack. By Haggai Mattar
How Israel benefited from international double standard. By Norman Finkelstein
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