Aletho News

British parliament debates Palestinian children prisoners

By Renee Bowyer | Middle East Monitor | 12 December 2010

I visited the family of a twelve year old boy arrested on a Sunday morning. They lived in a small room on the outskirts of Balata refugee camp bordering the city of Nablus. The mother of Salim spoke to me first reminding me how the last time I had visited her, her son Salim had been there. Of course I remembered; he’d greatly enjoyed trying out his few English words with me and had very excitedly told me how he and his mother had been to Ramallah the week before. It was Sunday evening and as I sat with Um Salim she recounted to me how she had woken in the night as Balata camp was invaded. She listened to the sound of tanks and jeeps, of sound bombs detonating at random. But then Um Salim told me how the night-terror became her terror when her front door was pushed in and soldiers were everywhere.  They were calling for Salim and Um Salim began to sob as she explained to me how a mother’s worst nightmare began.

Salim was twelve years old but in many ways he was older than his years. He had witnessed an uncle shot and killed by invading Israeli forces and he had not seen his father, a prisoner, for eight years. But this night Salim became the child again. When his name was shouted out Salim in terror rushed behind his mother and fell on the ground. He held the skirt of his mother and cried up to her ‘Mama; save me’. Um Salim told me how her son was ripped out of her arms as he cried for her to protect him. She was pushed to the ground and Salim was dragged from the house.

Six months later I visited Um Salim again. She had not seen Salim since the night he had been dragged from her arms. She still had no idea why he was taken, for how long he would be held or even when there would be a court hearing for him.  She said she had learnt to live without him but would never learn to forget the words he had cried out to her when the soldiers had pushed in their door: ‘Mama; save me’. Um Salim looked at me and said ‘I couldn’t protect him. I couldn’t protect my son.’

Last week in Britain; a far cry from the poverty-stricken streets of Balata refugee camp and the occupied territories of the West Bank; Sandra Osborne, MP for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, secured a debate on the detention of Palestinian children by Israel in the British Parliament.  Having worked with Addameer in the West Bank, (a Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association mentioned by Ms Osborne in her presentation) I can appreciate in full the horrifying account Ms Osborne gave of the plight of Palestinian children prisoners. Details of Hebrew confessions signed by children under physical or emotional torture, of solitary confinement, of beatings and threats and months without seeing or hearing from family are all realities that thousands of Palestinian children are facing now.  One can only imagine the horror of families whose children have been taken and are being subject to these violations. While working with Addameer I spoke to mother after mother whose child had been imprisoned and every one of them spoke of the constant fear gripping their hearts knowing their child was unprotected in a hostile and violent place and how they knew that no law was governing the treatment of their child.

The taking of Palestinian children by Israeli forces and the terrorizing of them seems to be a calculated policy of Israel in their attempt to destroy the very fabric of Palestinian life. The Occupation of Palestine is much more than a military exercise and as constantly cited by Israeli officials ‘a necessary step to insure Israeli security’. Every aspect of the occupation, from the invasions and assassinations to the humiliating abuses of the soldiers standing at checkpoints is geared towards making Palestinian life unbearable. The strategically placed settlements and the free-reign given to settlers to attack, kill and steal land from the Palestinians, the invasions of villages and the constant curfews imposed on them, the house searches and indiscriminate shooting, the verbal inanities shouted at women and children by soldiers in roaming army jeeps are all focused on grinding down the will to survive and resist that the Palestinian people show.

I cannot recall how many times I asked the question ‘why are you doing this?’ When I was living in the Occupied Territories; watching some ridiculous flying checkpoint being set up on some small mountain path and three or four teenage soldiers smoking  and forcing old women to empty their shopping bags on to the dusty road. ‘Why are you doing this?’ as I watched a tank roaming through a village and stopping in front of the village high school for boys and some sun-glassed soldier throwing  a sound bomb over the wall. Acts that have no meaning to them except to terrorize and humiliate and make the lives of the Palestinian people harder than they already are.

‘It’s the Wild West’ an anonymous soldier states in Breaking the Silence; ‘serving in the West Bank is like being in the Wild West’.

And this is because the Israeli government has a goal beyond taking land; it seems increasingly obvious that the real agenda of the Israeli government is to ‘cleanse’ the land of Palestinians and the first step to do this is to make the Palestinian people stop resisting; not just with arms but in every other way. There is too much life still being lived under occupation; there is too much will to survive this occupation and siege. There are still festivals and marriages being celebrated in ruined houses alongside the burying of the dead; there are still lessons being taught to children in schools that have been bombed to rubble; there is still music in Palestine. And this is what Israel fears.

There are plenty of times when the reality of life under occupation and siege yields a sense of despair and helplessness among the people of Palestine, but it doesn’t stay; only in the cases of the mothers of child prisoners does it stay. There was a look of desperation and despondency on the face of Um Salim when she told me how Salim had cried to her to protect him that I had not seen before, and when I visited her months later and she had still not heard from her son that look was still there; etched now on her face.

By stealing the children of Palestine and trapping them inside a prison where they have no contact with family, Israel is attempting to systematically destroy the future of Palestine. They are breeding despondency inside Palestine that even invasions and killings did not produce. If this is not Israel’s aim, why else would they go to such lengths to violate every law set in place to protect children from this kind of soul-destroying treatment?
Ms Osborne last week made a plea to the British government to intervene because she was horrified by what she had witnessed in a military court hearing of Palestinian children. (And surely what she witnessed was a toned down version of what normally happens). The plea Ms Osborne made was supported by extensive detail and factual information and clearly exposed the policy of Israel in respect to Palestinian child prisoners and how it seems that the policy of Israel encourages these violations.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Alistair Burt, responded to Ms Osborne in the sort of way that western governments are responding to Israeli violations every time they come to prominence: by stating that Israel may have gone too far in some respects but that their security issues necessitate certain actions and that Israel continues to have the full support of these governments. Alistair Burt agreed to raise the issue with Israel and to write to the members of Parliament who had attended the debate. And that is all.

A letter in a month or two explaining that the issue has been raised with Israel?

While Um Salim waits to hear what prison her twelve year old son has been dragged to, while another mother and another are woken in the night to the sound of their child’s name being shouted by soldiers who batter down their doors, and while children shiver alone in prison cells, are forced to sign confessions of guilt in Hebrew and are beaten and shackled; our Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs will raise the issue with Israel.

On the 21st November this year two Israeli soldiers were given suspended sentences and demoted for using a Palestinian child as a human shield during their attacks on Gaza on 2008/2009. They scarred the nine year old child for life when they forced him to search for booby traps in the ruins of his town and they were given two months probation and were not sent to prison. At the same time countless Palestinian children are serving sentences in Israeli prisons for throwing stones at tanks.

It is time that our secretaries of state do more than write letters about this. If they as representatives of our governments do not help protect these children than who will?

December 13, 2010 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

As Palestinians ‘Commute’ to Work

By Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler | IPS | December 4, 2010

BETHLEHEM CHECKPOINT, Occupied West Bank – It’s 5am. The late autumn dawn is about to break. But for 3,500 Palestinian workers, a hard day’s work began hours ago.

Young and old men push and shove their way out through the narrow lane, barely a metre wide, bars of iron rising above them on either side. Over their heads sits a corrugated steel roof.

Some try to sneak into the lane through a gap in the roof.

“Being in jail is easier!” cries out one man angrily. He’s a builder from Hebron. “Donkeys are made to stand like this! Even cattle are not hemmed in like this.”

“They have no respect for us. We’re human beings, not animals!” adds another, an electrician whose home is in Bethlehem. “No human being should be put behind bars like this. It’s not right!” They choose not to give their names.

The Palestinians grasp the bars, not just for fear of being trampled, but to keep their place in line. “I’ve got to be at work at seven, not at eight or ten! When I’m late, my Israeli boss tells me, ‘You can go home, I don’t need you’.”

This is the Israeli occupation writ small, the nitty-gritty battles to survive the Occupation in a single lane.

All for the prospect of earning from 200 plus shekels (roughly 50 dollars) a day. Some have been stuck here from as early as 3am. And, they must pay for their own food and transportation to and from their jobs inside Israel (60-80 shekels).

One after the other, minibuses arrive at the checkpoint adjacent to Israel’s eight-metre high concrete security wall. The workers scramble out, and scramble for position in the lane; the minibuses head off to pick up more workers in towns and villages across the southern West Bank.

The checkpoint – “crossing-point” as the Israeli euphemism has it – is on the seam that separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem.

The two holy cities are within walking distance from one another. It’s been five years that Palestinians in the two cities have been cut off from each other, divided by a maze of security walls and watch towers…and by the unholy lane.

The checkpoint at the end of the lane is like a border terminal. But there is no agreed border between Israel and the Palestinian state-to-be.

To enter Jerusalem, every Palestinian from the West Bank, not just labourers, must pass through the lane, then present a permit they have been issued by the Israeli military authorities.

It’s called ‘commuting’ for these workers. But it’s far worse than a nerve- wracking traffic jam. “We’re moving along at just ten metres an hour,” says one man gloomily.

Humanitarian workers, three Australian women from the World Council of Churches, are helpless. From the other side of the bars shadowing the lane, Aimee Kent says, “On a good day, the rush will finish by 6:30; on a slow day or a difficult day, the crush will go on until eight.”

Alongside the ‘security’ lane, there’s a ‘humanitarian lane’, reserved for Palestinian women, children, the ill and the handicapped. It’s open 24 hours a day, seven days a week – at least in principle. Now it’s empty.

“The humanitarian lane has been closed since four this morning and it’s now past six. It’s not normal, not safe for the women to be in the security lane, but what option do they have,” says Kent.

The Israel police who run the checkpoint insist that the humanitarian lane is in fact open, but they say they’re compelled to keep it closed once the security lane is full to the brim. They can’t handle the extra congestion, they say.

Often, the workers have to wait two to three hours just to get through the electronic gate that leads into the checkpoint terminal. There they have to undergo a thorough security check. That entails another 30 to 40 minutes while their ID cards are checked and they go through scanning procedures.

“If they give us permits, why do they need to create all these extra complications,” complains a young Palestinian woman, anxious to get through in time to prepare breakfast at the Swedish Theological Institute in Jerusalem where she’s employed as a cook.

The head of the Israeli checkpoint, chief superintendent Shmuel Barak, states the Israeli position blandly: “The work permit allows the holder to enter Jerusalem from 5am. If they decide to come earlier, it’s their decision. We’re not responsible for that. Our job is to maintain security for Jerusalem and for the State of Israel.”

Moshe Pinchi, spokesman for the border police, is keen to put a human face on the whole procedure: “We’re trying our best to maintain the delicate balance between our security needs and enabling Palestinians with permits to work inside Israel and to live a normal life. The wave of terror which swept Israel from the West Bank during the Intifada uprising imposed this situation upon us. Now, we stop terror at these gates.”

The police insist that knives, explosives, and weapons are often uncovered during the draconian security checks.

Yet, what Israeli officials acknowledge is that the relative calm of recent years is also due to the success of the Palestinian Authority in bringing a measure of security and good governance to the West Bank.

In the absence, however, of tangible moves towards peace between Israel and the PA, nowhere does the economic development that has improved conditions in the West Bank seem further away than here, in face of the thousands of Palestinians desperate to work in Israel, willing to endure the daily hardship of getting through to their job inside Israel or inside Israeli- occupied East Jerusalem.

A middle-aged man from Bethlehem who teaches in a Palestinian school in East Jerusalem describes the harrowing scene: “Welcome world to see our situation! This is not a checkpoint; it’s a humiliation of the Palestinian people! I am a human being. All the people here are human beings. But the Israelis trap us like animals! For them Palestinians are simply animals or terrorists! But no,” he adds sarcastically, “No, the Israelis, they want peace! What a joke!”

The moment anyone gets through the elaborate checking procedure, another rush is on – for another minibus that will dispatch them to their workplace.

Running for freedom remains a forlorn dream for Palestinians. For now, they’re just running for their livelihood.

December 4, 2010 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment