Israels nye regjering har valgt å parkere agendaen forhandlinger med palestinerne.
Samtidig vokser den politiske høyre-siden i Israel, og blir mer og mer ekstrem og høylytt.
To artikler viser dette:
Meron Rapoport sin analyse april 2022:
"Israel's al-Aqsa aggression risks an intifada it would be unable to contain"
"Political paralysis coupled with
messianic pressure from the right is creating a situation in Israel and
Palestine that could become uncontrollable."
Og om Roi Zieg 30. mai 2022:
"Israeli Commander Says Army, Settlements Are 'One and the Same'"
"The
commander, Brig. Gen. Roi Zwieg, had previously made headlines for his
politically charged remarks about the Jewish people’s biblical
connection to the land."
Israelsk skuespiller #Noa_Tishby utnevnt av regjering i #Israel 11.4. 2022 som spesialutsendig for å bekjempe antisemittisme.
18.5. 20022 er hun klar på at å fokusere på drapet av
#ShireenAbuAkleh, - DET er #antisemittisme.
Journalist Dahlia Scheindlin har skrevet om israelsk politikk i Area C. Samlet i EN artikkel får man her en oppsummering av den skvisingen som foregår av palestinerne.
Skal man kun ta for seg EN artikkel å forså det som skjer hver dag på bakken på Vestbredden ... - da leser man denne ene av Dahlia Scheindlin.
The New Battle in the Israeli Right's Relentless War on Palestinians
The
West Bank's Area C represents every layer of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict: Annexation vs. self-determination, inequality, violence and,
most recently, as the new front in the Israeli right's shameless
reversal of the truth.
Area
C represents every layer of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
Annexation vs self-determination, inequality, violence and, most
recently, as the new front in the war over truth Credit: Avi Ohayon/La'am, Sven Nackstrand/AFP, Mussa Issa Qawasma/Reuters, Moti Milrod. Artwork: Anastasia Shub
Dalia is a wispy eight-year old with a brushed-back ponytail whose
heart-melting smile reveals terrible teeth. When she wasn’t proudly
handing out cookies to guests, she cuddled with her dad, Nasser Nawaja,
through his lecture on a sweltering Saturday in the Palestinian village
of Sussia.
Dalia is clearly comfortable hosting
visitors. The scrap of land in the South Hebron Hills has gained
attention in recent years for the partly-successful international campaign to stave off what would have been yet another demolition in Sussia’s long history of destruction and dislocation since 1986.
But when a threat recedes in one place it crops up in another: a few kilometers away lies Masafer Yatta, or "Firing Zone 918,"
where a smattering of Palestinian villages and approximately 1400
people have been have been fighting in court to keep their homes since
the late 1990s. In May, Israel’s High Court ruled against them, clearing the way for expulsion.
These territorial struggles represent the
fine-grain detail of life under occupation, but the big picture is Area
C. This region represents every layer of the conflict: The front-line
political struggle between Israeli annexation and Palestinian
self-determination, the tortured inequality and frequent violence in daily life. And, most recently, Area C has become the new front in the war over truth.
The geopolitical designations A, B and C are, well, the ABCs of the post-Oslo era in the West Bank. According to the 1995 Oslo II agreement, Area
A is governed by Palestinian civil and security control – fragments on
the map totaling about 18 percent of the West Bank, where the large
Palestinian cities and the bulk of the population are located. Area B
falls under Palestinian Authority control for civil affairs, but Israeli
military control.
Israeli
troops move an elderly Palestinian man during a protest against the
eviction of Palestinians and razing eight hamlets in Masafer Yatta,
south of Hebron, in Area CCredit: MUSSA ISSA QAWASMA/ REUTERS
Area C sprawls over roughly 60 percent of
the West Bank, with a thick north-south band along the Jordan River, an
unruly length along the Green Line and tangled east-west "C" regions
connecting everything. C looks like a cocoon for the future Palestinian
state, but acts like a straitjacket.
All
Israeli settlements are located here, with about 450,000 settlers (not
including East Jerusalem, which is annexed to Israel and therefore not
included in A, B and C); in Area C Israel’s army controls all civil and
military affairs – in other words, Israel controls C completely.
The political struggle is the top layer of
the big picture. In December 2012, Naftali Bennett, then the new leader
of the Jewish Home party, presented his big plan: Annex Area C.
His YouTube video
explains Areas A, B, and C, incorrectly depicting each one as nearly
equal in size. The narrator explains that Palestinians control A and B
(disregarding Israel’s military control over Area B). Area C, falsely
portrayed in the video as roughly one-third of the territory, is under
Israeli control – therefore annexation makes sense. The video is
helpfully subtitled into Arabic.
Screenshot from Naftali Bennett's factually dubious YouTube 'explainer' about Area C and his solution: AnnexationCredit: YourTube screenshot
Israel’s right wing had already openly embraced the idea by then. Tzipi Hotovely of Likud called to annex Area C back in 2010 and again as
deputy foreign minister in 2015, to a rising chorus of settler support
for annexation of Judea and Samaria in general. Benjamin
Netanyahu declared his support
for formal sovereignty over settlements in April 2019, for the Jordan
Valley in September that year, and for large portions of Area C again
via the Trump peace plan in 2020. Netanyahu suspended plans for de jure annexation in return for the normalization accord with the UAE signed that year.
This open commitment to annexation for years should remove any lingering
illusion that Israel’s right-wing political leadership supports a two
state solution: Carving Area C out of the West Bank would leave a
Palestinian state looking not even like Swiss cheese, but a cut-out
paper snowflake with precious little snow.
The Abraham Accords kicked de jure
annexation off the agenda for now, but on the ground itself, Israel’s
physical annexation long preceded Netanyahu, and continues unabated. In
visible and less obvious ways, Israel does everything to anchor its
control and make life untenable for Palestinians in Area C, presumably
hoping they’ll conveniently remove themselves to slivers of Areas A and
B.
By 2013, a policy brief by the European Parliament reported alarming acceleration
of demolitions of "houses, shelters, schools, clinics" – perhaps
including a shortage of dentists – "water wells, cisterns, playgrounds,
mosques." Hundreds of demolitions each year led to many hundreds
Palestinians displaced annually, the report stated.
These trends have only worsened since then, says Alon Cohen-Lifshitz of Bimkom,
a human rights NGO focused on spatial planning in Israel and in the
occupied territories. Once, demolition orders were issued weeks in
advance of being carried out, allowing residents time to appeal; now
they are served just days ahead.
In
Sussia, Nawaja relates that the orders might be delivered on a
Thursday, just as Israeli administration offices close for the weekend,
for demolition on Sunday. Cohen-Lifshitz explains that a single order
can cover numerous structures. He reported a new practice for "mobile"
structures: the IDF dismantles them, and serves the order afterwards.
Children play in the Palestinian village of Susya, south-east of Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West BankCredit: HAZEM BADER / AFP
These structures are built illegally – without permits – because
Palestinians simply can’t get permits. From 2009-2018, the Civil
Administration approved 98 Palestinian building permits, out of nearly
4500 requests. In contrast, in 2019 and 2020 alone, about 18,000 settlement-related
permit requests were approved, according to Peace Now and Bimkom, based
on data from the Civil Administration. Bimkom found that of 1065
Palestinian applications in the same time, just seven were approved.
The planning committees (under Israel’s
Civil Administration, which comes under the aegis of the Ministry of
Defense) do not include any Palestinians. In 2014, petitioners asked the
High Court to restore Palestinian representation canceled decades earlier; in 2015, the High Court rejected the petition.
The
IDF also declares massive swathes of land to be "closed firing zones"
(like Masafer Yatta), or state-owned land, zoned for Israeli use – for
settlements, but also for parks, and a more recent push for settlement
agriculture. The most aggressive of the settlers regularly use raw
violence to keep Palestinians from accessing their land, or for general
harassment; while settlers and their land grabs are backed by the IDF.
Only 0.5 percent
of Area C is allotted for Palestinian development, according to
Cohen-Lifshitz. The current Israeli government has made a show of plans to permit new
Palestinian housing units – but the big picture remains. In May, among
frantic efforts to salvage the coalition by mollifying the most
right-wing members, the planning committee approved over 4000 new settler housing units.
For
Palestinians, nearly all construction in these villages is deemed
illegal by the Civil Administration, meaning they can’t access normal
electricity, infrastructure or, the ultimate prize, water.
A
Palestinian woman gives water to livestock from a water tanker, as
Israel's Supreme Court rejects a petition against the eviction of more
than 1,000 Palestinian inhabitants of Masafer YattaCredit: MUSSA ISSA QAWASMA/ REUTERS
Yet pipes crisscross the land, connecting settler outposts like Avigayil to freshly-painted (blue and white) water stations of Israel’s national water company while skipping past Palestinian villages. Some Palestinians erect solar-powered pumps to access well-water or improvised pipes – and then the IDF destroys them.
Some pay exorbitant fees for tanker water instead, while a big sign
near Ma’on – by all accounts one of the most violent settler outposts –
points to a "cherry plantation."
Between being squeezed off their land, the
constant threat of demolition or expulsion, starved of water, vulnerable
to rising, brazen settler violence
and tired of fighting just to survive, many leave for Palestinian
cities or towns – Areas A or B – serving the overarching Israeli
political aim: the fewest possible number of Palestinians in Area C.
But proof of Area C’s towering importance to Israel is the psychological warfare, in recent years, over the truth itself. The most
bitterly fought aspects of the Israeli Palestinian conflict have always
been subject to manipulation of "narrative." Lately, Israel’s narrative
is that Area C is threatened by – wait for it – a Palestinian takeover.
Settlers throw stones at Palestinians near the settlement of Yitzhar in the northern West Bank.Credit: AP
This is worse than bygone quibbles over
details. One such detail was the argument that Israeli settlements were
all located in large blocs in Area C adjacent to Israel. Therefore, in
that argument, settlement expansion in those areas wasn’t a problem, the
"blocs" could simply be awarded to Israel in a peace agreement, and the
rest of Area C was fully available for a future Palestinian
state. Netanyahu’s 2019 annexation plan put a spotlight
on the 30 settlements, 18 outposts, and nearly 13,000 settlers in the
Jordan Valley, which ought to have dispelled the myth of neatly
contained settlement geography.
Demography
is another longtime battleground for the truth. Right-wingers insist
that there are hardly any Palestinians in Area C, to argue the logic of
Israel’s permanent ownership. Bennett’s 2012 video asserted that a
paltry 48,000 Palestinians live there.
The most serious, field-based study by a UN humanitarian agency counted just under 300,000 in 2013. Btselem cites 180-300,000, and the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics estimates even more.
To be sure, no one knows how many Palestinians have left, but natural
population growth could offset any decline. The credible Palestinian
population sources are not updated, and Bennett gave no source at all.
Pulling
these threads together, the new Israeli narrative wants to own the big
picture. In 2019, Gideon Saar (then still in Likud) told Israeli radio:
"Illegal Palestinian construction in Area C is going wild,
with European financing, and the aim of the construction is to try and
suffocate settlements and take over the land – we need to fight over
this."
People
run from tear gas fired by the IDF during a demonstration by Israeli,
Palestinian and foreign activists against the eviction of Palestinians
for an Israeli military training zone in Area C Credit: HAZEM BADER - AFP
In March 2021, the right-wing extremist Ad Kan group "investigated"
the "massive plans" for Palestinian illegal construction in Area C.
Three months later, Saar’s key party member Zeev Elkin insisted on
leading the fight against Palestinian "spread" in Area C as a condition for joining the coalition.
Bennett’s own 2019 election manifesto explicitly promised to annex the whole of Area C to put it under Israeli sovereignty. In 2020, as Defense Minister, Bennett announced a "battle" for the future of Area C, to be formally managed within the Defense Ministry.
This January, following haranguing by far-right wing groups, the Knesset’s Security and Foreign Affairs committee held a discussion
on "illegal Palestinian construction" and "lack of enforcement” by the
Civil Administration – a shameless reversal of the truth. That didn't
stop the heads of the Knesset’s Land of Israel caucus from accusing
Bennett of actively assisting "the Palestinian Authority’s plan to take over areas of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]."
Nasser Nawaja has been fighting to stay in
his home since he was first displaced from the original Palestinian
Sussia, in 1986 – he was three years old. At eight, his daughter is
already learning how to plead the case to visitors. It’s hard to fight a
juggernaut; but the fight isn’t over. Knowing and maintaining the truth
is a start.
Dahlia Scheindlin is a political scientist and public opinion expert, and a policy fellow at The Century Foundation. Twitter: @dahliasc
Se også EDIT og NY Info nederst i innlegget 29. juli 2022
24. mai 2022:
Dagens Israel tåler ikke informasjon om det som skjedde i 1956.
Det er konklusjonen etter at en domstol i Israel har lagt lokk over en domsavsigelse.
Intet av det som er dømt må bli offentlig ... bare at det er dømt.
Det gjelder IDFs massakre i Kafr Qassenm i 1956.
Om dette gir Haaretz 24. mai 2022 informasjon så lngt det er tilgjengelig.
Det er snakk om en israelsk forsker som vil ha tilgang til arkivene fra 1956.
Fra Haaretz-artikkelen, der det angis at staten påstand var:
"The state opposed the request, arguing that revealing the
minutes could compromise the state’s security, its foreign relations, or
even the privacy or safety of specific individuals."
Og statens påstand ble tatt til følge:
"Last March the ruling was made by the
military appellate tribunal, signed by the court president, Maj. Gen.
(ret.) Doron Feyles, who has since stepped down. At first, he imposed a
sweeping gag order that included the very fact that a ruling had been
made. This week the gag order's restrictions have been somewhat reducted
- and now, it can be reported that a ruling was made, though the
content of the ruling still cannot be published."
Haaretz nevner noen av kommentarene etter denne sensuren:
"Former
state archivist, Dr. Yaacov Lazovic, told Haaretz that “the degree of
imbecility of this decision is so great, that no further comment is
needed.” Regional Cooperation Minister Issawi Frij, a local resident,
who was a witness at the hearing, said that “the decision to prevent the
publication of a legal ruling, and thus empty it of meaning, is an
improper and undemocratic act.”
Slik står det til. Sannheten fra 1956 må tildekkes og hemmeligholdes i 2022. SÅ LITE er palestinerne verdt, ... den gang som nå.
............................
EDIT 29. juli 2022
Da har IDF frigitt rettsreferater fra 1957 om Kafr Qassem:
Haaretz: "Transcripts of Kafr Qasem Massacre Trial Revealed: ‘The Commander Said Fatalities Were Desirable’" "The
Kafr Qasem massacre transcripts were kept secret until now, under the
claim that revealing them would jeopardize Israel' national security."
Jerusalem Post: "IDF releases court documents from Kfar Kassem massacre" "Witnesses argue Border Police soldiers interpreted orders "irrationally" • Arab MKs: Israel must acknowledge responsibility"
Det er skremmende lesning. - Det var ønskelig at noen døde? - Og at området ble etnisk renset ... ved flukt til Jordan? - Og var det planer om å innta Jordan hvis det eskalerte?
Her spørs det om ikke mer lys må til. Da må det skrives om saken.
Og så må dagens offisielle Israel på banen og uttale seg. Ellers kommer man ikke videre.
Kafr Qasem Massacre: Israel Makes Decision on Historic Docs. That’s All We Can Say
Israel
has maintained that a request by a historian to reveal protocols
dealing with the Kafr Qasem massacre would harm state security and its
foreign affairs. Now that a military court has made a ruling, it’s
unknown if, when and what information the public will see
Kafr Qasem residents attend a memorial event on the anniversary of the massacre, in 2019.Credit: Moti Milrod
Ending a five-year legal process, the
military appellate tribunal has handed down its ruling regarding the
request of a historian to reveal historical documents related to the
Kafr Qassem massacre in 1956. But due to a gag order, this ruling cannot
be published. So despite the fact that it was given, there is no
telling whether, when, and which documents will be revealed to the
public.
Former
state archivist, Dr. Yaacov Lazovic, told Haaretz that “the degree of
imbecility of this decision is so great, that no further comment is
needed.” Regional Cooperation Minister Issawi Frij, a local resident,
who was a witness at the hearing, said that “the decision to prevent the publication of a legal ruling, and thus empty it of meaning, is an improper and undemocratic act.”
The appeal to the court was filed in 2017 by historian Adam Raz,
who now works at the Akevot research institute. At the time, he was
writing a book about the massacre and sought to publish historical
documents written during the military trial conducted in the late 1950s
against the perpetrating soldiers. The material requested by Raz
included some 600 pages of court minutes and a list of documents
submitted as evidence during the 1950s trial. The current trial,
which dealt with whether to reveal the material, was conducted in closed
chambers. The state opposed the request, arguing that revealing the
minutes could compromise the state’s security, its foreign relations, or
even the privacy or safety of specific individuals.
Former state archivist Lazovic saw the materials on the job and also
submitted an opinion to the court, which is also under a gag order. “I
have seen the material. I cannot say what it contains, but I can say,
both in this regard and in general, that the stance stating that
documents from decades ago can harm the state’s foreign relations or
public order is completely mistaken,” he said on Monday.
The Kafr Qassem Massacre
took place on the first day of the Sinai War in 1956. Border Police
troops shot and killed 47 Arab-Israeli citizens who lived in the village
in the Triangle region, including women and children. The residents
returned home in the evening without knowing that the curfew hour had
been changed to an earlier time. The soldiers shot at them following an
order – which was eventually defined as “patently illegal” – to shoot
anyone they saw on the street. Local residents say 51 people were killed
in the massacre, including a boy and a man shot in nearby villages, an
old man who died of a heart attack upon hearing that his grandson had
been killed, and a fetus carried by one of the residents.
A hearing in a military court on the declassification of the Kafr Qassem massacre documents in 2018.Credit: Ofer Aderet
Eight soldiers were convicted of
involvement in the deed and sent to prison, but their sentences were
commuted, and all were released before serving most of their sentences.
Some even received public service appointments later on. Colonel Yiska
Shadmi, commander of the sector where the massacre was committed, was
tried separately. He was acquitted of murder, and convicted on a minor
count of “exceeding authority.”
Official
Israeli representatives have apologized for the massacre and asked
forgiveness for it several times over recent decades. Kafr Qassem has a
museum commemorating the murder victims, but a bill to officially recognize and commemorate the massacre – through budgeting, education, and other means – was voted down by the Knesset last year and raised political turmoil.
Last March the ruling was made by the
military appellate tribunal, signed by the court president, Maj. Gen.
(ret.) Doron Feyles, who has since stepped down. At first, he imposed a
sweeping gag order that included the very fact that a ruling had been
made. This week the gag order's restrictions have been somewhat reducted
- and now, it can be reported that a ruling was made, though the
content of the ruling still cannot be published.
“After
decades, it’s clear that not releasing documents has nothing to do with
security or foreign affairs, but rather is because the state seeks to
prevent the release of information that will embarrass it and paint it
in a negative light,” says Raz.
Colonel Yiska Shadmi (center), who commanded the forces in Kafr Qasem, during his time as a military commander in the Negev.Credit: Palmach Archives/IDF Archives
He says that recently, before the ruling, the military prosecution
announced that it was retracting its objection to allowing large
sections of the material to be reviewed. However, it still opposes
publishing photos and certain documents, including those related to
“Operation Mole” – a political plan to deport Triangle residents to
Jordan, which some believe is the backdrop for the massacre. “What
changed to make the prosecution drop its objection to publication?
Nothing. It’s not like some security threat disappeared. It’s part of
the state’s institutional DNA, not to publish material. In this case
publication is crucial not only for research, but also for the
community, which wants to know the whole truth about what happened to
their loved ones,” Raz says.
Attorney Shlomi Zechariah, representing Raz, said, “The conduct of some
of the actors was troubling, to say the least, and many eyebrows will be
raised when all is revealed.”
Adam Raz and Esawi Freige at a hearing in the military court in 2018.Credit: Ofer Aderet
According to Minister Frij, “66 years after the massacre, the State of
Israel is strong enough to stop being afraid of the truth. Publishing
the minutes won’t harm state security; to the contrary, it will help
this open wound heal. The concealment only intensifies the pain and
suspicion. It’s time for the State of Israel to deal with the less
pleasant parts of its history.”
The IDF Spokesman commented: “A decision
was recently made regarding the request to review materials from the
Kafr Qassem affair. There is a gag order on the contents of the
decision, as the former president of the military tribunal ruled, and in
accordance with the law.”
I en lang artikkel i Haaretz beskrives omfattende bruk av tortur utført av Shin Bet:
"Tortured Into Confession: Two Palestinians Recount Hellish Interrogation
"The
two say they were subjected to various torture methods by Israel's Shin
Bet security service for over a month, including being locked in a
cabinet for hours and bound to a chair for days without food or bathroom
access" (Kilde Haaretz 23. mai 2022, hele artikkelen nederst under Kilde)
Anklagen var steinkasting. Etter arrestasjon ble det 1 mnd med diverse former for tortur.
Den opprinnelige anklagen var bevislig feil ... men torturen fortsatte med NYE anklager, angis det. Til begge to ga opp av utmattelse og innrømmet for å slippe videre forhør og tortur.
Hva skal man tro? Brukes det tortur av palestinere i Israel slik det er beskrevet?
Tortured Into Confession: Two Palestinians Recount Hellish Interrogation
The
two say they were subjected to various torture methods by Israel's Shin
Bet security service for over a month, including being locked in a
cabinet for hours and bound to a chair for days without food or bathroom
access
Yazan (left) and Muhammad al-Rajbi.Credit: Noam Rivkin Pantone
Two young Palestinian men, who were
ultimately convicted of throwing rocks at police, say they were
subjected to torture during more than a month of interrogation by the
Shin Bet security service: painfully bound to a chair for full days,
placed in solitary confinement, deprived of food and sleep and denied
bathroom access.
In the end, each confessed to the rock throwing, and were convicted and sentenced to eight months in jail.
Yazan al-Rajbi is a resident of Jerusalem's Silwan neighborhood
who was still under 21 when he was summoned to a Jerusalem police
station in August of last year. He is the son of Zouheir Al-Rajbi, one
of the main activists in Silwan against Jews moving into the East
Jerusalem neighborhood. Yazan arrived at the police station and was sent
to “Room 4,” the investigation room of the minorities department that
is notorious among East Jerusalem residents. At first, two people who
identified themselves as Shin Bet investigators questioned him – one
gave the name Nasim and the other called himself Zeev.
Yazan was questioned about an incident
during which rocks were thrown at police in the middle of Silwan on July
9. Al-Rajbi told the investigators that he wasn’t in the area that day,
and had instead been with a friend in another Jerusalem neighborhood,
At-Tur. “They told me, OK. They took all my clothes, gave me prison
clothes, put me in a room full of investigators, maybe 12. They sat me
down on a chair and began to question me, from five in the evening until
four in the afternoon the next day. I told them there were cameras in
the place where I was, and that they should go and check. They told me,
‘You’re a liar.’”
The Russian Compound police station, Jerusalem, in 2020.Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg
“Investigators left me tied me to a chair
with my hands cuffed behind me and legs cuffed in front," he said. "I
stayed that way for two days, without going to the bathroom, without
drinking and without eating." He adds that they pressured him to confess
to a shooting at police officers that occurred at the same time and
place as the alleged stone-throwing.
Only
after a few days of questioning did the investigators obtain the
security cameras that proved he was in At-Tur during the stone-throwing.
"Instead of releasing me, they started to question me about another case
of stone-throwing that took place five days after the first one," he
says. "I asked them to bring me my phone so I could prove that I wasn't
there at that time, but the investigator refused and called me a liar.
They interrogated me for several days, each time for 17 or 19 hours
straight."
Between sessions, Rajbi was put in solitary
confinement in a room known as “Zinzin” – dungeon – which he and others
have estimated is about 1 meter by 2 meters in size. They say its low
ceiling makes it impossible to stand up straight in it.
Al-Rajbi said that during another interrogation the investigators put him in a low wooden cabinet.
"My head was between my legs, which were cuffed," said Al-Rajbi. "My
hands were handcuffed behind me. They left me in the cabinet for two
hours or more. When they opened it, I was unconscious. It was like a
pressure cooker. I felt that my head was about to explode and that my
back would break."
Al Rajbi continued, "When I recovered they immediately began to question
me on another matter. This time they accused me of collecting money
from guys in Silwan to buy fireworks. The day they claimed this
happened, I was not in Silwan – I was at a plumbing job at a
construction site in Jaffa. I even took a selfie at the site. But I
didn't tell them that. I reserved my right to remain silent and refused
to answer any more questions."
Rajbi was transferred to Megiddo Prison in
Israel's North region for further detention. There, he was put into a
room with people who he believes were working with investigators.
“Nine
scary people came to my bed, one with a knife," he said. "They
pretended to attack me while others pretended to defend me. One tells
me, 'You're Zouheir’s son, he was my friend, there’s a picture of him in
the department upstairs. I told him to bring me the picture so I can
see it. He brings it to me and I can feel that the picture is hot, that
it was just printed. I told him, 'That's not my father.' That's how it
was for four days with the informants.'"
After that, al-Rajbi was moved to Ashkelon
Prison. There, too, he felt that everyone around him was cooperating
with investigators.
“There
was one there who gave me chocolate and cigarettes," he said. "One of
them made me swear on the Koran that I didn’t throw stones. One day they
told me to come and work with them in the laundry. There, one of them
gave me a phone so I could talk with my family. I told him that I don't
remember the number. Suddenly I get a slap from behind. I turn around
and I see the investigator Zeev behind me. He started to curse at me and
hit me."
"After that," al-Rajbi said, "they cuffed
my hands and feet, covered my eyes and put me in a car. They wrapped the
car’s seatbelt around my neck and that’s how we drove to Jerusalem –
me, Zeev, and another person called Weitzman. The entire way, they were
questioning me."
Al-Rajbi
was then put back in the Zinzin at the Jerusalem police station, where
he says he was interrogated while tied up in a painful position to a low
chair.
Stone-throwing at the Temple Mount, Jerusalem, last month.Credit: Ammar Awad/Reuters
“They left me that way for two days without
talking to me," he said. "Every time my head fell, an alarm was
activated to wake me up. I was again forced to pee in my pants. I asked a
guard why no one was talking to me, and he said, 'There is a holiday,
Rosh Hashana. There's no one here.' When a guard came to release me, I
couldn’t stand and he had to lift me up.”
In
the end, al-Rajbi broke down. He confessed to throwing two rocks in
clashes with police on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, an offense he was
initially not suspected of at all. He said that, following the
confession, the torture stopped and he received food and drink.
As part of a plea deal, al-Rajbi was
convicted of rioting and assaulting police officers. The indictment says
he threw a number of stones at police officers on the Temple Mount and
that, in another incident in Silwan, he stood on a roof from which rocks
were thrown by other peoplen. Jerusalem Magistrate Court Judge Yaron
Mientkavich sentenced him to eight months in prison.
Since his release he has suffered from vision problems, which he says were caused by the torture he says he underwent. \
Parallel interrogations
A
few days after Yazan's arrest in August, his 19-year-old cousin
Muhammad Al-Rajbi likewise arrived at the same Jerusalem police station
where Yazan was initially taken.
Muhammad,
too, was summoned for questioning following the same stone-throwing
incident in Silwan, and he too was interrogated with the use of various
tortures for about a month and a half. Mohammed too arrived after
receiving a summons.
According to Israeli human-rights group
B'Tselem, Muhammad said he was tied to a low chair with his hands
cuffed, that he received food once a day and that he was denied bathroom
access. After 20 days of interrogation he admitted to throwing one
stone.
"I
confessed because I was exhausted. I was in pain from not being able to
go to the bathroom, they didn't give me enough food and I sat cuffed to
a chair for 10 or 15 hours a day." But he said that, despite the
confession, the pressure on him persisted. As with Yazan, he was also
subsequently sent to the Megiddo Prison, and he too believes the others
there were informants
From Megiddo, Muhammad was brought back to the Zinzin in the Jerusalem police station, and the questioning continued.
“My
entire body hurt from being tied to a chair and from the difficulty of
falling asleep in the holding cell," he told B’Tselem. "They held me in a
very small cell and I had to contort my body. I did not get food
regularly, and what I did get was very bad. They didn't allow us to
sleep, and the guard was knocking on cell doors."
After more than 40 days of questioning, an indictment was filed against
Muhammad for rioting and assaulting police officers, and for throwing
one stone. He was convicted following his confession and sentenced to
eight months in prison. As a result of his detention, he says, he
dropped out of school and began working as a cleaner. “I’m afraid to go
out into the street, afraid of the police,” he said.
The Shin Bet
issued the following response to this report: “The two prisoners were
convicted of the crimes attributed to them in the indictment and were
recently released from prison. Without commenting on the actual claims
raised in the question, it will be clarified that the place for the
assessment of such claims is via the legal process or, alternatively, as
part of review of defendants’ claims in the Justice Ministry, as with
any claim filed.”
Conclusions of last week's meeting of #AHLC group of int'l donors to Palestine (EU, Norway, UK, US, UN etc.) issued today.
The most remarkable thing about it is what is conspicously missing in the statement:/1
Miff sender ut samme sak på nytt. Og får samme kommentar på nytt.
Hvordan skal dette utvikle seg?
På Twitter kan man ikke slette meldinger slik MIFF har praktisert på sin egen nettside. Der har man over årene skiftet plattform ... og dermed kvittet seg med korrigerende kommentarer til artiklene.
Det er en kjent metode ... når man skal indoktrinere ... - At det ikke skal komme kommentarer og andre synspunkter.
Veien fra indoktrinering til demonisering er ofte kort. Og derfra til ... død og begravelse ... et aktuelt tema i disse dager.
Det fine er at MIFF er opptatt av akkurat dette temaet: At det ikke skal demoniseres.
Conrad,
"Operasjon God Nabo"?
"Israeli settlers carrying mattresses and travel bags have stormed an empty Palestinian house in Hebron this afternoon under the protection of soldiers".
https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1525141665110966275
Conrad, re din 2. utgave av samme sak:
"Operasjon God Nabo"?
"Israeli settlers carrying mattresses and travel bags have stormed an empty Palestinian house in Hebron this afternoon under the protection of soldiers".
https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1525141665110966275
