From Triumph to Torture

Israel's treatment of an award-winning young Palestinian journalist is part of a terrible pattern, writes John Pilger in the Guardian.

Two weeks ago, I presented a young Palestinian, Mohammed Omer, with the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. Awarded in memory of the great US war correspondent, the prize goes to journalists who expose establishment propaganda, or "official drivel", as Gellhorn called it. Mohammed shares the prize of £5,000 with Dahr Jamail. At 24, he is the youngest winner. His citation reads: "Every day, he reports from a war zone, where he is also a prisoner. His homeland, Gaza, is surrounded, starved, attacked, forgotten. He is a profoundly humane witness to one of the great injustices of our time. He is the voice of the voiceless." The eldest of eight, Mohammed has seen most of his siblings killed or wounded or maimed. An Israeli bulldozer crushed his home while the family were inside, seriously injuring his mother. And yet, says a former Dutch ambassador, Jan Wijenberg, "he is a moderating voice, urging Palestinian youth not to court hatred but seek peace with Israel".

Getting Mohammed to London to receive his prize was a major diplomatic operation. Israel has perfidious control over Gaza's borders, and only with a Dutch embassy escort was he allowed out. Last Thursday, on his return journey, he was met at the Allenby Bridge crossing (to Jordan) by a Dutch official, who waited outside the Israeli building, unaware Mohammed had been seized by Shin Bet, Israel's infamous security organisation. Mohammed was told to turn off his mobile and remove the battery. He asked if he could call his embassy escort and was told forcefully he could not. A man stood over his luggage, picking through his documents. "Where's the money?" he demanded. Mohammed produced some US dollars. "Where is the English pound you have?"

"I realised," said Mohammed, "he was after the award stipend for the Martha Gellhorn prize. I told him I didn't have it with me. 'You are lying', he said. I was now surrounded by eight Shin Bet officers, all armed. The man called Avi ordered me to take off my clothes. I had already been through an x-ray machine. I stripped down to my underwear and was told to take off everything. When I refused, Avi put his hand on his gun. I began to cry: 'Why are you treating me this way? I am a human being.' He said, 'This is nothing compared with what you will see now.' He took his gun out, pressing it to my head and with his full body weight pinning me on my side, he forcibly removed my underwear. He then made me do a concocted sort of dance. Another man, who was laughing, said, 'Why are you bringing perfumes?' I replied, 'They are gifts for the people I love'. He said, 'Oh, do you have love in your culture?'

"As they ridiculed me, they took delight most in mocking letters I had received from readers in England. I had now been without food and water and the toilet for 12 hours, and having been made to stand, my legs buckled. I vomited and passed out. All I remember is one of them gouging, scraping and clawing with his nails at the tender flesh beneath my eyes. He scooped my head and dug his fingers in near the auditory nerves between my head and eardrum. The pain became sharper as he dug in two fingers at a time. Another man had his combat boot on my neck, pressing into the hard floor. I lay there for over an hour. The room became a menagerie of pain, sound and terror."

An ambulance was called and told to take Mohammed to a hospital, but only after he had signed a statement indemnifying the Israelis from his suffering in their custody. The Palestinian medic refused, courageously, and said he would contact the Dutch embassy escort. Alarmed, the Israelis let the ambulance go. The Israeli response has been the familiar line that Mohammed was "suspected" of smuggling and "lost his balance" during a "fair" interrogation, Reuters reported yesterday.

Israeli human rights groups have documented the routine torture of Palestinians by Shin Bet agents with "beatings, painful binding, back bending, body stretching and prolonged sleep deprivation". Amnesty has long reported the widespread use of torture by Israel, whose victims emerge as mere shadows of their former selves. Some never return. Israel is high in an international league table for its murder of journalists, especially Palestinian journalists, who receive barely a fraction of the kind of coverage given to the BBC's Alan Johnston.

The Dutch government says it is shocked by Mohammed Omer's treatment. The former ambassador Jan Wijenberg said: "This is by no means an isolated incident, but part of a long-term strategy to demolish Palestinian social, economic and cultural life ... I am aware of the possibility that Mohammed Omer might be murdered by Israeli snipers or bomb attack in the near future."

While Mohammed was receiving his prize in London, the new Israeli ambassador to Britain, Ron Proser, was publicly complaining that many Britons no longer appreciated the uniqueness of Israel's democracy. Perhaps they do now.

If you want to sign a petition in protest of this treatment, follow this link.

On Omer's popular blog, called Rafah Today, you can see a message he managed to send to the webmaster on June 24:

"I am stuck in Jordan and Israel is not allowing me to get back home. this is frustrating. I am not sure what will happen. this is frustrating for me."

(cross posted from Feral Beast)

Mayhem returns to the Streets of Jerusalem

Road rage on the roadmap to Peace? A Palestinian worker went berserk today in Jerusalem, and killed at least three people and injured dozens more by ramming his bulldozer into a couple of downtown buses and flattening private cars. Ultimately police shot the assailant in the head with an Uzi in order to halt his rampage that had scattered screaming pedestrians. He had taken the bulldozer from a building site for the light railway and headed into the traffic with a vengeance. The man reportedly lives in East Jerusalem and had his work permits in order.Security has tightened across the city, especially near the markets.

Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Mayor Uri Lupolianski lamented that terrorists were constantly coming up with new ways to harm Jerusalem. This is the first public attack in nearly four years in the city, although a Jewish seminary was the scene of a serial shooting attack by a Palestinian earlier this year.

"My daughter was in the next bus, but she wasn't hurt," Lupolianski told reporters. "To our regret the attackers do not cease coming up with new ways to strike at the heart of the Jewish people here in Jerusalem."

It appears that the man, Hosam Tayseer Dawyyat, who had a criminal record, was acting alone, not as part of a terrorism plot. Predictably, a Hamas spokesman said Wednesday that the random attack was "a natural reaction to Israel's aggression," adding Hamas did not know who was behind the attack. There have been calls by Ehud Olmert to demolish his living quarters in retribution. And a little-known group in the Galilee claimed credit for the bizarre attack, but this was not corroborated.

The man who killed the bulldozer driver was Moshe Klessner, 18, who is reportedly the brother-in-law of IDF officer David Shapira. Shapira killed the Arab shooter who attacked the Mercaz Harav religious seminary, according to the Jerusalem Post. A 4-month old baby escaped serious injury and was found by police beside a flattened car; its parents have yet to be located.

Several emergency hotlines have been set following the attack:

Shaare Zedek Medical Center can be reached at 1255125.
The Jerusalem Municipality's hotline 972-2-5314600/1/2/3/4.
The Immigrant Absorption Ministry opened another hotline, offering assistance in English, French, Spanish, Russian and Amharic. Contact 1255021010.


Addendum from Agence France Press:

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter told reporters the attack would not succeed in severing mostly Arab east Jerusalem from what Israel considers its "eternal, undivided" capital.

"One must remember that one third of Jerusalem are Arab citizens but all of Jerusalem is Israel's sovereign territory," he said.

"Whoever thinks that the one third of east Jerusalemites will succeed to sever part of Jerusalem and take it out of Israeli control is wrong."

Peace talks resumed between Israel and the Palestinians in November but have stalled amid violence in and around the Gaza Strip and continued Jewish settlement building on occupied Palestinian land.

At least 524 people have been killed since the negotiations resumed, mostly militants in the besieged Gaza Strip, according to an AFP count.

Down By Law

It's encouraging to see a protracted dispute settled in the courtroom, instead of with stones and stun grenades. After nearly three years of weekly clashes, it was through a lawsuit that Bil'in villagers managed to get a security barrier aimed at protecting the settlers at Modi'in Illit dismantled and rerouted. The 1.7 km fence had cut off the farmers of Bil'in from half of their orchards, vineyards and fields.
Confrontations between protestors, soldiers and police took place every Friday at the checkpoint, located 7 km west of Ramallah, and at least 500 olive trees were eventually uprooted. The unanimous verdict by three High Court judges was seen as a victory by Israelis and Palestinians alike. Israeli peace activists joined villagers
and protestors from France, Puerto Rica, Spain, Switzerland, Ireland, Belgium, Britain, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada, the US and India.

The reason that Bil'in is an exception is that the demonstrators here are Palestinians and Israelis, a rare mix of people who march and chant and espouse non-violence together. At a time of deadlock in peace negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, the weekly protests at Bil'in... are the highest profile joint action between two, often bitterly divided sides.

Near the front of the crowd was Uri Avnery, 83, a former Israeli MP and one of the better known activists on the Israeli left. "This village is unique even in Palestine because it is the only village that has the guts to fight against the wall actively every single week," he said.
-- Guardian, Feb 2007

The celebratory mood in Bil'in was somewhat quashed today by the court's refusal to demolish residential units and retroactive approval of illegal construction.
This gives de facto status to the ultra-Orthodox trespassers who had stayed on after the construction company pulled out. They were victims of fraud. By ruling to keep the western area of Matityahu East within the barrier, the court was bound to legitimize its new residential buildings. Modiin Illit is home to 30,000 mostly ultra-Orthodox settlers, and is projected to expand to a city of 150,000. Each side can claim a court victory, and it remains to be seen if they can maintain a cordial coexistence.

Rebuilding Peace by hammering the Occupied Territories

A Jerusalem-based NGO plans to rebuild every Palestinian home demolished this past year, 300 in all. (Over the past 40 decades, some 18,000 West Bank and East Jerusalem homes were razed.)

To mark 40 years of Occupation, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) launches a campaign to rebuild every Palestinian home demolished by Israel in the Occupied Territories in a year – some 300 homes. With funding from Jewish donors appalled by the Israeli government’s house demolition policy, ICAHD mounts this challenge to Israel’s Occupation, intensifying a 10-year struggle against the Occupation’s most cruel expression, the demolition of Palestinian homes – 18,000 in the Occupied Territories since 1967 – part of a larger Israeli policy of transfer and dispossession.

The Action: On Monday June 11, at 10 a.m., the group will meet at the Jaffa Gate, and join residents of the Mughrabi Quarter to mark the first act of the Occupation: the demolition, on the night of June 11, 1967, of their entire neighborhood, in order to create an open plaza in front of the Western Wall. Reconstruction work will start in Silwan village nearby.

Background: On the night of June 11, 1967, as the Six Day War was drawing to its close, 135 Palestinian families were roused from their beds to watch as Israeli bulldozers summarily destroyed their homes and the quarter’s two mosques. It was an operation that created the first of thousands of “facts on the ground;” it had nothing to do with either the war or security. In the course of the demolition an elderly Palestinian woman, Hajja Rasmia Tabaki, was killed when her home was demolished on top of her. She became the Occupation’s first victim.

Organizers are Shai Haim, Jeff Halper, Ashraf Abu Moch, Angela Godfrey-Goldstein. For further information, click here or email: info@icahd.org