Day 1 - the first stories

It is 10:00 pm in Nablus - we have been on the go since 8:00 a.m. I have seen and done so much it is hard to think it has just been one day. Since everything we are doing is connected and interwoven, I may tell only part of the day's story and tell that in curves and jumps so that the actions make sense in the larger story waiting to be told. But how to tell you all this? I could tell you just the facts - like the close to 800,000 Palestinian men whom the Israelis at one time or another have arrested, interrogated (read: tortured) and detained in a manner we would consider illegal and unconstitutional; or that the Palestinians live under military orders that control each and every part of their lives and that are issued,amended or rescinded at the whim of the Israeli military commander. Or I could tell you about those of the 750,000 the Israelis forced to leave their villages in 1948 who made their way to the Bilata refugee camp that we visited; and that at first, the UN, who run all the camps, gave each family a 3 X 3 tent because even the UN fully expected the refugees to be able to return to the homes and property they had left. Or I could tell you that when it became clear the refugees were not going to be allowed to return right away (notwithstanding UN Resolution 194, which gave them, like refugees the world-over, the right to return AND to compensation for their forced "evacuation" (read: ethnic cleansing) and property loss), the UN converted their tents to a likewise 3 x 3 "house," (read: room) for each family. Then I could tell you that eventually, the families that could afford to do so built up. You see, they couldn't build out because all 5000 of them were on a piece of land that was one square meter in size. Yes, that's right. And then I could tell you that 60 plus years later, the 25,000 of the still only have that same one square meter. So I could tell you that we walked around the camp and squeezed between buildings that were barely as wide as our bodies, with smiling, giggling children following us, begging us to photograph them.

Or I could tell you about the Palestinian men who served us lunch and spoke about the refugee camp's Cultural Center, started for the youth because during the last Intifada, if the children played on the nearby hills, the Israeli soldiers would shoot them and so, to give the children a place, to try to harness some of the especially young, male energy that so easily turns to hatred, to give this energy a different outlet, the Cultural Center takes it into its arms and offers options. Or perhaps I could tell you about the economic disaster the refugees continually live in, the closures the Israelis impose so that no one can get out or in that bring their economy to a dead stop.

Or maybe I should tell you about the Palestinian man who spoke who, when we asked his personal story said despite living in a refugee camp, he and his six siblings were not only college degreed, but one was a doctor, one a lawyer, and one held a masters in business. He himself had worked for ten years in Washington, D.C. as an IT specialist but had returned voluntarily to the refugee camp. Education is of ultimate importance to Palestinians (sound familiar?)

Or I could tell you about the coalition that meets yearly around the globe to discuss options for the right of return, or the commitment to nonviolence of these Palestinian men. Let me repeat that: the commitment to nonviolence of these Palestinian men. So on that note, let me tell you in detail about the nonviolent action in which we took part yesterday morning.

In the morning, we joined a demonstration outside an Israeli military base with Stop the Wall, an organization whose primary mission is to stop the so-called "security wall" that Israel has been building (640 km completed), which the International Court of Justice has deemed illegal (more about the wall tomorrow). The demonstration was on behalf of Jamal Jamu, a Palestinian man whom the Israelis arrested and detained without charges. At our next meeting with Addameer, a Palestinian human rights organization focusing on prisoner rights and advocacy, the arrest and detention concept was explained to us in detail. Because it is a particularly outrageous story of human rights violations and terrifying military control, let me tell you that part in detail as well.

Since 1967, the Palestinians' lives have been regulated by military orders, orders issued, amended and rescinded by the same military commander who assigns the military prosecutors and judges that hear the cases of those accused of violating the orders. Aside from the lack of checks and balances, a key part of democracy, imagine the politics that flow from this system.

Now before you think, but this is something Israel needs for its defense, please be aware that these military orders deal with every aspect of the Palestinians lives: what kind of roads can be travelled on, whether a well can be dug, what books can be read, owned, published or distributed, what symbols can be displayed or owned, what groups can meet, how many people can gather, etc. And the punishment for violating the often arbitrary military orders are severe. So lets walk through the "process."

The Israeli army can stop/arrest any Palestinian for a period of 8 days without any reason. During this time, the Army does not have to bring the detainee in front of a judge. This time period, by the way, can change via a subsequent, arbitrary order by the military commander. At the end of the 8 days, the detainee is brought in front of a military judge who decides what to do next, meaning release or prosecute the detainee, or perhaps charge him in front of a military tribunal, or perhaps the order administrative detention or interrogation.

Again because both those concepts are particularly egregious, lets talk about those in detail. In general, an interrogation period can last for 180 days. During that period, the detainee is prohibited from meeting with a lawyer for 90 days. Whatever statements the detainee makes during the interrogation, including those made to fellow detainees, can not only be used against the detainee but that is all the prosecutor needs to press charges. NO OTHER EVIDENCE IS NEEDED. This is true even if the detainee can prove that the statement was made via torture or that the events to which he "confessed" never occurred (perhaps, for example, he had to concoct a story to convince his fellow detainees he is not an Israeli collaborator or an Israeli posing as a Palestinian). And often, the charges are vague, forcing the defense attorney to try to "prove the negative." For example, a detainee may eventually be charged with "shooting a gun in Ramallah towards an Israeli vehicle." Try proving that didn't happen. Or there was the case the Addameer representative told us about the three guys that were charged with committing an act in July, 2004. Addameer represented one of the men, who said that in July, 2004, he was in Jordan. The judge ordered the accused to bring in his passport. The accused obliged, produced his passport with the appropriate Israeli border stamps on it evidencing his absence from the country in July, 2004, to which the judge responded, please prove that these are not falsified stamps. Again, there is no way to prove that a stamp is not falsified but what is particularly egregious here is that Israel controls the border between Israel and Jordan so all the clerk had to do was pull up a computer screen to see if, in fact, this gentleman had passed through the border and was out of the country in July, 2004.

Nor are children immune from imprisonment. Children, as young as ten, may be sentenced for stone throwing anywhere from 6 months to 5 years. And not in juvenile detention - in prison. Students who join student unions, regardless of the issue, say for tuition hikes, are likely to spend 35 months behind bars. And even if the detainee is not charged, their family home may be demolished. Families may be prohibited from visiting detainees.

And then there is the infamous administrative detention. So here, the military commander issues an order to detain a person because person threatens security of nation. The hooks? First, the detention is based on a secret file. Neither the detainee nor his lawyer ever have access to that file. The military judge reviews the secret file and decides whether or not the commander issuing the military order should stand as issued. Second, the military order has no limitation as to how many times it can be renewed. So on the last day of the detention, when the detainee is waiting to be released, sometimes even as they are walking out of the prison or cross a checkpoint, they are re-detained by an Israeli Shabak (security) officer. In this way, some men are detained the better part of their lives, with one man detained for 8 years, 150 men for more than two years continuously, and one man detained repeated over and over again since 1989, spending a total of 17 years in detention. Never charged, never sentenced.

So, back to Jamal. Why was he detained? Shabak first summoned Jamal for interrogation at midnight of December 15 2009. After a few hours, Shabak brought him back to his home where he was handcuffed while soldiers searched his house for two hours as his wife and three young children looked on. As they left with Jamal, Shabak told his wife that she would only see her husband again through a prisoner exchange. Since then, Juma’ has been detained, and banned from speaking to a lawyer or his family, with no explanation for his arrest. He has not been charged, his "crime" is that he has been lecturing around the world about the wall, the wall that cannot be the security wall it is labeled to be because it is not built on any border between Israel and the Occupied Territories but instead insidiously slices villages in half, surrounds and isolates individual homes, confiscates more Palestinian land, fertile land, separates farmers from their crops, separates families, and on and on. (To read more about the wall, see Anna Balzar's "Witness in Palestine." To read more about Jamal, see http://www.stopthewall.org/latestnews/2139.shtml) Jamal is now behind a different kind of oppressive wall created by the same oppressor.

So that was day one.