Solidarity tastes different inside prison"

Solidarity tastes different inside prison" 
Ameer Makhoul writing from Gilboa prison, Live from Palestine, 30 August 2010

Ameer Makhoul (Adri Nieuwhof)

The following is an edited excerpt from a 7 August 2010 letter written by Ameer Makhoul from Israeli prison. A human rights defender, the director of the Arab nongovernmental organization network Ittijah, a leading voice of the Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and a Palestinian citizen of Israel, Makhoul was arrested during a raid of his family home in Haifa in the early morning hours of 6 May. For the following eleven days Makhoul was held in isolation, denied access to a lawyer, and subjected to torture. Rights groups have condemned his political persecution and the criminal proceedings launched against him.

My trail is still somehow stuck. The system is structurally and politically Shabak-oriented, not justice-oriented. My human dignity, basic human rights and constitutional rights are suffering from basic violations. I still have no permit to meet my lawyers without being recorded. The ruling of the three judges is to justify the decision of the attorney general of Israel and the Shabak to ban free meeting with my lawyers in prison. The judges insist that such a meeting should be done through the glass separation wall and through a telephone in order to ensure recording of the whole conversation.

On its face the process as well as the procedures look fair, but essentially, systematic, structural and political violations of my basic right to fair procedure are practiced. The role of the attorney general is to criminalize me, not to seek truth.

In Gilboa prison there are approximately 600 Palestinian and Arab prisoners of freedom distributed into sections/branches. The distribution of prisoners is geopolitically oriented: prisoners of the West Bank, prisoners of 1948 (including occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights) are together, while in the prisons located in the Naqab [Negev], prisoners of the West Bank are separated from those from Gaza. And prisoners from Gaza are separated along affiliation to Fatah or Hamas. The borders on the ground of the occupation based on the Apartheid Wall are valid in the prison demographic policy of distribution. It is the nature of imposed fragmentation in order to undermine the struggle against one of the biggest systematic colonial crimes and to weaken the collective struggle by destructing its structure of continuity and interaction.

I am doing a lot of efforts to bring hope and steadfastness to freedom prisoners. It is one of my missions inside prison. I have to keep in contact with Ittijah and the community and all solidarity movements, groups and persons, but most of all I have to correspond intensively as much as possible with my daughters Hind and Huda, who have become mature fighters for freedom, justice and dignity and mostly bringing back the happiness of life which was highjacked on 6 May at 2:30am. My wife Janan is leading in a heroic way the whole campaign as well as facing huge tasks at home.

Your letters are needed; the taste of solidarity is different in prison than being outside. The taste reflects the great solidarity, support and 

Ameer Makhoul: “Solidarity tastes different inside prison”-Ameer Makhoul writing from Gilboa prison, Live from Palestine - 30 August 2010

The following is an edited excerpt from a 7 August 2010 letter written by Ameer Makhoul from Israeli prison. A human rights defender, the director of the Arab nongovernmental organization network Ittijah, a leading voice of the Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and a Palestinian citizen of Israel, Makhoul was arrested during a raid of his family home in Haifa in the early morning hours of 6 May. For the following eleven days Makhoul was held in isolation, denied access to a lawyer, and subjected to torture. Rights groups have condemned his political persecution and the criminal proceedings launched against him.

My trail is still somehow stuck. The system is structurally and politically Shabak-oriented, not justice-oriented. My human dignity, basic human rights and constitutional rights are suffering from basic violations. I still have no permit to meet my lawyers without being recorded. The ruling of the three judges is to justify the decision of the attorney general of Israel and the Shabak to ban free meeting with my lawyers in prison. The judges insist that such a meeting should be done through the glass separation wall and through a telephone in order to ensure recording of the whole conversation.

On its face the process as well as the procedures look fair, but essentially, systematic, structural and political violations of my basic right to fair procedure are practiced. The role of the attorney general is to criminalize me, not to seek truth.

In Gilboa prison there are approximately 600 Palestinian and Arab prisoners of freedom distributed into sections/branches. The distribution of prisoners is geopolitically oriented: prisoners of the West Bank, prisoners of 1948 (including occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights) are together, while in the prisons located in the Naqab [Negev], prisoners of the West Bank are separated from those from Gaza. And prisoners from Gaza are separated along affiliation to Fatah or Hamas. The borders on the ground of the occupation based on the Apartheid Wall are valid in the prison demographic policy of distribution. It is the nature of imposed fragmentation in order to undermine the struggle against one of the biggest systematic colonial crimes and to weaken the collective struggle by destructing its structure of continuity and interaction.

I am doing a lot of efforts to bring hope and steadfastness to freedom prisoners. It is one of my missions inside prison. I have to keep in contact with Ittijah and the community and all solidarity movements, groups and persons, but most of all I have to correspond intensively as much as possible with my daughters Hind and Huda, who have become mature fighters for freedom, justice and dignity and mostly bringing back the happiness of life which was highjacked on 6 May at 2:30am. My wife Janan is leading in a heroic way the whole campaign as well as facing huge tasks at home.

Your letters are needed; the taste of solidarity is different in prison than being outside. The taste reflects the great solidarity, support and empowering acts.

http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2010-09-04/solidarity-tastes-different-inside-prison/

Palestinian Political Prisoner Ameer Makhoul to the World Education Forum Palestine

Tuesday, 26 October 2010 15:10 Ameer Makhoul

Brothers and sisters in the International Council of the World Social Forum

Brothers and sisters in the Palestinian National Committee of the World Education Forum

My greetings and yearning to you all,

First, I send you my warmest greetings and appreciation for all your efforts in preparation for the World Education Forum in Palestine. It is an honor for Palestine to host this forum, accompanied by such notable international mobilization and solidarity. However, it is also an honor for the World Education forum to be hosted by Palestine.

Second, from behind the bars of an Israeli prison I welcome you to Palestine on both sides of the so-called Green Line of occupation. I also welcome you in the name of Ittijah -- the Union of Arab Community-Based Organizations in Palestine 48 -- and in the name of civil society and the Palestinian social movement here and in exile.

Together we marched forward and laid the foundations for the World Education Forum, and shoulder to shoulder we began our preparations internationally and in Palestine and the Arab World. It was during this process that I was arrested, in the beginning of May 2010 - an intimidation arrest that targeted us all. Five months have passed since then, but everything I face today – in the form of an unjust imprisonment, judicial procedures and trial – is no less oppressive than the physical and psychological torture I endured. However, what distinguishes us Palestinians is our free-will and steadfastness, which are used to resist oppression and the oppressors and their so-called justice. We are not deceived that there exists an Israeli justice; on the contrary, we view the court as an opportunity to consolidate the popular and international mobilization and struggle that already exists – these are the cornerstones of our defending of our rights and the tools that prevent their robbery by the occupation state.

Wherever we may be, we are brothers and sisters in values – the values of justice, freedom and human dignity. We share a common vision - that of the oppressed peoples, nations and individuals; of the victims of state terrorism, aggression and neo-liberalism and imperialism; of victims of all forms of exploitation, violence and discrimination; of all the wretched of this Earth – individuals and collectives - who yearn for dignity. We meet in Palestine, this nation and land that has become the meeting point of the free in spirit and of all those who believe that a different world is possible.

As I write you from Israeli prison, I permit myself to send greetings from this sector of the Palestinian people, that represents the entire Palestinian society - that of the prisoners of freedom in the prisons of occupation and apartheid. These 8,000 prisoners are in their homeland. Yet, at the same time, they are barred from this land. However, no matter how hard the walls of the prison may be, they will not stand between them and their right to have a nation. It’s important that you know that these 8,000 prisoners are not a just statistic or a number, but each and every one of them has a name, a dream, a father, brother, sister, son or daughter. Each has his or her own suffering, notwithstanding the collective one, and that of their families who endure the great and exhausting suffering of seeing their children on the other side of the wall. I don’t speak of that famous apartheid wall that we all know - this wall is less famous, for it is made of glass and prevents the Arab and Palestinian prisoners from touching their parents, allowing them to talk to their families only once every two weeks, for 45 minutes, through the phone receiver and the humiliation behind the glass barrier.

These prisoners are prohibited not only from freedom, but also from their families, Arabic newspapers, and all but a few books. They are prohibited from building a family, from obtaining an education, and from everything else but their dream of their coming freedom, which is the product of steadfastness and will: for in them lies the core of the hope and humanity of the oppressed that are targeted by the oppressor. The oppressor knows very well that he would lose the battle if the Palestinian will is not defeated.

There is an Israeli prisoner in Gaza, a soldier of the occupation and the forces of murder. The whole world knows his name and age, and feels the pain of his family. There is nothing wrong with that, of course. But where is the international community when it comes to the 8,000 Palestinian prisoners who are imprisoned for their struggle and human dignity, and the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian prisoners who were forced into Israeli prisons in the past? Do they not have a story too?

The globalization of the media, in addition to the hegemony of neo-liberal values, are what create the imaginary military and economic equality between colonization and its victims, an equation of “values.” Suffering becomes the share of the oppressor, while the oppressed becomes the accused, and, in the best-case scenario, a statistic without a name, story or suffering. After all, Palestinian suffering has been subjected the same fate as that of the land: confiscation.

However, social movements are capable of creating an alternative and another world. This is our dream, for we all share the dream of freedom, humanity and a world without oppression.

I urge you, my brothers and sisters, to come to Haifa on the day of my trial [Thursday, October 28th 2010] so that you can see for yourselves that the Israeli court and legal system are mere manifestations of the Israeli state’s injustice. Thus, we do not seek justice in these systems, but we choose to confront and resist them, and to accuse them to be instruments of oppression, not righteousness. A Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli prison can never be found innocent.

They target us, the 48 Palestinians, and our relations with our Palestinian brothers and sisters in the West Bank, in the Gaza Strip and in exile, as well as our relations with the Arab world. For according to the myths of Israeli security, these are considered to be “relations with the enemy.” However, our enemy is not and will never be any people or national, religions or ethnic group. As much as they would like to accuse us as such, the Jews are not our enemy. Our enemy is the enemy of humanity: the oppressor. Our enemy is the colonizing, racist Zionist project in Palestine in all of its forms; our enemy is imperialism, the hegemony of force and neo-liberal exploitation wherever it may be. Accordingly, I ask you to beware of the dangers of the aggression against Islam and accusing everything that is Muslim of terrorism; the aggression against everything that is Arab or Oriental, and against the peoples of the southern part of our Earth. The greatest terrorist operation that exists today is the globalized and internationalized state terrorism; it is the occupation and colonization of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan; it is neo-liberalism transcending continents. The greater the crisis of neo-liberalism becomes, the greater its exploitation, and the graver the consequences of its acts that aim to protect its profits, exploitations, thefts and hegemony over the riches of the Earth – riches that should belong to the peoples of the Earth.

The World Education Forum in Palestine is a special occasion and a wonderful demonstration of solidarity. The WEF forms part of the international campaign to lift the blockade on Gaza, Jerusalem and the Naqab, and to defend the rights both of Palestinians and of Palestine itself. The WEF constitutes a local and international mobilization in defense of justice; it is a source of hope, power, and steadfastness, confirming that Palestine is not yet forgotten and its people are not alone; this empowers and makes us stronger.

I salute you for choosing the road of freedom, justice and human dignity for the people of Palestine and all peoples of the world.

Another world is possible, and it is our duty to achieve it.

Ameer Makhoul

Member of the International Council of the World Social Forum

Member of the Palestinian National Committee of the World Education Forum

General Director of Ittijah- Union of Arab Community-Based Organizations in Palestine 48

Letter from Gilboa Prison, Ameer Makhoul- May 30, 2010

May 30, 2010

Letter from Gilboa Prison, Ameer Makhoul

After being allowed to get a pen and a piece of paper, which has been banned for the last three weeks, and after being allowed to get out of my total isolation, it's a moment to write a short letter from my jail (Gilboa).

It's a great opportunity for me to express my sincere thanks, greetings & appreciation to all the colleagues, friends and solidarity groups, organizations & persons, internationals, Arabs in the region, Israelis & Palestinians in the homeland & in the Diaspora. A very special salute to all those who visited my family and supported them after the trauma they passed in May 6 & since that late night.

It's a moment to express my great appreciation to all the international & local human rights organizations which raised their voices loudly.

Also to Ittijah partner organizations all around the world which supported my/our struggle for justice and for a fair trial in order to get to prove my innocence.

Physically I am still suffering very much but morally it's a great feeling to know what solidarity means.

My story is that the Israeli intelligence, "the shabak", assumed something without knowing & without any evidence. I was requested and forced to explain to them in a very detailed way how exactly I did what I didn’t do, ever. In case of any logical problem for them to complete the puzzle, they have the legal tools to fill it in by so-called secret evidence, which my lawyers and I have no legal right to know about.

According to the media in Israel, I'm already guilty, a terrorist & a supporter terror. The rule of the game here is that I’m guilty whether or not I prove that I'm not. This collective assumption is prior to court & trial procedures.

The abuse of evidence & fair legal procedures are crucial. The Shabak can tell lies to the court by so called "secret evidence", "banning meetings  with lawyers", "banning the publication of information,”  “imposing total isolation” & other very sophisticated ways of torture, which leave no direct evidence although it is very harsh. (See Adalah: www.adalah.org). I believe that my case is an opportunity to examine these tools as tools for the criminalization of human rights defenders.

I would like to highlight again your support & solidarity. I look to it as a very essential & crucial message of support the victim and to stop the oppressor.  Thank you. Let us continue with the way for justice, human dignity, human rights and ensuring an opportunity for a fair trial.

Sincerely,

Ameer Makhoul

كلمة أمير مخول للمنتدى التربوي العالمي المنعقد في فلسطين تشرين أول 2010

إخوتي وأخواتي في اللجنة الدولية للمنتدى الاجتماعي العالمي

إخوتي وأخواتي في اللجنة الدولية للمنتدى التربوي العالمي   

إخوتي وأخواتي في اللجنة الوطنية الفلسطينية التحضيرية للمنتدى التربوي العالمي

تحياتي وأشواقي،

أولا أرسل إليكم أحر التحيات والتقدير على جهودكم في الإعداد للمنتدى التربوي العالمي في فلسطين، إنه ليشرف فلسطين أن تستضيف هذا المنتدى والحراك العالمي وهذا الحشد من التضامن، كما أنه ليشرَف المنتدى التربوي العالمي أن تستضيفه فلسطين.

ثانيا، أودَ ومن خلف جدران السجن الإسرائيلي أن أرحب بكم في فلسطين من جانبي ما يسمى "الخط الأخضر" الاحتلالي، وأن أرحبَ أيضا نيابة عن اتحاد الجمعيات العربية (اتجاه) في فلسطين 48 وباسم المجتمع المدني والحراك الاجتماعي الفلسطيني في الوطن والشتات.

وبعد أن سرنا معا وقمنا بالخطوات التأسيسية لهذا المنتدى التربوي وبدأنا معا بالتحضير له عالميا وفي فلسطين والعالم العربي، وخلال هذه المسيرة تمَ اعتقالي الترهيبي بداية شهر أيار 2010  ، وها هي خمسة أشهر تمر ونحن أمام اعتقال ظالم وإجراءات قضائية ومحاكمة لا تقل ظلما عن التعذيب الجسدي والنفسي الذي مررت به، لكن ما يميز الفلسطيني هو الإرادة الحرة والصمود، وهو مقاومة الظلم والظالمين وعدالة قضيته وغياب أي وهم في قضاء كهذا ، بل إنها مناسبة لنؤكد أن الحراك الشعبي والنضال والكفاح والتضامن العالمي هي أسس حماية الحق ومنع سلبه وهي الأسس لإخفاق دولة الاحتلال.

أننا وإياكم يا أخوتنا وأخواتنا من كافة أنحاء العالم،  شركاء في القيم ، قيم العدالة والحرية والكرامة الإنسانية. إننا شركاء في الرؤية بأن الفئات المستضعفة والشعوب والأمم المظلومة والأفراد المظلومين وكل ضحايا إرهاب الدولة والعدوان واللبرالية الامبريالية الجديدة وضحايا الاستغلال على تجلياته وضحايا العنف والتمييز، وكل الممنوعين في العالم أفرادا وجماعات من التمتع بالكرامة الإنسانية كلنا شركاء،  ولقاؤنا كمنتدى في فلسطين- هذا الوطن وهذه الأرض التي أصبحت ملتقى كل أحرار العالم ونأمل ونسعى أن تصبح ملتقى كل المعنيين بأخذ دور من أجل عالم آخر ممكن.

وحيث أكتب لكم من السجن فإنني أنقل لكم تحيات شريحة تمثل كل شرائح الشعب الفلسطيني إنها شريحة أسرى الحرية في سجون الاحتلال والفصل العنصري. هؤلاء الثمانية آلاف إنهم في الوطن وهم المحرومين منه في آن. لكن جدران السجن مهما بلغت قسوة لن تحول بينهم وبين الوطن والحق فيه وعليه،.. مهم أن تعرفوا أمارا أساسيا وهو أن الثمانية آلاف سجين ليسوا رقما وليسوا إحصائيات، بل لكل واحد اسم ولكل واحد حلم ولكل واحد أم وأب أو أخ وأخت أو ابن وبنت.. لكل منهم معاناة، ولجميعهم معا معاناة، لهم ولعائلاتهم المحرومة منهم والتي تعاني معاناة رهيبة ومنهكة كي يزوروا ذويهم من وراء جدار آخر، ليس مشهورا كما الجدار إياه، بل جدار الفصل الزجاجي. فلا يحق للأسير الفلسطيني والعربي أن يلمس أهله. وما عليه إلا أن يتحدث الى ذويه مرة كل أسبوعين  ولمدة 45 دقيقة من خلال سماعة هاتف ومن خلف الزجاج الفاصل. ومن خلال الإهانات.

هؤلاء الأسرى محرومون من الحرية ومحرومون من الأهل ومحرومون من الصحف العربية ومحرومون من الكتب سوى القليل .. محرومون من بناء عائلة ومحرومون من التعليم ومن كل شيىء الا من حلم بأن حريتهم آتية وهذا نتاج الصمود والإرادة، وهذا في صميم الأمل والحفاظ على إنسانية المقموع، لأن القامع يستهدفها بكل قسوة وقمع. لان القامع يدرك انه إذا لم يقض على إرادة الفلسطيني فانه أي القامع قد خسر المعركة.

هناك أسير إسرائيلي في غزة وهو جندي احتلال وقتل، والعالم كله مشغول به والعالم كله يعرف اسمه وعمره ويبكي على معاناة عائلته، ولا نقول عن ذلك شي، لكن أين العالم من ثمانية آلاف أسير فلسطيني مناضلي الحرية والكرامة الإنسانية، ومئات آلاف الأسرى الذين دخلوا السجون حتى الآن. ألا توجد قصة؟.

عولمة الإعلام وهيمنة القيم الليبرالية الجديدة تجعل توازن القوة العسكرية والاقتصادية بين الاستعمار وضحاياه ، تجعله ميزان "قيم"، فالمعاناة تصبح من نصيب القامعين أما الضحية فهي المتهمة، وفي أحسن الأحوال فهي رقم وإحصاء - لا اسم ولا قصة ولا عنوان ولا معاناة -  فالمعاناة الفلسطينية صودرت مع الوطن الفلسطيني.

لكن الحركة الاجتماعية قادة على خلق بديل وعالم آخر وهذا حلمنا- انتم شركاء في حلمنا ونحن في حلمكم- حلم الحرية والإنسانية والقضاء على الظلم.

أحثكم يا أخوتي وأخواتي أن تأتوا إلى حيفا يوم محاكمتي، لتتأكدوا بأنفسكم أن المحكمة الإسرائيلية والعدالة الإسرائيلية هي على شاكلة إسرائيل، لا نتوخى فيها العدالة بل نواجهها ونتصدى لها ونتهمها بأنها جزء من أدوات القمع لا النزاهة. فلا براءة لفلسطيني اعتقلته إسرائيل.

إنهم يستهدفون علاقتنا نحن فلسطيني الـ 48 مع أبناء وبنات شعبنا في الضفة الغربية وقطاع غزة وفي الشتات وعلاقتنا مع العالم العربي التي يعتبرها الأمن الإسرائيلي "علاقة مع العدو".. لكن عدونا ليس ولم يكن يوما الشعوب ولا الناس ولا المجموعات القومية أو الدينية أو الاثنية، فليس اليهود هم أعداؤنا كما يدعون، بل أعداؤنا هم أعداء الإنسانية هم القامعون، هم المشروع الصهيوني الاستعماري العنصري بكل تجلياته، هم الامبريالية وهيمنة القوة والاستغلال النيوليبرالي على العالم. وفي هذا نحذر من العداء للإسلام واتهامه  بالإرهاب والعداء للعرب والعداء للشرق وللشعوب في الجزء الجنوبي من الكرة الأرضية. ان اكبر عملية إرهاب قائمة هي إرهاب الدولة الدولي المعولم. انه الاحتلال، انه الاستعمار، هكذا في فلسطين وفي العراق وفي أفغانستان. انه إرهاب اللبرالية الجديدة العابرة للقارات. وكلما اشتدت أزمتها ازداد استغلالها وإلقاء تبعاتها على ضحاياها كي تحمي أرباحها واستغلالها ونهبها وهيمنتها على خيرات شعوب الأرض.

ان المنتدى التربوي العالمي في فلسطين هو مناسبة خاصة وهو مؤشر تضامن رائع، انه جزء من حملة كسر الحصار عن غزة وعن القدس وعن النقب وعن الحق الفلسطيني وعن كل فلسطين. إنه حراك شعبي محلي وعالمي مناصر للحق وهو مبعث أمل وقوة وصمود وهو تأكيد أن فلسطين ليست منسية وأن شعبها ليس وحيدا، وهذا يمنحنا قوة جبارة.

تحية لكم وعلى درب الحرية والعدالة والكرامة الإنسانية لشعب فلسطين ولكل شعوب العالم.

عالم آخر ممكن وواجبنا السعي لتحقيقه.

أمير مخول

عضو المجلس الدولي  للمنتدى الاجتماعي العالمي

عضو اللجنة الوطنية الفلسطينية للمنتدى التربوي العالمي

المدير العام لاتحاد الجمعيات العربية (إتجاه)

Palestinian Political Prisoner Ameer Makhoul to the World Education Forum Palestine

http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/2963-ameer-makhoul-to-the-world-education-forum-palestine-

http://palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1587

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11611.shtml

Political Prisoners and the Persecution of Palestinian Leaders Citizens of Israel: Outline of Talk to Guests of Baladna on the Occasion of the Educational World Forum

Political Prisoners and the Persecution of Palestinian Leaders Citizens of Israel: Outline of Talk to Guests of Baladna on the Occasion of the Educational World Forum

October 28, 2010

Introduction:

First of all allow me to introduce myself and to explain my special relationship to Ameer Makhoul: I am a Palestinian Citizen of Israel and a retired Public Health physician. In 1970 upon finishing my MD and MPH at Harvard I returned to my village of Arrabeh in Galilee where I have lived and worked till the present. Along the way I saw the need for a civil society arm in the field of Public Health in my community and founded The Galilee Society for Health Research and Services which remains an active lead NGO with focus on health and community development among the Arab population of Israel. In retirement I keep busy with writing, gardening, and travel.

Nearly thirty years ago I initiated a project under the auspices of the Galilee Society and with funding from the Ford Foundation to establish a union of community-based organizations working in Arab towns and villages in Israel. We called the project ITTIJAH. To lead the project we hired a young community activist from Haifa named Ameer Makhoul. Ameer took his task seriously leading it to become an independent NGO. In the process he has become a most outstanding human rights and civil society campaigner advocating for equality for us as citizens of Israel. As such he became a prominent spokesperson for our community in international circles with his organization attaining the rank of accreditation by the UN ECOSOC Council. Your presence here today is a testimony to that: It is one outcome of his international activism.

With the recent rightward shift in Israeli politics and the ascent of the likes of Avigdor Lieberman to power, plans for the transfer of the Arab minority out of Israel have gained legitimacy. Ameer's role became a threat to such plans. He was arrested and accused of espionage with no shred of evidence that we know of beyond a statement he was forced to sign under duress and after days of torture. I firmly believe that this is what lies behind Ameer's case and the cases of other lead activists in our community. Things have reached a point where the Israeli police practices in drills of how to implement our internment and transfer.

Recently I was called on to head the Public Committee for the Defense of  Ameer
Makhoul. I decided to accept and have come out of retirement to take this
challenging assignment. That is what brings me here today.

The General Atmosphere:
I am a physician, not a politician. Had I been a politician I probably would be in bed nursing my wounds. Here is a quote from the Associated Press from yesterday to explain why:

UMM EL-FAHM, Israel – Dozens of Jewish extremists hoisting Israeli flags defiantly marched through this Arab-Israeli town Wednesday, chanting "death to terrorists" and touching off clashes between rock-hurling residents and police who quelled them with tear gas.

As the unrest unfolded, an Israeli court convicted a prominent Arab-Israeli activist of spying for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in a plea bargain that will send him to prison for up to 10 years.

Several local Palestinian politicians, including two parliament members were injured by the police use of tear gas grenades and rubber coated bullets. In the AP account of this events two examples of the rising Fascism in Israeli are illustrated clearly: The first is that of the band of settlers who chose to confirm their commitment to implementing Meir Kahane’s racist teachings by marching in the heart of the Palestinian town of Umm El-Fahm, the largest of the Arab communities targeted by Israel’s foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, for transfer out of Israel. The Supreme Court, which formerly had ruled Kahane’s party illegal in Israel, now allowed the provocative march of his present-day followers at the cost of 1300 policemen deployed to enforce its decision. The second example is illustrated in the AP piece with a photo showing one Arab youth being wrestled to the ground by three armed security agents with their guns drawn. One of the three has a Palestinian checkered Kafeyah still wrapped around his head. Aljazeera has aired footage from its team on the scene showing these security agents, known in Israel as mista’arivi, camouflaged as Arab youth infiltrating the local crowd, throwing stones at the police to initiate a conflagration and then turning around and jumping the local stone throwers. This officially planned provocation assumes the Arab citizens of Israel a priori to be ‘the enemy’. Such tactics were once reserved for dealing with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
What I find of special significance is the fact that AP reporter, xxxxxxxx assumes that her readers will take it for granted that the two items, the violence in Umm El-Fahm and the indictment of Ameer Makhoul are related. I personally need no convincing on this matter. I do believe that Ameer’s abduction from his home, his rough handling and torture, and his indictment are signs of the times. When my daughter called to enquire about Ameer’s arrest and heard the details she was alarmed: “This could have been you, Dad!” My only explanation was that I was active in the civic arena before Israel had started its rapid slide down the slippery slope of Fascism.
My Special Professional Take:
Let me try and illustrate for you how pervasive is the effect of Israel’s rush into the lap of extremism and racist rightist politics. I will speak from my special point of view as a Public Health expert. I have distributed a sheet of comparative figures that I had selected few years back from the official publications of the Israeli Bureau of Statistics. I want today to focus just on one figure, the relative ratio of Infant Mortality Rates (IMR) of Arabs in Israel as compared to that of Jews over time. To emphasize the significance of this figure, let tell you how we in the field of Public Health see it: IMR is the number out of a thousand live births in a specific community in a specific year who die before their first birthday. This figure is not dependent so much on the numbers of doctors or nurses or the availability of hospitals in the community, as one may first guess. Rather, it is best correlated to three other independent factors: the level of the fathers’ income, the level of the mothers’ education and the cleanliness of the water supply. As such, the IMR is considered the most sensitive indicator of a community’s overall wellbeing.
Since Israel’s establishment, the IMR among its Palestinian minority of citizens had run at twice that of the Jewish majority. It is uncanny how close that relative ratio had remained to the exact figure of two, implying of course that our general welfare stood at close to half the level among our Jewish co-citizens. This went on till the 1990s when the two IMR figures started to diverge further apart. It now stands at xxxxxxx.
What does that have to do with Ameer Makhoul and political prisoners, you may ask? Much more than the casual observer may first think. The rising relative ratio of the IMR in the two communities is a true reflection of the increasing polarization in the two communities and the rising level of official and political discrimination against our community. Hardly a day goes by without a new law being proposed in the Israeli Knesset that specifically targets our community in Israel for disenfranchisement, though we are citizens of the state since day one of its establishment: There are the new and inventive variations and amendments on the citizenship law which annul our right to family unification; there are the manipulations and new twists on the Ordinance for the Prevention of Terror; there is the peculiar Loyalty Oath Law which in essence calls on us to deny our own identity by swearing loyalty to an entity that excludes us by definition; and there is the law banning us from commemorating our Nakbah, our catastrophe in 1948, to mention only a few.
In parallel with this march of the entire Israeli body politic towards extreme racism, with the exception of a few marginalized groups that seem to have lost momentum, the general atmosphere in the Israeli street is increasingly poisoned, with cries of ‘Death to Arabs’ an accepted slogan in sports Arenas and our political leaders hounded out of the country (Dr. Azmi Bishara,) in jail (Sheikh Raed Salah,) or subject to physical assault (Dr Afu Ighbarieyh and Haneen Zu’aby yesterday.)
Ameer Makhoul’s Case:
It is in this poisoned atmosphere that we have to look at Ameer’s abduction, incarceration and compulsion to admit to drummed-up charges. Here are the facts that the legal experts that advised us on the plea bargain on behalf of Ameer Makhoul took into account to reach their conclusion:
a. The poisoned atmosphere in the country with the rise of fascism in Israel including among leaders and law-makers. We believe this affects the court.

b. The rate of conviction in cases accused of security violations is near 100%. This is especially true if the accused is a Palestinian; the general attitude in all branches of the government seems to be that Arabs have to keep away from the topic of security, even in casual conversations.

c. Ameer’s prominence in civic activism at the the international level is unprecedented in our community. His extensive network of contacts in the international arena did not exclude human rights activists from all sectors of the Palestinian collective. On the contrary, we all share a common affinity to other Palestinians and Arabs the world over. The court is likely to react to that negatively and try to teach our other civic society leaders a lesson.

d. Ameer is accused of passing information to an enemy agent: The content of that information is available for any interested person on Google Earth and is common knowledge on the street in Israel. Still, the dry letter of the law in Israel considers that espionage and its punishment could be life imprisonment

The Challenge Following Ameer’s Case:

Let me end on an optimistic note, difficult as that is a day after our hand has been forced to accept defeat in the form of a plea bargain on behalf of Amer: I want to do that because I believe that at this stage we need your solidarity even more than before:

Despite his forced admission, we do not believe that Ameer committed any crime.  He is paying for his firm stand against racism. He is on record in published articles as calling on Palestinian youth in Israel to stand up to racism using all possible legal means. On that we all agree with Ameer. We challenge the justice system in Israel and the judges in Ameer’s case to rise above the racist street cacophony and the trickery of the security services and to sentence him to a minimal period of imprisonment.

I use this opportunity to make a personal appeal to all the member community-based organizations in Ittijah to continue Ameer’s struggle against racism and for the full development of our community. Likewise, I call on all Ittijah’s international partners to support us in this immediate challenge. We at the Public Committee for the Defense of Ameer Makhoul will strive to bring his case as a human right defender and as a political prisoner to the attention of the widest possible international audience including such forums as Amnesty International and Civicus.

اللجنة الشعبية للدفاع عن أمير مخول

دعوة

ندعوكم/ن للمشاركة في الاجتماع الموسع "للجنة الشعبية للدفاع عن أمير مخول"  الذي يعقد يوم السبت 13.11.2010، في الساعة الرابعة بعد الظهر، في مقر "جمعية الجليل" ، على الشارع الرئيسي شرقي المدخل الجنوبي لمدينة شفاعمرو (طريق الناصرة). وقد دعي للاجتماع ممثلو الهيئات والشخصيات القيادية والتمثيلية، والمنظمات السياسية والحقوقية ومنظمات المجتمع المدني ، وشخصيات ناشطة سياسيا واجتماعيا وثقافيا.

يهدف الاجتماع الى استعراض آخر التطورات في المعركة القضائية والسياسية المرتبطة باستمرار اعتقال أمير مخول ومحاكمته وبنصرة قضيته على مستوييها الفردي والجماعي ، والمعركة الشعبية والاعلامية على الساحتين المحلية والعالمية ، والى المشاركة في مناقشة المستجدات التي رافقت إدارة الملف ، ووضع خطة عمل لمواجهة المرحلة المقبلة.

وتؤكد لجنة الدفاع عن أمير مخول على قناعتها التامة بأن الطابع السياسي للاعتقال ، المطبوع بأجواء الانفلات العنصري على الجماهير العربية في اسرائيل، وتجريم نشاطها السياسي ، والذي أشرنا اليه منذ اللحظة الاولى ، كان ولا يزال هو المميز الاساسي لاعتقال أمير مخول والمحيط بمحاكمته ، كونه شخصية قيادية  في ميادين العمل السياسي والعمل الاهلي والمجتمعي والمدافع عن حقوق الانسان على الساحتين المحلية  والعالمية  ورئيس لجنة الحريات في لجنة المتابعة العليا للجماهير العربية ومدير عام إتحاد الجمعيات العربية "إتجاه".

إن حضوركم/ن هام لنا ، ومساهمتكم/ن حيوية.. فالقضية تعنينا جميعا

                                                باحترام

د. حاتم كناعنه

   رئيس اللجنة الشعبية

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