As many of you already know, I am spending this year trying to learn as much as I can, and maximize my first hand experiences. I feel fortunate T’ruah has welcomed me to participate in some of their programming and trips for rabbinical students. I wish this program had been around when I was in Jerusalem for my year in rabbinical school 23 years ago.
Today, I skipped classes at Pardes to join T’ruah with their day at the military court with Military Court Watch – a very eye opening and horrifying experience.
In brief, the territories which Israel occupied in 1967 (except for Jerusalem which has been annexed) have a complicated, dual set of laws (or maybe triple) where Palestinians fall under military law (though in area a, where there is some self-government, sometimes, they fall under the Palestinian Authority) and the Jews fall under Israeli civil law. That means that if there is an altercation between Palestinians and Jews in the west bank, the soldiers can only arrest and question Palestinians and its the Israeli police who can arrest and question settlers (though the police are much more scarce). One big role assigned to the Israeli army is to keep Israeli citizens (which in the case of the territories means the settlers but not the Palestinians) safe. To do so, the Israeli army (aided by Israeli intelligence) have developed a pretty intense system of spreading fear, intimidation, reminding Palestinians who is in charge, incarceration and military hearings. The Palestinians most affected by this system of frequent middle of the night house raids, interrogation, being hauled in for questioning, incentives and threats to turn people into collaborators and incarceration are primarily Palestinians living in a town or village or refugee camp within 1 km of a Jewish settlement. This system targets the Palestinians most likely to hurt Israeli Jews which is male youth, as young as age 12. Less than 1% of those arrested are female and most of those are cases where girls were trying to get out of an unwanted home situation such as an arranged marriage or domestic violence and the female walked through a check point with a kitchen knife hoping to be arrested.
Military court watch collects testimony from families and victims about their experience in military court and jail and how they were arrested and tracks trends and advocates for Palestinians to be tried under conditions set up by the UN Geneva conventions such as access to a lawyer and being informed they have the right to remain silent and trials within 24 hours for minors.
Here is a typical scenario. A settler calls the army (the commander in charge of the region) to let them know there were Palestinian youth throwing stones (which can be lethal). The soldiers show up and usually those throwing stones will be gone but they may arrest other youth hanging out in the area. Or may do some nighttime raids and arrests (often based on info from collaborators) which typically happen between 2 and 4 am. During these raids, a group of soldiers (usually about ten) will either bang loudly on a door, or break it down or explode the door or use a technique with air pressure to silently enter the house and surprise sleeping Palestinians with guns pointed at them. Once in the home, the family is usually confined to one room where soldiers may ransack the home looking for weapons or take one of the men or teenage males to another room to interrogate him. Often this male is then handcuffed (they use a plastic tie equipment rather than regular handcuffs and it’s often reported the ties are too tight) and blindfolded and taken away by military vehicle. The family most often is not told what the crime is or where the youth is being taken. And usually within a few days (the time period is getting shorter now because of outside pressure), the youth will face his first military hearing and will be given an attorney (usually paid by either through the Palestinian Authority or by an NGO financially supported by a European country or a private lawyer) and the family will be informed. These military courts are adjacent to military prisons in the territories where the accused would we waiting.
Most often the youth, whether guilty or innocent, will plead guilty as then they will get a sentence of 4-6 months, plus a financial penalty (plus a criminal record) and then go free. Pleading innocent means awaiting a trial date (usually six months out) in prison as rarely is bail allowed. And then almost always the judge (who is also part of the army, often a lawyer doing his reserve duty) will rule the person is guilty and you have to serve your sentence on top of the time you already spent in prison waiting for your trial day.
There is an additional complexity of collaboration with all Palestinians fearing being considered a collaborator and suspicion that if you got an innocent ruling, you must be a collaborator.
There is a huge network of collaborators amongst the Palestinians. Some are bribed (with cash and work permits), some are threatened (perhaps that their father will lose his work permit and no longer be able to support the family), some are told their friends have already testified against them and got out free and they can too, and some break down because of the psychological torment they have been under (be it through interrogation, or prison or treatment by soldiers). The info obtained by collaborators is very important to isrseli intelligence. It also creates a fear amongst Palestinian society that they don’t know which of their neighbors, cousins, friends are trust worthy and who is a collaborator. All of this makes it harder to create organize resistance.
The youth complain of boredom in prison with little access to school or exercise or work or activities. The families of minors can visit twice a month (and can be very hard for families to get there as rarely is there public transportation) and for adults once a month. Families report that youth after they have been released come home different – more violent, more likely to drop out of school, depressed and anxious. Families report being in a state of constant anxiousness and sleeplessness – not knowing when they might face their next time raid. This is particularly true for Palestinians living near Israeli settlements and much less frequent for Palestinians living more than 1 km from Jewish settlements.
As part of our day, in addition to extensive briefings, we went to a military court and talked with two families who were there for their son/nephew/brother’s hearing and entered the court room to see some hearings. The hearings we saw were very quick, with little explanation, and lawyers quickly offering guilty pleas on behalf of their clients. While some of the trial was translated into Arabic, the guilty verdicts were written in Hebrew and not all the accused knew what they were signing.
It’s deeply upsetting getting a glimpse of this systemic system of terrorizing and intimidating Palestinians and seeing its effect on Palestinians individuals, families and society. It’s not surprising the intense hatred some harbor for Israelis. It’s also deeply upsetting the effect the occupation and intense system of control and intimidation of Palestinians has on the Israeli soldiers who are commanded to implement it. I have met many Israelis who told me they needed to flee Israel after their military service because of what they saw and/or were ordered to carry out. And I’ve also heard from many folks that they see negative effects from the occupation spilling over into all of Israel where there is a decrease in democratic values.
This system is highly successful at keeping the settlers safe – but are we comfortable with the price everyone else has to pay? How do we sit with a system of occupation that is now over 50 years that rules over a population who are not citizens and subject to thr intimidation and limitation of military law?