In Israel, Non-Violent Solidarity Activist Goes to Prison, Anti-Gay Terrorist Gets Community Service
By Max Blumenthal | Mondoweiss | December 28, 2010
On December 27, Anarchists Against the Wall co-founder Jonathan Pollak was slapped with a three month prison sentence for illegal assembly. He was convicted by an Israeli magistrate judge for his participation in a January 2008 Critical Mass bike ride through the streets of Tel Aviv in protest of Israel’s brutal military assault on the Gaza Strip. Though Pollak was offered community service, he accepted prison time because he was convinced that he had done nothing wrong.
The day before Pollak was sentenced, an Israeli judge handed down a sentence of six months of community service to Michael Naky. Naky’s crime? He helped devise and detonate a pipe bomb in order to kill as many homosexuals as possible at the 2007 Jerusalem gay pride parade.
In a single day in Israel’s kangaroo courts, a right-wing terrorist was sentenced to a few months of street cleaning while a non-violent activist dedicated to stopping the occupation was jailed under the most specious charges. And while Pollak’s sentencing was reported with great fanfare in Israel’s major papers, Naky’s passed below the radar (Yedioth devoted just six lines). The contrast in punishments represented just another symptom of a sick society unwilling to face the Molock in the mirror.
The state has made little effort to disguise the political nature of Pollak’s prosecution. He was not a ringleader of the Critical Mass protest, nor did he behave in an unusual manner. He simply rode his bike slowly, disrupting the normal flow of traffic along with dozens of demonstrators. However, the police recognized him as a prominent organizer of unarmed protests against the Israeli military repression in the West Bank, singled him out and arrested him.
I have documented Pollak’s actions at protests across the West Bank, where he spends most of his weekends, and I witnessed the respect he has earned from the residents of besieged Palestinian villages who count on him as their liaison to the outside world — a realm that the state of Israel has largely forbidden them from interacting with. Last summer, Pollak helped me gain entry into Ofer Military Prison to witness the show trials of Palestinian popular committee members who organize the unarmed protests against the Israeli segregation wall. He has done the same for numerous European diplomats, including British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who declared after a harrowing tour of the Israeli Occupation that Pollak helped arrange: “Popular resistance to the Occupation is the sole remaining possible alternative for the Palestinians to achieve their rights and avoid armed struggle.”
It is clear why the Israeli justice system acted in such a draconian fashion against Pollak: His activism is making an impact against the Occupation.
Association for Civil Rights in Israel chief legal counsel Dan Yakir described the political nature of Pollak’s prosecution succinctly when he said, “The fact that Pollak was the only one arrested, even though he behaved just like the rest of the protesters, and the fact that bicycle demonstrations are usually held without police involvement raises a strong suspicion regarding personal persecution and a severe blow for freedom of expression, just because of his opinions. A prison sentence in the wake of a protest is an extreme and exaggerated punishment.”
Naky’s lenient sentencing appeared to have been influenced by politics as well, especially when viewed in light of the state’s treatment of other right-wing terrorists. Chaim Pearlman, a fanatical settler suspected of stabbing to death three Palestinians in cold blood, was set free after a month in Shin Bet custody. And Jack Teitel, another Jewish settler convicted of randomly murdering several Palestinians and attempting to kill the Israeli left-wing intellectual Zeev Sternhell (Teitel also planned to attack the 2006 Jerusalem gay pride parade), was allowed to plead insanity and ruled unfit to stand trial.
The Israeli justice system has extended no such privileges to Palestinians like Ibrahim Amireh orAbdullah Abu Rahmeh, who rot in Israeli military prisons for resisting their dispossession through unarmed protest. And the state is leveling every legal weapon at its disposal against activists like Pollak, who declared at his sentencing hearing: “I will go to prison wholeheartedly and with my head held high. It will be the justice system itself, I believe, that ought to lower its eyes in the face of the suffering inflicted on Gaza’s inhabitants, just like it lowers its eyes and averts its vision each and every day when faced with the realities of the occupation.”
Israeli activist sentenced to 3 months in prison for protesting Gaza war
By Joseph Dana | December 27, 2010
Of all the criminals involved with the 2008 Gaza war, an Israeli leftist will be going to jail for riding his bike against the war in Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv Magistrates court judge Yitzhak Yitzhak convicted Israeli leftist Jonathan Pollak of illegal assembly for his participation in a January 2008 Critical Mass ride against the siege on Gaza and then sentenced him to three months imprisonment that will begin on January 11th, 2011. Pollak was the only one detained at the said protest, and was accused of doing nothing other than riding his bicycle in the same manner as the rest of the protesters. The conviction activates an older three-month suspended sentence imposed on Pollak in a previous trial for protesting the construction of the Separation Barrier. An additional three month prison term was also imposed for the current conviction, which will be served concurrently. His imprisonment is part of a clear strategy of silencing dissent in the Israeli left.
Jonathan Pollak is one of the founders of the Israeli leftist group “Anarchists Against the Wall“, which join weekly unarmed Palestinian protests throughout the West Bank against the Separation Wall and the Occupation. Since 2008, he has served the media coordinator of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, an Palestinian umbrella organization designed to garner media attention for the unarmed struggle in the West Bank. On his conviction, Pollak argued for his sentence, saying “I find myself unable to express remorse in this case … If His Honor decides to go ahead and impose my suspended prison sentence, I will go to prison wholeheartedly and with my head held high. It will be the justice system itself, I believe, that ought to lower its eyes in the face of the suffering inflicted on Gaza’s inhabitants, just like it lowers its eyes and averts its vision each and every day when faced with the realities of the occupation.”
On January 31, 2008, some thrity Israeli protesters participated in a Critical Mass bicycle ride through the streets of Tel Aviv against the siege on Gaza. During the protest, Pollak was arrested by plain-clothes police who recognized him from previous protests and because, as claimed in court, they assumed he was the organizer and figurehead of the event. The protest was allowed to continue undisturbed after Pollak’s arrest and ended with no further incidents or detentions.
The arrest and subsequent indictment appears to be the result of police vindictiveness, rather than of Pollak’s behavior at the time of the event; Pollak was but one in a group of protesters who behaved exactly like him, yet he was the only one to be singled out. Moreover, environmental Critical Mass events take place in Tel Aviv on a regular basis, but have never been met with such a response. Other protests, which have caused far more severe obstruction of traffic (e.g. the motorcade protest of thousands of motorcycles) did not result in arrests, and surely did not lead to the filing of criminal charges and imprisonment.
According to Pollak’s lawyer, Adv. Gaby Lasky, “The police not only singled out Pollak from a crowd of people who all did exactly as he did, but also singled out the entire protest for no reason other than its political alignment. Similar events regularly take place in Tel Aviv without police intervention, let alone arrests and indictments.”
During the trial, an Israeli supporter of Pollak was violently removed from the courthouse for wearing a shirt that said “there is no pride in occupation.” After the verdict was handed down, supporters began chanting in the courtroom against Israeli fascism and the occupation. They were forcibly removed one by one from the courthouse and subsequently held a demonstration on the sidewalk.
Despite evidence of Israeli wrongdoing in the course of the Gaza war, the only Israeli sentenced to jail so far is a leftist who choose to ride his bike through Tel Aviv in non-violent protest. The state of Israel sent a clear message with this verdict: that it will not tolerate dissent from the left. In fact, the state persecutor asked for a severe sentence in order to ‘make an example out of Pollak and those who engage in similar anti-occupation work.” Pollak said that he will continue to work with Palestinians against the occupation and repeatedly cited the much harsher verdicts given to Palestinians involved in non-violent protests. The only remorse that he showed was that he did not do enough to express dissent about the siege of Gaza. If peacefully riding a bike against violent aggression is a crime, Pollak said that we will happily go to jail. The fragility of Israeli democracy is on full display when one of its privileged sons can’t even ride a bike in protest of an aggressive and violent war on a besieged people.
‘The FBI raids and subpoenas . . . [are] best understood as backlash aimed at silencing our successful movement’
By Maureen Murphy | Mondoweiss | December 26, 2010
The following is a statement given by Maureen Murphy at a press conference on Thursday, December 23 about the government’s ongoing intimidation of anti-war and solidarity activism in the Midwest. Murphy is one of several activists with the Palestine Solidarity Group who have been subpoenaed, and one of several individuals across the city of Chicago and the Twin Cities who are being targeted for Palestine solidarity activism. For more information, and to get involved, see http://www.stopfbi.net/.
On Tuesday morning I experienced what more than twenty other activists across the US have experienced in the past few months — a knock on the door from the FBI. When I answered, one of the two agents outside my building identified himself and said he wanted to speak with me. When I declined, he informed me that I was being subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury on January 25.
I am among 22 other anti-war, labor and solidarity activists who have been subpoenaed and are facing a grand jury since the FBI raided several prominent organizers’ homes on September 24.
I’m proud of the movement we have built here in Chicago and I believe that the FBI raids and subpoenas and the ever-expanding grand jury witch hunt is best understood as backlash aimed at silencing our successful movement.
And if this grand jury fishing expedition is indeed aimed at intimidating our movement, what we have seen so far is that it has had the opposite effect. I’m extremely grateful for the outpouring of support that I and the other targeted activists have received. And as someone who has been leading the support work around the raids and subpoenas here in Chicago, I have seen first-hand that this is not about 23 individuals. There is a mass movement that understands that it is the rights of us ALL that are at stake here, and we have seen a broad condemnation of this attack on our right to peacefully advocate for a more just and less deadly US foreign policy.
I have no intention to participate in the government’s witch hunt. It is very clear that no crime has been committed and that the government’s motivation in issuing these subpoenas is to have us name the names of other activists not only here in the United States, but also in places like Palestine and Colombia, where many of us have traveled to learn about the human rights situations in those places. We can only assume that the US government shares intelligence with the governments of Israel and Colombia, whose repressive military rule the US bankrolls at the US taxpayer’s expense. And it is essentially a prison sentence or worse for human rights activists in Palestine and Colombia to be singled out and identified in this way. And I have no intention in playing any role in that.
I’m encouraged by the outpouring of solidarity from all corners of the Palestine solidarity movement and other social justice communities. I urge everyone to join in the pushback against this attack on our movement and our basic civil liberties.
A Hero’s Welcome for Mavi Marmara in Turkey
Al-Manar – 26/12/2010
A Turkish ferry which was the target of a deadly raid by Israeli commandos when it tried to deliver aid to Gaza received a rapturous welcome from thousands on Sunday as it arrived back in Istanbul.
Crowds waving Turkish and Palestinian flags lined the quayside as the Mavi Marmara docked at Istanbul’s Sarayburnu following a lengthy refit in a port along the Mediterranean.
They watched the ferry berth nearly seven months after the dramatic raid which left nine Turkish activists dead and triggered a major diplomatic crisis between Ankara and Tel Aviv. The ferry had been trying to deliver aid supplies to Palestinians living in besieged Gaza.
According to the ferry’s owner, a Turkish campaign group called IHH, the Mavi Marmara will be part of a new flotilla which will leave for Gaza on May 31, 2011, exactly one year on from the deadly raid.
Turkey’s foreign minister said on Saturday that his country was still awaiting an Israeli apology for the assault, and that this was the only way to turn the page on a year of deteriorating relations with Israel.
Relations had been already strained before the raid because of Israel’s devastating war on Gaza launched in December 2008.
Israeli Army Arrests 9 French Nationals In The West Bank
By George Rishmawi – IMEMC News – December 26, 2010
Israeli troops operating at the military checkpoint of Qalandia, north of Jerusalem arrested nine French protestors and assaulted others at the checkpoint, Sunday at noon.
The nine arrestees were taking part in a protest at the checkpoint expressing their solidarity with the Palestinian people and their rejection to the closure of Jerusalem by the Israeli authorities.
The protest started around 9:30 Sunday morning during which over 100 Palestinian and International protestors attempted to enter Jerusalem without permission from the Israeli soldiers.
Eyewitnesses told IMEMC over the phone that Israeli troops assaulted the protestors and beat them up with their batons and rifle buts wounding a number of them, including those who were arrested.
A major part of the protestors are part of a french delegation who came especially for a week of nonviolent activities over the Christmas week in coordination with a number of local organisations directly involved in popular resistance activities, in Beit Sahour and Bethlehem.
On Saturday three members of the group were arrested when they joined Palestinians to protest the closure of Al-Shuhada street in the city.
They also joined Palestinians in Al-Walaja village near Bethlehem on Friday to protest the ongoing settlement activities in the village.
Ameer Makhoul’s perpetual trial
Audrey Farber writing from Haifa, Live from Palestine, 20 December 2010
 |
Ameer Makhoul (Adri Nieuwhof) |
We arrive at the Haifa court building around 11am, half an hour after proceedings began in the ongoing trial of Ameer Makhoul, a leading Palestinian activist who holds Israeli citizenship and was arrested in his home in the middle of the night last May.
After being held without charge, tortured and denied access to an attorney for three weeks, the State of Israel accused Ameer of trumped-up charges of espionage. As it frequently does in “security cases,” the Israeli government based its accusation on “secret evidence” that Ameer and his legal defense had no access to. It became clear that Ameer’s arrest and the charges against him was an attempt to scare Palestinian citizens of Israel into submission. Ameer has stood for court dates almost monthly since being arrested, and little progress has been made. There has been talk of a plea bargain, but no judge has read a sentence and his trial has become a monthly meeting of his nearest and dearest, testifying to his commendable character and good standing in the community.
Today’s hearing was supposed to begin at 9am but was pushed back. The room — even though there is a horde of people outside waiting to get in — has only two benches for spectators. There are empty courtrooms with five or six benches, enough to easily accommodate all interested parties.
But instead we’re outside the door, while two, sometimes three, behemoth security guards control the door and glare at us intimidatingly. Milling around is a veritable who’s who of Haifa politics and activism. A Jewish member of the Communist party who is on city council comes out after giving testimony and hobnobs with influential activists, former Members of Knesset, employees of various nongovernmental organizations in Haifa, international activists, journalists, powerful lawyers and friends and family of Ameer. It’s a bit unnerving to realize that if they wanted, Israeli intelligence agents could show up outside this courtroom, arrest everyone standing there, and essentially silence all dissent in Haifa. All the major players in one place, for one cause.
As two people come out, two are let in. One comes out, one goes in. Then two come out, and the ogres at the door decide no one else is allowed in. Some among us start arguing with them, calling them out on their arbitrary change of policy, but they’re enjoying their show of strength too much. They tell us to move over; we have to wait from the side, for no apparent reason. They bring in those extendable line-makers, like those found in movie theaters and airports, and create a space where they can stand with their arms crossed, surveying their prey, a space we’re not allowed to enter. There is an easy parallel between this charade and the political situation here; we are told where we can stand, what we can do, and whether or not we are allowed in.
And just like that, it’s over. People come flooding out; greeting and kissing each other on the cheek, saying hello to friends and family and colleagues. Ameer’s wife and daughters come out into the crowd, so do his sisters and his brother, observers from European embassies, community members, then the lawyers. Some of the best lawyers in Israel were there, and still, this trial continues. It’s court date after court date of unanimously supportive character witness testimony. The prosecution has no evidence to present, at least not in a public hearing; such is the nature of these “security cases.” There was supposed to be a decision on his sentence today, but there wasn’t, and there will be yet another court date in January with more and more character witnesses, more and more people testifying in support of Ameer Makhoul. But there is irony in this; the longer they can postpone sentencing him, the longer he stays in jail, unable to kiss his wife, or hug his daughters. We can spend years and years giving positive testimony in support of Ameer but if he is not sentenced, he stays in jail, perpetually on trial.
When his younger daughter came out of the courtroom, I read her eyes. She is brave, so brave. I cannot imagine going through what she is enduring. Month after month she comes to these trials, sees the community supporting her father, perhaps once in a blue moon she can hold his hand. His sister was allowed to hug and kiss him for the first time today, but when Ameer’s wife visits him in prison they are permitted only to communicate through a telephone and a glass barrier. He is perpetually sealed off from his family. His daughter floats through the crowd, puts on a smile, hugs her aunts and uncles and shakes hands with her father’s colleagues. When they look away, her face falls, and her eyes are sad, almost empty, resigned in a way to his fate. She has gone through too much for an adolescent girl. Still she, and Ameer’s entire family, and the entire community, tirelessly fight for his rights. But with each farcical trial date, perpetuating this charade of “justice,” it seems less and less likely that these rights will ever be realized, a decision will be made, and he will be released, able to join his family at their home once again.
Audrey Farber is a writer, activist, photographer and brain-for-hire who most recently interned at Mada al-Carmel – Arab Center for Applied Social Research, in Haifa.
Not seen in American media: 131 anti war protesters arrested in DC
American Goy | December 21, 2010
131 anti war protesters arrested in DC.
News Black-Out in DC: Pay No Attention to Those Veterans Chained to the White House Fence
Whether you agree or disagree with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an anti war demonstration in front of the White House where 131 people are arrested is very probably national news.
Even more newsworthy seems this tidbit:
Among those arrested were Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst who used to provide the president’s daily briefings, Daniel Ellsberg, who released the government’s Pentagon Papers during the Nixon administration, and Chris Hedges, former war correspondent for the New York Times.
In any normal country, this would be at least a blurb, a short mention on a nightly newscast.
But in our “democracy”, there is nary a mention of this, er, non-event.
Actually, I am wrong.
Nary a mention implies some kind of a mention, even in passing.
There is no mention of this event on any American media.
It is almost like the media and the government elites are cooperating.
Don’t believe me?
Use google news to search for this story, use “veterans DC protest” as the keywords and only use the “news” search option.
Do you see any NBC, CNN, ABC, FOX stations?
What about big newspapers?
No?
What do you see?
Local papers, blogs, even AOL News (these exist!?).
Lets go with “veterans DC protest cnn”…
Eagle Tribune, Brad Blog (blog), Socialist Worker Online, GC Advocate.
That is it – a grand total of 4 entries, and no CNN.
Do it yourself.
Goto the google news tab and make up your own searches.
Make sure to use veterans and protest and then put your mainstream TV conglomerate(s) and/or newspaper(s).
Then make sure to turn on your TV, preferably onto a cable news channel, and see what they consider news.
That’s all I ask of you…
Brazil donates land for Palestinian embassy
Ma’an | December 21, 2010
RAMALLAH — Palestinian ambassador to Brazil Ibrahim Az-Zein received the title to a piece of land Monday, where the Palestinian embassy in Brazil will stand following that country’s recognition of a Palestinian state earlier in the month.
Following the presentation of the generous gift, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement thanking Brazil for what it said was a 22-dunum track of land with an estimated value of $14 million.
The announcement came one day after chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said publicly that 10 European Union countries would soon upgrade their Palestinian representative offices to full diplomatic status in a show of support for Palestinian state-building efforts.
“The Palestinians will not stop working to gain their freedom through all available channels and in peaceful ways,” Erekat told Ma’an.
He said the Palestinian cause has gained international support in recent months and affirmed that Norway’s decision to upgrade its representative office to an embassy had caused Israel much anxiety.
Two more leftwing activists summoned to a meeting with Israel’s General Security Service
Promised Land | December 13th, 2010
Two Israeli activists that take part in protests in the West Bank have been summoned to informal investigations by Israel’s General Security Service, the Shabak (formally Shin Beit). According to the two, they received phone calls inviting them for what was described as “a talk” with a GSS investigator named Rona.
A few months ago, Yonatan Shapira, a former IDF pilot, was summoned for such a meeting in Tel Aviv with a female investigator calling herself Rona. According to an account Shapira published, the “talk” turned out to be a political interrogation, in which Shapira was asked about his participation in demonstrations in the West Bank and other activities, but was not accused of any illegal actions.
Last week, an activist in Anarchists against the Wall, a leftwing group whose members take part in unarmed demonstrations in the West Bank, was invited to a similar meeting in a police station on Dizengof Street, Tel Aviv. According to his account, he was told by “Rona” that his actions are known and are not considered illegal by the GSS. However, he was warned that “if they do turn illegal, we [the GSS] will be there.”
Today, another Anarchists against the Wall activist received a phone call from “Rona” inviting him to talk to her. The activist asked if this would be a formal interrogation, and if so, said he would like to be summoned by an official subpoena, in writing. According to the activist, “Rona” answered that this was not the case, and the conversation ended.
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Insanely disproportionate use of violence against unarmed civilians… continue
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