(This statement was published a while ago on the Herak Haifa FB page. You can also read the original statement in Arabic here.)
The Palestinian freedom struggle never stops, and the Zionist Shabak (“security services”) never stops repressing it…
On the 11th of this month (11.1.2022), the Israeli repressive forces (Shabak and police) broke into the house of our comrade Somaya Falah, confiscated her computer, searched her phone and then arrested her. Comrade Somaya was interrogated by the Shabak bureau in the Haifa police compound for 12 hours, and then transferred to house arrest with relatives, far from her home in Haifa. Moreover, as part of the house arrest, severe restrictions were imposed on her, including preventing her from communicating via the internet and forbidding any contact with her comrades in the struggle.
Over the following days, the Shabak summoned her to various rounds of interrogation, her house arrest was extended for continuous periods and the restrictions and conditions of detention were tightened. In addition, the apparatus of repression initiated a campaign of racist and poisonous incitement against our comrade through the Zionist media, claiming “security” and “dangerous” charges that have no basis in reality.
These brutal methods used by the repression agencies against our comrade Somaya are not new to us. We are also familiar with more severe methods, such as interrogations and isolation for weeks in Shabak dungeons while being prevented from contact with a lawyer. These are routine methods of the Shabak against the activists of the Palestinian struggle, and they have been used before against many activists of our Herak… But they will never succeed to break our resolve or prevent us from continuing the struggle for our legitimate rights.
The occupation systematically uses the accusation of “contacting a foreign agent” to criminalize the communication between us, the Palestinian people in the homeland and the diaspora. This will not change the fact that the foreigners in this region are the settlers who are trying to establish their rule by violent oppression and by various colonial methods. We are the native inhabitants of this land and communication with the daughters and sons of our people is a natural right for us. From here, we assure the enemy before the friend that there is no force that can deter us from exercising this right – not intimidation, nor arrests, nor anything that the Shabak might do.
Freedom for comrade Somaya Falah!
Let our response be to intensify the connections between all the daughters and sons of the Palestinian people in the struggle for our legitimate rights.
Israel holds hundreds of Palestinians in the 1967 occupied territories under administrative detention. Lately it renewed the practice also in the 1948 occupied Palestine.
Israel’s claim to be a democracy is based on many false conceptions. The most obvious falsification is the idea there is a “democratic Israel” existing alongside “temporarily occupied territories”, the West Bank and Gaza. In actuality Israel is pursuing aggressive ethnic cleansing all along the occupied territories and illegal settlers are the strongest force in Israeli politics. The complementary falsification is the idea that Palestinians in the territory occupied by Israel since 1948 are citizens enjoying full civil rights, even if denied national rights. Whenever those Palestinians, who are formally citizens, organize to protest their discrimination, the state reveals it true dictatorial nature as an occupying power.
The area around the Haifa court entrance was sealed by guards and armed police – June 9, 2021
One of the most extreme measures of military oppression is administrative detention. Under Israel’s “emergency laws” — and mind you the “emergency” in Israel has lasted for the last 73 years since its establishment — the military authorities can order the detention of any person without indictment for up to six months, renewable for an unlimited number of times. Administration detention is commonly used against Palestinians in the territory Israel has occupied since 1967, but there is also a long history of it being used in the territories it occupies since 1948, where Palestinian are officially regarded citizens of Israel.
These types of laws were used to crush the “al-Ard” movement – the first Palestinian political movement that tried to organize in “48 Palestine” in the fifties and sixties. In 1988, at the height of the first intifada, some 10 leading members of “Abna al-Balad”, a leftist grass-root movement, were placed under administrative detention. The last cases that I know about were in 2017, and I reported some of them in Free Haifa (here and here).
Now, with the latest popular uprising in solidarity with Sheikh Jarrah, against the bombardment of Gaza and against the fascists’ attacks on Palestinian residents in the mixed cities, it is being used again. In addition to mass detentions and violent attacks by police and border guards against the population at large, Israel is resorting again to administrative detention of Palestinians who are formally recognized as citizens.
Herak Fahmawi Demonstration in front of the Haifa court for the release of Zafer Jabareen, June 9, 2021
On Friday, June 4, as part of the mass detention campaign in Umm al-Fahm, the police arrested Zafer Jabareen. A day after his detention Jabareen was brought to the court with the rest of the detainees and his detention was remanded for 3 more days on claims that he should be interrogated for taking part in disturbing public order. He was taken to Shabak (the secret security services) detention – but was not really interrogated. On Tuesday, June 8, instead of releasing Jabareen or bringing him to another remand hearing, he was informed that Israel’s war minister, Benny Gantz, signed an administrative detention order for four months against him. The next day he was brought before Judge Ron Shapira, the head of the Haifa district court for the “judicial supervision” over his detention.
Zafer Jabareen, age 44, was arrested in 2002, at the time of the Second Intifada, accused of membership in a banned organization and activities against the state. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison. After his release in 2019 he married and was working in construction. His wife is now pregnant with their first child, and will be missing her husband at this critical period.
The “United Fahmawi Herak” and the popular committee of Umm al-Fahm called for a demonstration in front of the Haifa court at the time of the hearing on Wednesday, June 9. About a hundred people gathered in front of the court, including leaders from all the Palestinian political parties, the mayor of Umm al-Fahm Dr. Samir Subhi Mahamid and many youth activists from the Herak. The police also were present with many heavily armed military-style types, and completely sealed off all the area around the court’s entrance. The demonstrators carried placards in Arabic, Hebrew and English in solidarity with Zafer Jabareen, calling for an end to administrative detention and denouncing the detentions campaign against the Palestinian masses.
Lawyer Mahmoud Jabareen updating the demonstrators and the press at the end of the hearing – June 9, 2021
When Zafer Jabareen’s lawyer, Mahmoud Jabareen, came out of the hearing, he updated the demonstrators and the press about what happened in the hearing. He couldn’t hide his frustration. He tried to ask questions about the accusations or suspicions against Zafer, but was told that all the materials are secret and no answers will be given. He told the court there is nothing he can do to defend his client without knowing why he was detained. He was not even allowed to be present in the courtroom when the Shabak presented “secret evidence” to the judge.
I talked with the lawyer later and he explained that the administrative detention is based on an old “emergency law” and is not subject to the newer law governing criminal detention. In the criminal detention law, the judge is obliged to consider the detainees human rights and, if he finds that there is a legal basis for detention, he still should consider whether there are other ways to supervise the detainee without holding him in prison. In the emergency law that governs administrative detention, even as there is no indictment and no way the detainee can defend himself or disprove “secret evidence”, there is also no consideration of the detainee’s human rights and the court is not allowed even to consider other means of supervision.
The police and Shabak love to use the threat of administrative detention as a way to break the spirit of people under interrogation. They can tell the interrogated that, if they don’t confess to any crime, and even if there is no evidence against them, they can still find themselves in prison for an unlimited period. So, better close a plea bargain and you will know at least when you will get out of prison.
Meanwhile, Haaretz, while reporting on Jabareen’s administrative detention, mentioned that there is another administrative detainee from the Nazareth area. This detainee was also detained for interrogation (on May 17th) and later transferred to administrative detention.
On Sunday, June 13, Judge Shapira issued his decision ratifying General Gantz’s administrative detention decree against Zafer Jabareen. Jabareen’s family and friends, and some political activists gathered outside the courtroom’s closed doors and were not surprised to hear the ruling. Some of them repeated the popular saying: “When your judge is your oppressor, to whom do you complain?”
Since May 9th, Israeli police and the Shabak (security services) have detained more than 2,000 Palestinians inside the territory Israel has occupied since 1948. But the detention of Sheikh Kamal al-Khatib in Kafr Kanna (north of Nazareth) on Friday, May 14, was the most dramatic and notable. As the police surrounded the Sheikh’s home, local residents spontaneously organized a mass demonstration against his detention, and soon there were clashes with the police. The police used live ammunition to disperse the crowd, and Mako reported (here, in Hebrew) that eleven of the demonstrators were evacuated for medical treatment, at least four of them in severe conditions.
When al-Khatib was indicted two weeks later (on May 27) in the Nazareth Magistrate’s court, his lawyers protested that his violent arrest was illegal to start with. The factual base of the indictment only mentioned three posts on Facebook. By law, the police are entitled to invade people’s homes and arrest suspects without a judicial warrant only in hot pursuit or to prevent imminent crime. Old posts of Facebook don’t justify it. In many previous occasions, when the police or the Shabak wanted to warn al-Khatib about his political activities, he was summoned to the police station where he was interrogated. But the new aggressive approach was exactly the message that the Israeli oppressive state wanted to convey.
Sheikh Kamal al-Khatib is one of the most prominent political figures among the ‘48 Palestinian public. He was the deputy leader of the Islamic Movement (sometimes called “the northern faction of the Islamic Movement”, but it is definitely the real thing) before it was outlawed by Israel in November 2015. Like many other members of the Islamic Movement, he continued his public activity after the movement was banned, and served, between other roles, as head of the “Liberties Committee”, the committee responsible for the defense of political and Human Rights on behalf of the “high follow-up committee”, the unified representative body of 1948 Palestinians.
Al-Khatib is represented in court by a joint team from Adalah, the legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel, led by advocate Hassan Jabareen, and from Al-Mizan Rights Foundation (from Nazareth) led by advocate Omar Khamaisi.
Indictment of the Palestinian narrative
On receiving the eight-page indictment against al-Khatib, Jabareen protested and informed the court that he could not relate to such a lopsided document. Ten out of the 22 articles in the indictment are not connected to anything that is related to the accused, but are simply used to “set the context” – presenting a one-sided narrative of the conflict between the Palestinians and the Zionist movement and Israel from the beginning of the previous century until the latest bombardment of Gaza. In this narrative there is no ethnic cleansing, no occupation, no settlements on confiscated lands, no discrimination, no oppression, no Apartheid, only Arab rioters and terrorists constantly attacking innocent Jews and their revered security forces.
Against this background the court is required to assess the “danger” of the three Facebook posts, the only specific subjects of the indictment, that are taken from the page named “The Sheikh Kamal al-Khatib” (here, in Arabic). The indictment repeats many times the accusation that al-Khatib “called for violence”, “encouraged acts of terror” and “praised Hamas”. But in all the three quoted posts, even after being translated to Hebrew by police translators (his lawyers dispute the accuracy of the translation) – there is not a single call for violence, no praise for violence, and the name of Hamas (or any other organization that Israel considers as “terrorist”) is not even mentioned.
Mentioning the 1929 “Al-Burak Revolution” was also regarded as support of terrorism…
One of the posts that the indictment describes as “supporting terrorism” relates to the “Buraq Revolution” of 1929, which al-Khatib compared to the recent events, as both started with Jewish extremist provocations in and around Al-Aqsa Mosque. He mentions that in both cases the ensuing struggle quickly spread all over Palestine, and he mentions the casualties on both sides. Al-Khatib explained during his interrogation that he warned of the explosive potential from provocations in Al-Aqsa in order to prevent bloodshed. But the very fact that he speaks about these historic events from a Palestinian perspective was enough for the prosecution to declare it “support of terrorism”.
How to identify incitement?
In his 1982 satirical play “The Patriot”, Hanoch Levin wrote:
“Security instructions: A man walking down the street glancing nervously from side to side and over his shoulder – shall be suspected of being an Arab terrorist. A man walking down the street looking calmly ahead of him – shall be suspected of being a level-headed Arab terrorist. A man walking down the street looking up at the sky – shall be suspected of being a religious Arab terrorist. A man walking down the street staring at the ground – shall be suspected of being a shy Arab terrorist. A man walking down the street with his eyes shut – shall be suspected of being a drowsy Arab terrorist. A man not walking down the street – shall be suspected of being a sick Arab terrorist. All the suspects listed above shall be arrested. In the event of an attempted escape, a warning shot will be fired in the air. The body will be taken to the forensic institute.”
The first of the three posts that are cited in the indictment as “incitement to violence” was published on April 19. On the previous day there was a demonstration in Yaffa in solidarity with the people of al-Quds. The demonstrators were attacked by the police and there were clashes. The post includes four images of wounded people and one image of a police concentration, all apparently taken in Yaffa the previous day. This post is relatively short, so I will quote it here in full (my translation from the original Arabic text):
The “Yaffa Post” with images of four of the wounded
“Jaffa the hard number
Jaffa has always been the lung and flank of Jerusalem.
Just as Jerusalem faces the settlers’ flocks, so did Jaffa last night in the face of their swarms.
It is the same police and its hostile attitude toward every Palestinian, Arab and Muslim, which attacked our people in Jaffa, but Jaffa’s heroes prove every day that they are a difficult number.
All greetings and kisses on the forehead of each of you, O lions of Jaffa.
Jaffa, the definitive evidence of the failure of the Zionist project to distort the identity of our people in the Palestinian inside (a term relating to 1948-Palestine – YH), despite the 73 years of the Nakba of Jaffa, and indeed of every Palestinian.”
Al-Khatibs’ lawyers explained in court that the text should be understood, according to the accompanying images, as encouragement to and solidarity with the people that were wounded by police violence. They claimed that in these words, like in the two other posts, there is nothing that constitutes an offence according to the law.
The prosecutor admitted that al-Khatib did not explicitly call for violence, but claimed that this is because he is “cautious” and “sophisticated”, which makes him even more dangerous.
On Tuesday, June 8, Judge Doron Porat, the president of the Nazareth Magistrates’ court, decided to accept the prosecution’s request and ruled that al-Khatib should be held in prison until the end of his sentencing, with no option for bail. Even though there were no calls for violence from the accused, he built an incriminating “logical reasoning”, extending Levin’s measures:
“So is the case with the “Yaffa publication”, which was accompanied by pictures of wounded people from the Arab sector. These people seemingly took part in riots that evening, and seemingly were wounded in confrontation with security forces… the advocates claimed that those things were said with the purpose to strengthen the wounded. However, even if I assume that he meant them… those wounded rioted before, seemingly, and hence he encouraged and praised the violent acts that they performed, seemingly. Still, it is people that confronted the security forces and were wounded during confrontation. Hence, the Yaffa publication also can be an inciting publication.” (Page 40 of the protocol, decision by Judge Porat on June 8, 2021)
In short, a wounded Arab is an Arab that attacked the police, and solidarity with him is an incitement to violence!
What was not translated?
The third post in the indictment is a video with a nine-minute-long speech that Sheikh Kamal al-Khatib gave on May 11 at a public meeting that was held in his town, Kafr Kanna, in solidarity with al-Quds and al-Aqsa. The long translated text includes many things that are not connected to the accusations in any way, like al-Khatib citing religious texts including the famous saying that “the best jihad is to speak truth in the face of a tyrannical ruler”. In his speech he mentioned the attacks by fascist settlers against the Arab population in different places and stressed the need for unity against these attacks. He praised the new Palestinian generation as conscious and brave and applauded their steadfastness in the face of the oppressors.
Sheikh Kamal speaking at the public meeting in Kafr Kanna on May 11, in support of al-Quds and al-Aqsa
The only section of the speech that was not translated is where he described in detail a specific act of steadfastness: when Palestinians were called to come to pray in al-Aqsa, but the Israeli police decided to prevent them and blocked busses and cars on the main road leading to al-Quds. He described how the Israeli police expected the Palestinians to return to their towns, but thousands of them started, instead, walking the twenty kilometres separating them from al-Aqsa. It created such a huge traffic jam that the Israeli police finally preferred to let them continue their way in their vehicles.
No wonder that this vivid example of victory by popular struggle was omitted from the indictment – it contradicts all the narrative that is built by the prosecution according to which Palestinians are always perpetrating violent attacks for no reason.
Based on this text the prosecution also bases the claim that al-Khatib is “supporting Hamas” – but Hamas is not even mentioned, and what he said, even according to the police translation, is “Bless Jerusalem, bless Gaza, bless “the inside”, bless Palestine, bless our people in the “inside”, in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Jerusalem and in the diaspora.”
The logic of this text being considered “support of a terrorist organization” is that, according to their racist thinking, the Palestinian people as a whole are considered a terrorist organization.
Defending the innocents
The defense lawyers presented to the court a video with a sermon that al-Khatib delivered in a mosque in Kafr Kanna on the day of his arrest. In this sermon he talked about events that happened near the town a few days before, when a Jewish driver was attacked by an angry crowd – and other residents of Kafr Kana saved him from the crowd, brought him to receive medical treatment and later escorted him to safety. He said that the protest doesn’t justify attacks on the innocents, praised the actions of the residents that helped the victim and said that, if he was present there, he would have acted like them.
Even this sermon was later distorted by the prosecution and the judge, claiming that by denouncing the attack on innocent victims, al-Khatib actually praised and encouraged other attacks.
Update:
Sheikh Kamal al-Khatib was released under restrictive conditions
On Sunday, June 20, in the Nazareth District Court, Judge Arafat Taha accepted Sheikh Kamal al-Khatib’s appeal the lower court’s decision to detain him until the end of the legal proceedings against him. Judge Taha, after reading al-Khatib’s words in the original Arabic, accepted most of the claims of the defense lawyers against the prosecution and the lower court judge that claimed al-Khatib’s speech was incitement to violence and support of terrorism.
Still, as a condition for his release, al-Khatib had to pay high bail, he is not allowed to be in his town of Kafr Kanna for 45 days, and he is prevented from any public pronouncement for three months.
Palestinian activists in Haifa and around the world are demanding the release of Muhannad Abu Ghosh, who was taken into custody on Monday and is being denied access to an attorney
(The following article was published in Mondoweiss on January 27, 2021)
(You may find the original declaration of Herak Haifa here.)
On Monday morning, January 25, Israeli police invaded the home of Muhannad Abu Ghosh, 44, in the center of Haifa and carried him away. As a long-time activist for Palestinian rights, he is almost used to this type of encounter, if you can ever get used to it. As a teenager in the 1980s, he was arrested for several years for taking part in the activities of the first Intifada in his native Al-Quds. The last time he was interrogated by the Shabak was only a month ago. Then he was kidnapped in a raid of his home in front of his kids, but he went home free by the end of the same day. Over the years, he was interrogated by Israeli “security services” many times. He even was detained in Ramallah, under the “Palestinian Authority,” in the year 2000, after, as a student in Bir Zeit university, he took part in a demonstration against France’s anti-Palestinian policy.
This time on Monday Abu Ghosh was not taken to regular interrogation. Shortly after being detained he was brought to the Haifa court where his detention was remanded for a whole week. He has not been arraigned or charged with any crime. He was prevented by a special decree from meeting a lawyer, a measure regularly used against Palestinian activists who are interrogated by the Shabak. While his lawyer was not informed where he is presently being detained, I have good reasons to believe that he is in the Shabak section in Jelemeh – where harsh conditions and the usage of all kinds of psychological and physical torture are the standard.
Herak Haifa vigil in front of the occupation court in Haifa, January 26. 2021: Free Muhannad Abu Ghosh!
On Tuesday his lawyer, Khaled Mahajna, appealed both Abu Ghosh’s detention, and the decree preventing him from meeting with counsel. Before the appeal hearings started in the Haifa district court, some 20 activists of Herak Haifa gathered on short notice for a solidarity vigil in front of the court’s building, calling for the release of their comrade.
All the court’s proceedings were held behind closed doors. Only the detainee’s wife was allowed into the court building, but she, also, was not allowed even to see him in court.
In a procedure common in Israeli courts, during the appeal hearing Shabak agents met the judge alone, without the presence of Abu Ghosh or his lawyer, to present him with their “secret evidence.” Neither the detainee, nor his lawyer, were allowed to know what it is all about. Finally, “surprise! surprise!”, both appeals were rejected.
Muhannad Abu Ghosh is a writer and an artist. His poignant satirical writing earned him many followers on social media. His book of short stories about the first intifada was printed by a publisher in Beirut. He is also known as one of the founders of Herak Haifa, a movement that played a pioneering role in the struggle for both Palestinian national rights and progressive social agenda over the last 10 years.
Muhannad Abu Ghosh – Image from Facebook
Looking at his Facebook page after his detention I found he was one of the relatively few dedicated activists who commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Arab spring with a promise that its message of freedom will never die. Over a picture of snow on Jabal al-Sheikh, he agonizes for the suffering of the Syrian people and the Palestinian people on both sides of the mountain.
Haifa is supposed to be the most “progressive” place under Israel’s apartheid. It is supposed to give an example of “coexistence” between Arab and Jews under Zionist rule. But it is only a thin disguise to the continuing rule of Jewish supremacy over the native Palestinian population. The secretive and lawless Shabak is the utmost authority in all that is connected to the Arab population. They hold a “file” for each citizen and regularly invite young Palestinians (activists and others) for “interviews” – designed to keep them away from any political protest. Around five activists from Herak spent weeks under harsh interrogation in the Shabak dungeons in Jelemeh. Some previous examples of such arrests were reported here and here and here.
In a declaration demanding the immediate release of Abu Ghosh, the Herak warned that by preventing him from meeting a lawyer, “his jailers aim to isolate him from the world and exert the utmost illegal pressure to break his steadfast spirit.” They mentioned that “he suffers from chronic back pain as a result of torture during previous arrests.”
The Herak’s declaration ends by calling “on all Palestinian national and democratic forces, all human rights institutions and all people with a live conscience, to act quickly for the release of comrade Muhannad Abu Ghosh.”
* * *
Added on Thursday, January 28
Persecution for keeping Palestinians connected
The detention of Abu Ghosh was widely reported in the Palestinian and Arab press. Even though he was not officially charged, the press reported that he is detained on the background of contacting “a foreign agent”. Many writers noted that, for Palestinians under the 1948 occupation, to keep connection with Palestinians in other localities can easily be regarded by the occupation forces as “contact with foreign agents”. One writer titled his response to the detention “Muhannad Abu Ghosh is detained for contacting Muhannad Abu Ghosh”.
United solidarity action across borders
Herak Haifa and other groups of Palestinian activists from around the world called for a united solidarity action in social media on Friday, January 29, at 19:30 Al-Quds time. The common activity of Palestinian activists from different geographies is design to protest the detention of Abu Ghosh and to prove that the connections between Palestinians is their natural right and would never be broken by the occupation, walls, borders and persecution. The invitation in Arabic is posted below.
(The following article appeared today in Mondoweiss)
Tuesday, November 3rd, will be the 100th day of the hunger strike of Maher al-Akhras. That is, if he will still be alive. His body, deprived of all the vital ingredients for life except for water, is betraying him ever more. He shivers and trembles, suffers from all kinds of pains and sometimes loses his consciousness.
Israel is now waging a deadly campaign, over al Akhras’ decaying body, to rob the Palestinians of their weapon of last resort – hunger strikes. This weapon, which involves endless suffering and dangers, is anyway only used against the harshest and most brutal cases of injustice, like, in al-Akhras’ case, against administrative detention, a detention without indictment, without trial and without an expiration date.
Maher’s challenge to his torturers constitutes a uniting focus for Palestinian struggle in these dark days when it seems that the world hardly notices. Solidarity events were held all over Palestine, on both sides of the green line, and for tomorrow there is a central demonstration planned in front of the Kaplan hospital, where he is held against his will.
As he explained all through his hunger strike, al-Akhras is not striking for his personal freedom but as part of the Palestinian people’s struggle for liberty. The readiness of the striker to suffer, to scarify and to put his life in danger, help to draw solidarity and to concentrate minds. But the goal of the hunger striker and of his supporters is to get him free and alive. For this reason, as his medical condition is deteriorating, Maher is ready to stop his trike with a symbolic step to freedom by being transferred from the Israeli hospital to a Palestinian hospital, still under the same occupation. But, in a twist of events, it seems that the Israeli authorities are trying to use the opportunity and push Maher to his death as a “lesson” for Palestinians in general that their lives have no value at all.
The hierarchy of the Shabak state
The people that decided to put Maher al-Akhras under administrative detention, like many other hundreds of Palestinians every year, has no names and no faces. They are the agents of the all-powerful “Shabak” – the Hebrew acronym for General Security Service (GSS) – which, as far as the Palestinian population is regarded, is running the show unimpeded like a criminal gang.
I read the official protocol of what is called Israel’s “high court of justice”, in its hearing on October 28th, hearing al-Akhras’ lawyer appeal against his detention. The judges describe how “after hearing the arguments of the parties, we held a hearing with one side, with the consent of the petitioner, beyond closed doors, looked at the material presented to us by the security elements, we had a conversation and views-exchange with them.” To describe this “conversation and views-exchange” they use a very special Hebrew phrase, “sig va-siah” (שיג ושיח), that is sometimes translated to “powwow”, implying a special closeness. Unlike “the parties”, whose names appear at the head of the protocol, those “elements” that the judges throw everybody out of the court for a “get together” with them, are not mentioned by name, not even by the name of the organization that sent them.
And what did the “honorable” judges learned from their get together with those nameless elements? In a previous hearing they were presented with a false translation (as exposed in Haaretz) of an interview that al Akhras gave from his hospital bed. On the last hearing, they only say that “in the bottom line we have come to the conclusion that there is not in the petitioner’s arguments any medical advantage in transferring him to al-Makassed Hospital in East Jerusalem, over leaving him at Kaplan Hospital.” And this conclusion comes at the continuation of the very same sentence describing the “get together” with the “elements”!
So, as far as Israel’s “high court of justice” is concern, the Shabak is not only responsible to know how “dangerous” Palestinians are, but also what is best for their health… No doubt, the Shabak “medical” experts found that it is better for Maher al-Akhras to die in confinement at an Israeli hospital (where he refuses any treatment) than to have his life saved at a Palestinian hospital (even if under occupation).
You are not detained so you can’t be freed
The “legal” pretext that is supposed to justify administrative detention is that it is not a punishment for any offence, but a preventive measure against imminent “danger”. In an attempt to save face, the same court decided, on September 23, to suspend al Akhras’ detention as “in his current medical condition he doesn’t constitute a danger, so that the preventive intent of his detention doesn’t currently exist.” But they also decided that he should “stay in the same hospital where he is” and that in case that his medical conditions will improve his administrative detention may be resumed.
On September 30, the court refused another appeal to abolish al Akhras’ detention claiming that he is not under detention. So, on what basis is he held against his will in the Kaplan hospital? They claimed that, as his detention might be resumed, it will be hard for the all mighty occupation to bring him again from his home or from a Palestinian hospital. So, he is not detained but must stay in the Kaplan hospital just in case the faceless people would decide to detain him again.
On Friday, October 23, (as we reported in Mondoweiss before) the hospital management tried to get rid of the uninvited ghost and release itself from the role that was imposed on it as a jail keeper for a potential detainee. The security apparatus renewed the administrative detention, even though al-Akhras’ medical condition has much deteriorated since the court decided to suspend it, and declared its intention to drag him back to Ramleh prison. This intention was blocked by the court on the same day – and the status quo of limbo leading to slow death was restored.
The punishment for hunger strike is death
On October 12, during another appeal against al-Akhras’ detention, the judges suggested a “compromise”. As his detention was initially set for four months, ending on November 26, they suggested that the detention order will not be renewed after this date. They left an open door for a common Israeli cheat, as they added “if there would not be new information about the danger that he constitutes.” But they demanded that, in order not to renew the detention, al-Akhras will immediately stop his hunger strike. They actually stated, written black on white in the “high court of injustice” protocols, that al-Akhras may be punished with another administrative detention for the crime of starving himself as a protest against his detention.
Armed with more medical evidence about the imminent danger to al-Akhras’ life, lawyer Ahlam Haddad appeared again in the “high court of justice” on October 28. This time, to prevent any excuses of possible hardship to supervise or re-arrest her client, she suggested to transfer him to (the Palestinian) al-Makassed hospital in East Jerusalem, that is under strict Israeli occupation and, according to Israeli annexation laws, an integral part of Israel proper.
Contrary to all logic and law, the judges didn’t bring any reason why Maher al-Akhras should not be allowed to choose the hospital in which he will be treated. In the reverse – the very fact that he is putting his life in danger for his right to get out of the hospital where he was brought and held against his will is their main reason to keep him there. They write: “The petitioner’s claim that in one hospital he “chooses” to go on a hunger strike but not so in another hospital, does not justify granting his request. The petitioner did not bring any reason why the respondent should be required to transfer him to another hospital”.
The judges, or, as we can understand from their own description in the protocol, in fact the Shabak, were stubborn in their insistence that Maher al Akhras should die rather than have even the smallest symbolic achievement to show for his hunger strike.
Maher al-Akhras, on hunger strike since his administrative detention on July 27, is waging an uneven battle against the mighty Israeli occupation apparatus. Every quite day brings him closer to death, with Israel trying to prove through his case that the life of Palestinians, like their freedom and human rights, are worth nothing. But the formidable insistence of Mr. al-Akhras that his hunger strike is against the principle of administrative detention, and that he would stop his strike only when free or martyr, is mobilizing more and more people to his support. Last Friday, on the 89 day of his hunger strike, it seemed that his Israeli torturers lost their nerve.
Short History
On the August 27, after he completed the first month of his hunger strike, Maher was transferred from the Ofer military prison to the central clinics of the Israeli “Prisons Service” in Ramleh prison. It is an institute with a very bad reputation called by the prisoners “a graveyard for the living”. On September 9, after farther deterioration in his medical condition, the prison’s doctors said they can’t treat him anymore and he was transferred to Kaplan hospital, a civilian institution in the town of Rehovot.
As Mr. al-Akhras continues his hunger strike, and as his body becomes ever more fragile, his lawyer Ahlam Haddad applied several times to Israel’s High Court to demand his immediate release. As usual in such cases, the high court judges heard the “secret accusations” against Mr. Akhras from the security services officers behind closed doors, without disclosing them to the prisoner or his lawyer, and refused to void the detention decree. However, on September 22, taking into account Mr. Akhras’ medical condition, they decided that in his current situation he couldn’t constitute any “danger to state security”. On this basis they suspended his detention, but said that even as he is not a detainee, he can’t go back home or to a hospital in the West Bank, so that if his situation will improve and the security services will want to renew his detention, he will be easy to get.
Still actually detained as “potential-administrative-detainee” in Kaplan hospital, Maher’s wife joined him in the hospital, there were several demonstrations in solidarity with him from of the hospital and his hospital bed became a point of attraction and pilgrimage for solidarity activists.
Prisoner Re-Arrested
On Friday, October 23, the occupation authorities informed Mr. Akhras’ lawyer that the Kaplan hospital is not ready to keep him, due to the fact that he refuses their medical treatment and claiming that his visitors endanger other patients with viruses. They renewed his administrative detention and said Mr. Akhras was transferred again to the Ramleh prison clinic. This contradicts the High Court decision given on September 22, more than a month ago, that in his current medical situation Mr. Akhras doesn’t constitute any danger. Since then he was on hunger strike and there are clear medical reports about his deteriorating health to the level of imminent danger to his life or to permanent damage to his body systems. It also contradicts the prison medics themselves that stated on September 9 than they can’t treat him.
Lawyer Haddad immediately turned to the high court again, asking both to stop the prison authorities from moving Mr. Akhras to the prison clinics (it came out that he was not transferred yet), to abolish the renewal of the administrative detention and to order his immediate release based on his deteriorating health. On Friday their struggle won a small victory in the court, which ordered to suspend Mr. Akhras’ transfer and leave him in Kaplan hospital until the deliberations. The main plea is expected to be heard on Sunday, October 25.
Torturing the family
On Saturday afternoon, Maher’s family, his mother on wheelchair, his wife and three of their six children arrived in the Kaplan hospital to see their beloved son husband and father. They couldn’t come from their home in Silat a-Dhahr, near Jenin, in the permanently sieged West Bank, without special security clearance.
But, as they came, the prison guards now surrounding the patients’ room prevented them from entering even to have a glance of their dear one. The mother and the kids didn’t see Maher since he was arrested three month ago. Now, as there is an immediate danger to his life, this stubborn insistence by the guards was heart breaking.
The family and some of their supporters, including Knesset member Ofer Cassif from the “Joint list”, announced that they will be on hunger strike in the hospital until they will be allowed to meet Maher.
Widening Solidarity
Despite the harsh political conditions and powerful distractions, there is a growing wave of solidarity actions with Maher al-Akhras.
The previous Saturday (October 17) there was a demonstration in Haifa, called by prisoners’ support activists and by Herak Haifa. The main street of the German Colony was closed and one activist was arrested. On Monday there was a central demonstration called by the “high coordination committee” – the united leadership of all Palestinian parties and movements in the 48 territories – near the Megiddo prison in the north.
When the news came of Maher’s transfer to the Ramleh prison clinics, activists immediately declared a vigil for Saturday in front of the Ramleh prison. When the news came later that Maher is actually still in the Kaplan hospital, the demonstration was extended – after finishing in Ramleh the demonstrators gathered again in front of the hospital.
Maher’s Will
On Saturday morning Mr. Akhras’ lawyer, Ahlam Haddad, visited him in the Kaplan hospital. She wrote down his words, describing Friday’s events and expressing his last wishes for his funeral and for the future of his people. Here is a translation to English of his words as she wrote them:
“This report that I write is in the words of prisoner Maher al-Akhras, who has been on hunger strike for 90 days, when I visited him today, Saturday morning, he says: “Yesterday 23-10-2020, 12 o’clock a force of prison guards, security service agents and hospital guards entered. They forced my wife to exit the room so I was left alone. Three prison guards got me out of the bed. I don’t know if it was on purpose or not, but they removed their grip and I fell on the ground on my face. Then they carried me and took me in a wheelchair to room 303 in the same department.
“At around 2pm, from the intensity of anger of what happened, I felt a strong headache, stress in my heart and severe pain throughout the body, the first time I felt these aches. My whole body shuddered and I did not hear anything and did not see anything. The medical staff gathered around me. According to what I remember, I told them not to touch me, I do not want you to treat me, and not to approach me. I don’t know what happened after that. I just woke up with the doctor next to me trying to wake me up and it was five in the afternoon. Three hours passed while I was unconscious.
“Today I feel very weak, my body shivering and trembling. I hardly can focus, talk or see. I feel stress on my heart.
“Maher’s message and will:
“I ask that my mother, my wife and my children will visit me.
“I do not want to die in Kaplan and I do not want them to help me. If they want to help me, let them take me to a hospital in the West Bank. I want to die among my family and my children.
“I do not want them to put me in the refrigerator and not to dissect my body at all, neither here nor in the West Bank.
“I want the veteran prisoners who wages the battle through hunger strikes and the families of the martyrs to carry my coffin.
“My will to my people is to protect the homeland.”
In ordinary trials, after a defendant has finished serving his or her sentence, one can safely assume that the legal drama is over. There is nothing ordinary, however, about the trial of Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour.
Although she was released on September 20 from a five-month prison sentence, on top of two and a half years under house arrest imposed on her as “danger to the public” during the trial, she continues her legal battle against her conviction of incitement to violence and support for a terrorist organization. On December 25, the Nazareth District Court convened to consider the appeal filed by Tatour’s attorney Gaby Lasky.
Consultation during a break in the hearing: Gaby Lasky, Einat Weizman and Dareen Tatour
The great human drama of imprisonment has already moved to other places. On the same day that the appeal was heard, Sheikh Sayah a-Turi, the leader of the struggle against the evacuation of the village of Al-Araqeeb in the Naqab (Negev), entered Ramleh Prison. Many of the activists who had accompanied Dareen to the numerous hearings of her trial were there to accompany him.
But Tatour’s trial continues to stir up the cultural circles in Israel and serve as a front line in the war between those who defend freedom of expression and the authorities who try to prevent any artistic expression of resistance to the occupation. At the latest act in this struggle, “Culture” Minister Miri Regev has prevented the display of Tatour’s poem “Resist My People“, that was at the center of the indictment against her, in an exhibition in Jerusalem called Barbarism, which deals with censorship.
Poetry and red lines
The trial’s protocol presents a lengthy monologue by defense attorney Gaby Lasky, who spared no effort to prove that the accusations against Tatour are unfounded and should be rejected, followed by a contradictory monologue by state attorney Avital Sharoni. But the drama that was played in the courtroom rolled out differently. The panel included three judges of the District Court, headed by Judge Ester Hellman. It seems that there was a division of labor between the judges, so that one of them, Judge Yifat Shitrit, studied the file in advance and led the discussion throughout the hearing. Already at the beginning, she clarified that the court intends to stick to the criterion of criminal law according to which “if there is doubt – there is no doubt.” As if to say that if Tatour’s words could be interpreted differently than what the indictment attributed to her, she should be acquitted.
The court’s schedule: Tatour against the state of Israel
Attorney Lasky tried to concentrate all her arguments on the importance of freedom of political and artistic expression, which are not only the rights of the individual but also the soul of democracy and vital to society as a whole. The judges tried to direct her in a different direction and requested her to define herself when a poem might cross the boundaries of the criminal law. After lengthy negotiations, Lasky declared that, according to her belief, and also according to the defense expert Professor Nissim Calderon, the state should not apply the criminal law to poetry. She admitted that the law itself does not provide such protection for poetry, but it sets definitions of criminal expression that include “direct call to violent action” or, in case of an indirect call, “real possibility” that a violent act might be realized as a result. She made clear that Tatour did not publish any call for violent action and the prosecution did not bring even a shred of evidence that her publications might have inspired any violent act.
Finally, Lasky mentioned that she knew of only one previous case in which a poet was accused in Israel of incitement following a poem he wrote. This was the case against the poet Shafiq Habib from Deir Hanna in the early 1990s, following his poems dedicated to “the stones’ children” from the first intifada. Habib was convicted in the Acre Magistrate’s Court but was later acquitted in the Haifa District Court.
Understanding the intention of the poet
The judges seemed to be trying to examine the meaning of the poem’s words, especially the line “Follow the caravan of martyrs,” which Judge Adi Bambiliya-Einstein, who convicted Tatour, interpreted as calling for suicide operations. Two of the justices, Helman and Shitrit, first demonstrated the prevailing prejudice among the Jewish public as if the word “shahid” could be interpreted as a “suicide bomber”. But here came the third judge, Sa’eb Dabour, who relied on his personal knowledge of the Arabic language and explained that the word shahid refers to people who died under various circumstances, including innocent victims of the conflict.
After settling the dispute over the meaning of the word shahid, the judges again discussed the context of the line within the poem. They recognized that all the martyrs mentioned in the poem, such as Hadil Al Hashlamoun and Ali Dawabsheh, were victims of the occupation and were not killed due to violent action on their part.
At a certain stage, apparently in the middle of the defense arguments, the judges requested to watch the video containing the poem, as submitted to the court as part of the evidence. The state-of-the-art video equipment that was prepared in advance did not work, and everyone took a long break until the technical staff fixed the problem. When we returned from the break and the video was finally played, the judges seemed to have changed their minds again. During the trial, the prosecution argued, and the judge repeated this in the ruling, that the video shows violent activity that casts on the meaning of the poem. The prosecution also emphasized the dramatic music accompanying the video. Now the District Court judges also expressed their opinion that the music increases the effect of the poem and the video.
Attorney Lasky insisted that the video presents a daily reality of a violent clash between the army and the population under the occupation, the same harsh reality that constitutes the background to the poem’s writing. The poet’s statement, Lasky claimed, should be sought in the words of the poem itself. The prosecutor repeated the claim that the video showed “stone throwing and Molotov cocktails” and Laski corrected her that there are no Molotov cocktails, and that the violence in the video is at the low threshold of what we regularly see in the news. At a certain stage, when the prosecutor and the judges repeatedly talked about the violence that the Palestinians were using in the video, Lasky couldn’t hold herself and recalled that while the Palestinian youths were throwing stones, the soldiers fired at them: “What is more violent?” she asked. After a long argument it seemed that the judges are ready to accept the possibility that the video is the background and does not necessarily constitute a statement by the poet.
Consent or decision
The judges hinted to both sides that they should better reach an agreement that the charge against the poem “Resist My People” would be canceled, but the poet’s conviction in the two other statements mentioned in the indictment, which are non-poetic statuses on Facebook, will remain in place. This would ostensibly erase the disgrace that was imposed on the State of Israel and its judicial system as someone who persecuted and imprisoned poets – but the poet herself, who was persecuted and imprisoned, will continue to bear the blame. The judges explained that this is also the poet’s interest – since she wants to continue writing poems. By stipulating that the poem did not exceed the criminal limit, it will remove or at least distance the whip that threatens the freedom of artistic expression.
Dareen Tatour and Gaby Lasky – Optimist after the appeal hearing
The judges will wait for the parties’ response to the compromise proposal, and if this is not accepted, they would announce a later date for a decision on the appeal.
The unfairness of the proposed compromise is striking: One of the statuses of which Tatour was convicted is the inscription “I am the next Shahid” – published in protest against the murder of the boy Muhammad Abu Khdeir. In this context, her claim that the publication is a protest against the murder of innocent people is even more obvious.
Nevertheless, we went out with the feeling that if the indictment against the poem would be canceled it will constitute a certain victory for freedom of speech and the devoted struggle of Dareen Tatour and the many activists and artists who stood by her in the long struggle against the regime’s persecutions.
The remand hearing in the trial of Raja Eghbarieh, former secretary-general of Abnaa al-Balad movement, who is accused of “incitement to terrorism” following publications on Facebook, has become a fascinating legal battle that raises fundamental questions about the policy of the Israeli police and prosecution regarding the freedom of expression of Palestinian citizens of Israel.
(Call for international solidarity with Raja Eghbarieh in English and Spanish)
Raja Eghbarieh entering the court in the remand hearing on October 7, 2018
Eghbarieh was arrested on September 11 from his home in Umm Al-Fahm and charged with incitement and identification with a terrorist organization in the Haifa Magistrates Court. The indictment relates to 10 publications that appeared on his personal Facebook page between July 2017 and July 2018. On October 2, Judge Maria Pikus Bogdanov held a hearing on the prosecution’s request to keep Eghbarieh in detention until the end of the legal proceedings against him. The defense lawyers objected forcefully and the prosecutor could not answer many of their arguments. Finally, the judge ordered the prosecution to respond in writing and set an additional hearing for Sunday, October 7.
The hearing took place in the large hall on the “minus 2” basement floor, next to the detention cells, where remand hearings routinely takes place every day. The hall was crowded. Since the prosecution’s representatives have already submitted their arguments in writing, we first heard the defense team, headed by Attorney Hassan Jabareen, the founder and director of Adalah, and including also Attorneys Omar Khamaisi from “The Al-Mizan Center for Human Rights” and Rabea Eghbariah and Afnan Khalifa from Adalah, responding to the prosecution’s arguments that we did not hear. The judge, who read them, apparently didn’t find answers to the questions she had asked the prosecutor at the previous hearing. After the defense finished, she once again tried to extract answers from the prosecutor, so that we finally understood what he could not answer.
Systematic discrimination in enforcement policy
The most important and fundamental issue raised by the defense was the discrimination in the prosecution’s policy regarding the filing of applications for detention until the end of proceedings in cases of incitement. In the previous session, the defense presented a large number of cases in which Jewish defendants were accused of incitement to violence against Arabs or calls to harm soldiers (against the background of the evacuation of illegal outposts). In all these cases, the prosecution did not even request the detention of the defendants until the end of the proceedings. Finally, the judge asked the prosecutor whether he could point to even one case in which the prosecution requested the detention of a Jewish defendant in incitement until the end of proceedings.
“Free Raja Eghbarieh!” protest vigil before the remand hearing, in front of the Haifa court, October 7, 2018
In the written answers submitted to the court, the prosecution mentioned one case in which a Jew who was charged with incitement was arrested until the end of proceedings. Adalah’s team, however, examined the facts, and Attorney Jabareen explained to the court that in this case, the charge of incitement was only a small part of what was attributed to the defendant, which included actual rioting and damage to property. The decision to detain him until the end of proceedings was explicitly based on his dangerousness as someone who caused actual damage, and not the theoretical danger stemming from the incitement.
The obvious conclusion from the State’s response, Jabareen stressed, from their failure to present even one case in which the detention of a Jewish defendant for incitement was requested, is that the claim of discrimination is now clearly and positively proved.
Never mind what is really written – it is incitement anyway
In the previous session, the defense presented a series of objections to the translation of the publications as they appear in the indictment in Hebrew. Since both the judge and the prosecution representative do not know Arabic, the judge requested the prosecutor to examine the matter. The prosecution’s response to those objections, which covers most of the seven pages of the document they submitted, can be summed up in four words: “It does not matter.” According to them, if the translation is correct or not, in any case it is incitement. In one specific case, regarding a post about the funerals of three young men from Umm Al-Fahm who killed two Israeli policemen in the Al-Aqsa compound and were later killed, the prosecution said it did not matter if the post said that “the martyr must be respected” or “we have to convey condolence to the families” – it is incitement anyway.
Attorney Jabareen stressed that the wording of the posts is the crux of the indictment, and in the absence of a reliable translation, the entire validity of the indictment is undermined. The judge, for her part, said that despite the defense’s reservations about the translation, some of the publications in the indictment appear to her as severe. But she didn’t accept the prosecution’s claim that “it does not matter” and asked the prosecutor whether the prosecution had examined the defense’s claims regarding the misleading translation. The prosecutor didn’t know what to answer and was requested to find out. After some time he came back with an answer. According to him, the translation was not reexamined following the defense’s arguments, since re-translation is an act of investigation and “you don’t carry out investigation operations after the filing of an indictment.”
Only one of the ten posts mentioned in the indictment can be seen, according to the quotes mentioned in the indictment, as direct support for violence. It is a video from the funeral of the three young men from Umm Al-Fahm, which Eghbarieh shared on the anniversary of their death. According to the prosecution, a song is playing in the background that includes the words “Spread bullets in the doors of Al-Aqsa”. Eghbarieh didn’t photograph and didn’t edit the video but only shared it like many others. He said he had never heard those words mentioned in the background. The judge asked the prosecutor whether there is a full transcription of the background song as part of the evidence. He could not answer. Finally the defense pulled a rabbit out of the hat. The volunteer lawyer Afnan Khalifa, who is working on the case in the Adalah team, found a memo from an Arab policeman who watched the video, describing “a background song whose words are hard to understand.”
Dangerous for the purpose of detention
The reasoning behind the prosecution’s request to extend the detention of Eghbarieh until the end of the proceedings is his claimed “dangerousness”. The danger, according to the prosecution, is that he might publish more “inciting” posts. According to them, the only way to prevent this is to hold him in custody and there is no need to even examine alternatives to full detention. The prosecution is used to the common practice where the very mention of the word “terrorism” in the indictment leads us to the fast track to unlimited detention without the need for lengthy arguments. The defense’s great battle in this case is to block the spread of the practice of automatic detention until the end of proceedings, so that it will not take over also the domain of “offenses” which are mainly about freedom of expression.
Raja Eghbarieh’s supporters gather in the entrance to the courtroom. On the front: Lawyer Afnan Khalifa updating family members.
The defense attacked the police’s claim of “dangerousness” by using the behavior of the police during the investigation. They stressed the fact that since the investigation began in February 2018, and for months when the posts were public and known to the police, it took no action to remove the alleged “danger”, and postponed the detention of Eghbarieh until September 9. The judge asked for explanations on this matter, but in its written response the prosecution related to this issue by mere four and a half vague lines out of 7 pages. The judge asked the prosecutor again whether he could provide explanations, and he answered that “Madam knows, this is how the system works.”
Finally, the judge ordered the examination of the “alternative to detention” that the defense offers. The defense insisted that in her opinion there was no justification for detention until the end of proceedings, nor for an alternative to detention, but finally offered four members from Eghbarieh’s family who could “supervise” him under house arrest. From their interrogation in court we learned of a new procedure – to require the custodians to deposit their cell phones with the police before they appear for the job… this in addition to the house being cut off from any connection to the network.
On the way, we heard again about the health problems Eghbarieh, who is 66, suffers from. The Israel Prison Service refused to provide him with a blood pressure medication that he regularly took and gave him an inappropriate replacement drug that caused him to be hospitalized for one day.
Prior to the hearing itself, a protest vigil was held in front of the court building with the participation of about fifty Palestinian activists from all the local Arab parties demanding the release of Eghbarieh. They claimed that his arrest was part of a campaign of political persecutions intended to dangerously farther limit the freedom of expression and organization of Palestinian citizens of Israel as a whole.
Finally, after all the “victories” in proving the discrimination in the enforcement policy, exposing the clumsiness and contempt of the prosecution with regard to the translation and lack of explanations about the delays in the interrogation, it seemed that the greatest relief that could be hoped from this court was the extension of detention until the end of the proceedings, that might be substituted with house arrest under severe limitations. In any event, the judge postponed the decision for next Monday and sent Eghbarieh to another week in detention.
(A somewhat shorter version of this article appeared today in “+972”. A Hebrew version appeared in “Local Call” and “Haifa Ha-Hofshit”)
Raja Eghbarieh, former secretary-general of the Abnaa al-Balad movement, was arrested from his home in Umm Al-Fahm on September 11, the second day of the Jewish New Year holiday. On Thursday, September 20, he was indicted in the Haifa magistrates court of “incitement to terror” and “identification with a terrorist organization”, based on 10 different posts on his personal Facebook page. Together with the indictment the prosecution filed a request for an unlimited remand of his detention – “until the end of the legal proceedings”. On Tuesday, October 2, the first day after Sukkot, the remand request was heard.
Comrade Raja Eghbarieh in the Haifa court, October 2, 2018
In the political “dead” season, when most activists are preoccupied with the local elections, Eghbarieh’s detention and trial was a reminder for the Arab society of the continuing attack on free speech and space for political activity and a series of solidarity actions were organized. On Saturday, September 29, a wide range of political activists from all the Arab parties and movements participated in protest vigils that were called by “The High Follow-Up Committee for Arab citizens of Israel” in Umm al-Fahm, Nazareth and Sakhnin. On Monday, October 1, the Arab Palestinian population commemorated the martyrs of the October 2000 intifada by a general strike and a central demonstration in the town of Jatt in the triangle. But just as that demonstration finished, some of the activists rushed to another protest rally in the center of Shfa’amer for the release of Eghbarieh and against political persecution. More solidarity actions were held in the West Bank, Gaza and several European cities. (Call for international solidarity is here.)
On Tuesday, October 2, Judge Maria Pikus Bogdanov heard the request to extend the detention of Eghbarieh until the end of legal proceedings. The outcome of this hearing can be decisive for the entire case, as legal proceedings can take years. When the defendant is in detention during the trial, he is under pressure to agree to a “plea bargain” rather than to conduct a protracted legal battle over his innocence, which might result in detention for longer time than the sentence itself. (Actually the natural response of the court is to sentence the accused at least for the period that he has already spent in prison.) House arrest can also paralyze the life of the defendant and take a high price from those who are certified to be his custodians, who must be confined to him for a long time, and, if the defendant is convicted, the time spent under house arrest is not considered part of the punishment.
Vigil in front of the Haifa court before the remand hearing – October 2, 2018
The Follow-Up Committee called for a protest vigil in front of the Haifa court before the remand hearing – and about 100 Palestinian activists responded to the call, including prominent leaders from Balad (three Knesset members) and the Islamic Movement. At the appointed time the slogans were folded and the activists entered the court building – but it turned out that the hearing took place in a rather small room and most of the supporters remained waiting for hours in the corridor. The court’s guards, aided by the dark uniformed policemen of the “anti-riot” unit, were not satisfied with just “maintaining order,” but forbade other supporters to enter the courtroom instead of those who left, and at one point even cleared the corridor of the audience and prevented anyone from approaching the area.
In the courtroom itself, a reinforced team of lawyers stood up to try to prevent the detention from being extended indefinitely. The team was led by Attorney Hassan Jabareen, founder and head of the Adalah Center, accompanied by Attorney Rabea Eghbariah of Adalah, Attorney Omar Khamaisi of Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and lawyers Hussein Abu Hussein, Afnan Khalifa and Ahmad Khalefa. Due to the importance of the discussion, they decided to “go the full length,” while taking the risk of exposing the line of defense even before the beginning of the trial, and discussed in detail each of the ten publications that are mentioned in the indictment. They objected to the translation that was supplied by the prosecution and stressed the explanations given by Eghbarieh in his interrogation. Their main claim was that all the publications do not call for violence, but constitute a legitimate expression of political analysis and opinions, and therefore the indictment itself is baseless.
Free Raja Eghbarieh vigil in Ramallah on October 2, 2018
In some cases, the defense attorneys pointed out specific words that were added, under the guise of translation, into the Hebrew version, but did not exist in the Arab source – in order to add “aggressive” tone. In other cases they presented an alternative translation of the same texts – which gives them different meaning. The defense attorneys also noted that the prosecution is bringing the texts in the indictment in Hebrew without specifying who translated them. They complained that the evidence doesn’t include the testimony of an expert on the translation. The prosecutor and the judge do not know Arabic, and finally the judge requested the prosecutor to bring written comments to the claims regarding the misleading translation.
In the context of the explanations of the legitimacy of the publications, it is worth noting the discussion about one publication, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the death of George Habash, the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and one of the most prominent and influential figures in the history of the Arab left in general. Attorney Jabareen mentioned that the publication focuses on Habash’s activity to establish a research center, rather than any violent activity, and wondered how such a publication could be interpreted as identification with a terrorist organization. He noted that Eghbarieh himself, along with other leaders of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, has appealed in the past to the Israeli “High Court of Justice”, demanding the right to hold a memorial conference for Habash in Nazareth. The request was denied on the grounds of “fear of violence,” but it was not claimed that holding of a memorial service for Habash is by itself illegal.
The first posts that are mentioned in the indictment relate to the attack from July 2017 by three armed Palestinians from Umm Al-Fahm who killed two Israeli policemen near the Al-Aqsa mosques in occupied East Jerusalem, before being killed themselves. The indictment brings long translations of the posts in Hebrew but doesn’t specify what specifically is, in their view, “illegal” in each post. While the posts don’t express support for the armed attack, it seems that the very use of the word martyrs (“shuhada” in Arabic), the analysis of their motives and their expression of grief at their death is regarded as unlawful.
Another post in the indictment is a picture from the commemoration at the first anniversary to the killing of Bassel Al-A’araj, who was shot by Israeli soldiers in Ramallah. Al-A’araj was well known as an independent activist and an ideologue of the youth protest movements in the West Bank. The indictment claims he was a member of the PFLP and performed terrorist attacks at the order of Hezbollah.
Another issue that was emphasized by the defense was the fact that the investigation against Eghbarieh was conducted for many months (apparently from February 2018) and that this meant that his publications were available on the Internet and accessible to all for months (some even more than a year), and that the police were aware of them long before they arrested the defendant. Moreover, the police issued an arrest warrant against Eghbarieh on August 7, 2018, but arrested him only more than a month later, on September 11. The police did nothing to warn Eghbarieh or remove the publications, neither following their appearance nor even after his arrest. The prosecution now claims that his release, even under restrictive conditions, constitutes a “danger to the public” because he might publish other publications.
At the end of its arguments, the defense brought a long list of cases in which Jewish defendants were accused of incitement to violence against Arabs and even of incitement to harm IDF soldiers against the background of the evacuation of settlements that the state recognized as illegal. In those cases there were direct and explicit calls for violent action, which did not exist in the publications attributed to Eghbarieh. In some cases the prosecution even showed a direct connection between the incitement and violent acts that followed. Nevertheless, in all the cases brought by the defense, the state did not request detention until the end of legal proceedings.
Solidarity with Raja Eghbarieh – Gaza – October 2, 2018
At the end of the hearing, the judge seemed to take the defense arguments seriously, and asked the prosecutor harsh questions. The prosecutor did not know Arabic and couldn’t relate to questions about the translation. He also did not know how to explain why the police waited so long between the time they became aware of the publications and until they decided to act against them. With regard to the claim of discrimination in enforcement and the avoidance of the arrest of Jews who are accused of incitement, he tried to argue that this is a completely different clause in the law and that there is no place for comparison – but the judge didn’t seem to be convinced by his argument. Finally the judge sent him to consult and reply in writing by Thursday. Another hearing on the remand request was scheduled for Sunday, October 7, at 14:00.
Before the meeting ended, Attorney Jabareen managed to complain that since the arrest of Eghbarieh three weeks ago, the Israel Prison Service has prevented his family from entering clothes for him to change. The judge wrote down a decision instructing the Israel Prison Service to allow it. There is a stinking smell in the Israeli “justice” system, and apparently it is not just the prisoners’ clothes.
For more information on solidarity activities, see the Facebook page “Free Raja Eghbarieh“.
El 11 de septiembre de 2018, Raja Eghbarieh fue arrestado desde su casa en Umm Al-Fahm, en 1948 Palestina. Su detención fue dos veces renovada y la fiscalía israelí anunció que lo imputarían el jueves 20 de septiembre. Según las audiencias durante la prisión preventiva, todos los “delitos” del camarada Eghbarieh son sus mensajes en su página de Facebook, que según la acusación israelí contienen “incitación a la violencia”. El camarada Eghbarieh explicó en el tribunal que todos sus mensajes son una expresión de una resistencia política legítima a la ocupación israelí y a los crímenes de guerra. La fiscalía declaró que solicitarán su detención por un período ilimitado hasta el final del juicio.
El camarada Eghbarieh es un miembro veterano del movimiento palestino de izquierda, Abnaa Al-Balad (“Hijos de la tierra”). Fue el primer secretario general del movimiento y sigue siendo uno de sus principales líderes.
El arresto y la condena de Raja Eghbarieh es parte de un modalidad de agresión continua del estado sionista contra la libertad de expresión y la organización de los árabes palestinos, también aquellos que formalmente tienen la ciudadanía israelí. Mientras que los activistas son interrogados y arrestados regularmente, en los últimos años vemos un intento orquestado de erradicar el marco de las organizaciones políticas y los movimientos sociales árabes. Comenzó con el Movimiento Islámico, declarado fuera de la ley en noviembre de 2015. Muchos de sus miembros fueron arrestados y sentenciados a prisión por delitos tales como organizar oraciones en la mezquita Al-Aqsa. Esta modalidad continúa con el ataque a la Alianza Democrática Nacional (Balad), ya que muchos de sus activistas fueron interrogados y hay una demanda constante entre los partidos sionistas para evitar que participe en las elecciones de la Knesset (parlamento israelí).
El movimiento Abnaa Al-Balad, que representa una línea más de izquierda y radical , boicoteó las elecciones a la Knesset, siendo perseguido muchas veces, y sus líderes y activistas fueron víctimas de arrestos y detención administrativa. Ahora la detención del camarada Eghbarieh apuntaría al derecho de expresar posiciones nacionales palestinas en Internet.
La solidaridad internacional es urgente y es la forma más importante de defensa del escaso margen de actividad política para los palestinos en Palestina de 1948, que se suponía que disfrutarían de “la única democracia en el Medio Oriente”. Los políticos israelíes y la opinión pública están abandonando cualquier apariencia de democracia, ya que todos los partidos sionistas compiten para promover el concepto colonialista de un estado “solo judío”. La opinión pública árabe es vista con desprecio por las autoridades israelíes.
El hecho de que Israel puede realizar todos éstos crímenes, se debe al apoyo constante de las potencias occidentales, que le suministran armas, dinero, acceso preferencial a los mercados e impunidad legal. Todos estos privilegios se otorgan en base a la mentira de que Israel es una democracia.
Para las organizaciones de izquierda y los demócratas sinceros, hay una razón especial para defender y apoyar a Abnaa Al-Balad. Este movimiento nunca se retiró del llamado palestino original para el establecimiento de un estado democrático secular en toda Palestina, para todos sus habitantes y como un marco para permitir el regreso de todos los refugiados palestinos. El ataque a Abnaa Al-Balad demuestra que el estado sionista, con todo su poderío militar, siente temor ante la sola idea de una solución democrática en Palestina.
Free Haifa 