Parents of US Activist Critically Wounded Following West Bank Protest Appeal to High Court of Israel: The Police Investigation was Shockingly Negligent – Demand a Serious, Professional Investigation into the Shooting of their Son.
Tristan Anderson (41, of Oakland, CA) was severely wounded after having been shot in the head with a high velocity tear gas grenade* (made in the USA) fired by Israeli Border Police following a protest in the West Bank Village of Ni’lin, resulting in severe permanent brain damage and paralysis to half his body.
Tristan Anderson with his parents
Attorneys for Anderson’s family, along with Israeli NGO Yesh Din, will appear before the Israeli High Court of Justice on Wednesday, JULY 10. The petition challenges the investigation that they claim was blatantly inadequate, with the identity of the shooter still being actively withheld to this day.
“Tristan will live the rest of his life with serious mental and physical limitations and chronic pain. This has devastated his life and profoundly affected our family forever,” said Nancy Anderson, Tristan’s mother.
No criminal charges have been brought against any police or military personnel involved in the 2009 shooting of their son. Video evidence uncovered during the course of an ongoing civil lawsuit (trial begins November 10, 2013 in Jerusalem for the civil suit) raises further questions on the credibility of State witnesses, who in contradiction to sworn testimony, are clearly seen shooting tear gas directly at protesters from close range in the video, which was taken earlier that day. The video also raises serious questions relating to the true locations of the various squads of Border Police present at the time of the shooting, with investigators opting only to question those squads that were on the other side of the town at the time the shooting occurred, while failing to question the squad that was stationed on the nearby hill where activist witnesses say the shots came from. As well, investigators failed to visit the scene of the shooting and made no attempts to collect physical evidence.
See “Aftermath of the shooting of Tristan Anderson Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 for further video.
Michael Sfard and Emily Schaeffer, attorneys for the Anderson family commented:
“The astonishing negligence of this investigation and of the prosecutorial team that monitored its outcome is unacceptable, but it epitomizes Israel’s culture of impunity. Tristan’s case is actually not rare; it represents hundreds of other cases of Palestinian victims whose investigations have also failed.”
Tristan joined the ranks of scores of other protesters who have been seriously injured or killed during demonstrations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in recent years. On March 13, 2009 he was in Ni’alin demonstrating against the annexation of village lands to build the controversial “Separation Wall” when he was shot. Witnesses insist there was no stone throwing in his immediate surroundings at the time when he was shot, and that the shooting was “unexpected and unprovoked”.
“Tristan’s shooting is part of a pattern of deadly violence being used against protesters in the Occupied Territories, who are not recognized as having a fundamental right to political self-determination,” said Gabrielle Silverman, Tristan’s girlfriend, and a witness to his shooting. “We need real accountability and a high standard of human rights, but instead what we get is the military running cover for their soldiers.”
The family of Tristan Anderson is calling the investigation “a cover up and a sham”.
*Tristan Anderson was shot with a High Velocity Tear Gas grenade- sometimes also called “Extended Range Tear Gas”- which is manufactured by Combined Systems Inc in Jamestown, Pennsylvania.
6th July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
In the early hours of the morning of Sunday June 30th 2013, Sharif Arafat, a 30-year-old Palestinian fisherman, was injured on a fishing boat off the coast of Soudania, North of the Gaza Strip.
Sharif Arafat (Photo by Rosa Schiano)
The captain of the boat, Nafiz At Habeel, reported that during the night the strong wind had pushed the vessel about 6 miles from the coast of Soudania. Around midnight an Israeli military navy ship approached and then retreated. In the early hours of the morning, at around 3:30am to 4:00am, the fishermen threw their nets into the sea. Once again, an Israeli navy ship approached the fishing boat and this time started shooting. Nafiz told us that the fishermen tried to hide in order to avoid the bullets, while Sharif Arafat ran to the side where the fishing nets were. Sharif, an inexperienced fisherman, did not know how to escape in the event of gunshots by the army. One of the nets became caught up around his leg.
“Sharif was terrified, his ankle was trapped”, Nafiz said. As he couldn’t swim, Sharif clung to the boat as not to fall into the water, while the nets pulled him down. His ankle was severely fractured and broken and he fell into the water. Nafiz told us that he had tried to pull in the nets with the engine. “These nets float – I cried at Sharif to cling to a ball of the fishing net”, said Nafiz. Sharif was then pulled on board and taken to the port of Gaza City on a ‘hasaka’, a small boat that usually accompanies the vessels.
During the incident the fishermen had relit the lights of the boats, which usually go off when they cast their nets. The Israeli navy has since moved away, probably because the soldiers had realized that something serious had happened.
We met Sharif Arafat at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, where he was hospitalized following the accident. The hospital report states that Sharif had a partially amputated right ankle due to trauma.
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
Sharif Arafat is not a professional fisherman. “I went fishing only because of the economic situation, I cannot even swim”, said Sharif, who had begun to fish only 5 months earlier. Sharif is married, has one child and his wife is pregnant with a second child.
Sharif was frightened by the idea that his foot could be amputated. His brother Alaa, next to him in the hospital, was in tears. The same evening Sharif was transferred urgently to a hospital in Israel to be operated on, thanks to the intervention of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights who called for an acceleration of the procedures such was the emergency. In the Gaza Strip such surgery was not available.
We are still waiting for news on the conditions of Sharif Arafat.
Background
Israel has progressively imposed restrictions on Palestinian fishermen’s access to the sea. The 20 nautical miles established under the agreements of Jericho in 1994 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), have been reduced to 12 miles under the Bertini Agreement in 2002. In 2006, the area allowed for fishing was reduced to 6 nautical miles from the coast. Following the Israeli military offensive “Cast Lead” (2008-2009) Israel has imposed a limit of 3 nautical miles from the coast, preventing Palestinians from access to 85% of the water to which they are entitled according to the Jericho agreements of 1994.
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
Under the agreements reached between Israel and the Palestinian resistance after the Israeli military offensive in November 2012, “Pillar of Defense,” they consented that Gazan fishermen can again fish up to 6 nautical miles from the coast. Despite these agreements, the Israeli navy has not stopped attacks on Gaza fishermen, even within this limit. In March 2013, Israel imposed once again a limit of 3 nautical miles from the coast, saying that the decision had been taken following the sending of some Palestinian rockets towards Israel. On Wednesday 22nd May, the Israeli military authorities announced through some media outlets the decision to extend the limit again to 6 nautical miles from the coast.
We join the call of the fishermen and ask our governments to press Israel to stop attacking and arresting Palestinian fishermen and to allow them to fish freely.
4th July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Ramallah, Occupied Palestine
On the 28th of June 2013 two Palestinian activists were arrested in the village of Nabi Saleh during the village’s Friday demonstration. Both are currently released on bail and have been charged with entering a close military zone. The prosecutor is asking for house arrest and they are awaiting the judge’s decision. Nariman Tamimi is a prominent activist from the village of Nabi Saleh and Rana Nazzal is a Palestinian Canadian activist. The International Solidarity Movement had a chance to speak to Rana about her experiences during the arrest, the time following imprisonment and the situation for political prisoners in Palestine.
International Solidarity Movement: You, together with Nariman Tamimi, were arrested last Friday during a protest against the Israel occupation in Nabi Saleh, can you tell us in which specific context you were arrested and where did they take you afterwards?
Rana Nazzal: We attempted to reach Nabi Saleh’s water spring, which has been annexed by the nearby illegal Israeli settlement. A line of Israeli soldiers blocked our way and threatened to arrest us so we turned around and began climbing the hill back to the village. As we retreated, a different group of soldiers ran towards us and began arresting us. When I asked why we were being arrested, the soldier replied, “because I feel like it”.
Myself, Nariman, and a Spanish man were taken together. We were kept handcuffed and blindfolded for nine hours, most of the time isolated from each other. Within this time we were not told the reason of our arrest, received no food, and were transported to two military bases before we were finally taken to the police station.
There, Nariman and I were taken in a police car, handcuffed, and driven around with two male soldiers for over 7 hours before reaching Hasharon prison at 7.30 am.
ISM: There are sixteen Palestinian women currently imprisoned by Israel, all of whom are held in Hasharon – how was the encounter with these women prisoners? How did you spend your time in jail?
R.N: They didn’t keep us in the same prison ward as the sixteen other women, but we saw them in passing moments. On Saturday, we saw them while the longest term prisoner, Lina Jarboni, was giving Hebrew lessons. Lina told us that Sireen Khudiri, the recent 21 year-old who was arrested on charges of ‘internet activism’, also gives the women English lessons. On Sunday night Lina cooked the Palestinian stew mloukhieh and sent a huge platter to our room, along with changes of clothes so we could finally change. The women were generous and strong spirited.
We spent most of our time talking or sleeping, as we weren’t allowed books, paper, radio, or any form of entertainment.
On Monday we were woken at 2am and taken on a grueling trip to the Ofer military courts, along with Tahrir Mansour who also had a trial. Tahrir and I were locked in a compartment on a bus that could hardly fit the two of us sitting upright, with our ankles and hands cuffed.
After spending the day in a cell at Ofer and attending a trial in the afternoon, Nariman and I were finally released after 10 pm.
ISM: After the military court decided that you should be released, you had to pay 2000NIS in bail and were charged with entering a “close military zone”, can you tell us more about the on-going process? What is the prosecutor asking for?
R.N: The trial is still going on, we have been to court three times so far this week. The prosecutor asked for jail time or a very high bail (at one point asking judge for 10,000 NIS!), they also asked the judge to make me postpone my travel time (as I am going to Canada soon for university). All these requests were turned down, but on Tuesday the judge asked for 750NIS bail and house arrest for one week. Our lawyer appealed the house arrest, and the prosecution appealed the bail (wanting a higher amount). The decision of Wednesday’s appeal trial has not been told to us yet.
ISM: Is this the first time you have been arrested and imprisoned? If not, can you tell us about your previous experiences?
R.N: Last year I had a similar imprisonment. It was much more difficult because it was my first time and I was alone and mostly kept in isolation for a period of five days. I had been beaten by soldiers during the arrest, with bruises and cuts all over my body. I was also facing more serious charges. I was charged, among other minor things, with assaulting a soldier, but thankfully we had video evidence that proved that it was not the case. Nonetheless, the court demanded I pay a similar bail last year.
ISM: Why do you attend these demonstrations and why do you think it is important as a Palestinian and a woman to participate in those protests?
R.N: The people of Nabi Saleh protest out of a direct necessity to protect what is left of their land and reclaim what has been illegally stolen from them. I, as a Palestinian, can’t separate myself from their struggle, so whenever I have the chance to, I am happy to join them. I especially like Nabi Saleh because the women play a role in the leadership.
ISM: Do you think it is important to have international presence at those demonstrations? If so, why?
R.N: I think an international observer presence can be helpful, in particular for publishing news in English in cases where that is not already happening. I think it is important for the popular struggle to not be reliant on internationals, however, as their legal status in the country is very weak (for example, they can be deported easily if they participate directly in protests) and their presence is transient. Visible internationals may lessen the violence that is used against protesters, but Palestinian women, and large numbers of protesters in general, have a similar effect. I think it would be better in the long term if we were encouraging Palestinians to come from the nearby cities, and especially women.
ISM: Do you want to add anything else?
R.N: No matter how much I had read or written about the prisoners’ struggle before my first imprisonment, I did not fully realize its significance. Every second in solitary confinement, every minute of exhaustion and boredom, and every day away from one’s family is significant to the prisoners. We on the outside should begin to feel every second as they do and begin pushing their cause with the urgency it deserves. I call for the freedom of all Palestinian political prisoners.
2nd July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement | Haifa
Ilan Pappé is an Israeli academic and activist. He is currently a professor at the University of Exeter (UK) and is well known for being one of the Israeli “new historians” – re-writing the Zionist narrative of the Palestinian Israeli situation. He has publicly spoken out against Israel’s policies of ethnic cleansing of Palestine and condemned the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime. He has also supported the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, calling for the international community to take action against Israel’s Zionist policies.
Activists from the International Solidarity Movement had the opportunity to talk to Professor Pappé about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, Israeli politics and society and the role of the international community and solidarity activists in Palestine, resulting in a three part series of interviews which will be released on the ISM website in the coming weeks.
This is the first section; the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
International Solidarity Movement: In your book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” (2006) and in your different speeches, you declare that Israel’s policy in Palestine could be qualified as a policy of ethnic cleansing. Has this strategy changed now or has the ethnic cleansing continued? If so, how has it continued?
Ilan Pappé: Before choosing the title for my book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”, I thought a lot because I knew the connotations, I realised that for too many people it would be too radical. I remember even my publisher had reservations about it. But then I checked the American State Department website about ethnic cleansing and the description of what ethnic cleansing is and it fitted so well with what was and is going on in Palestine. This description does not only describe an act of expulsion but also its’ legal implications, which is in this specific case, is a crime against humanity. It also says very clearly that the only way to compensate an ethnic cleansing is to ask the people who were expelled whether they want to return or not.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé
About the second part of your question, if this ethnic cleansing is continuing or not? Yes, I think it has continued, by different means, but it has. However the Zionist ideology and strategy has not changed from its very beginning. The idea was “We want to create a Jewish state in Palestine but also a Jewish democracy”. So the Zionists need to have a Jewish majority all the time. Now, you can do that by bringing Jewish immigrants to Palestine, but that didn’t work, the Jewish people remained a minority. They hoped that the Palestinians for some reasons would just leave, but this didn’t happen. So, ethnic cleansing was the only real solution from the Zionist perspective, not only to have control over Palestine, but also to have a Jewish democracy even with a really small minority. In 1948 they [Zionists leaders] believed that there was a unique historical opportunity to solve the problem of being a minority in the land where they wanted to be a majority.
Ethnic cleansing is a huge and massive operation, which usually takes place in time of war, therefore you cannot always know how to finish it. At the end of 1948 they [Zionist leaders] had 80% of the land they wanted (Israel without the West Bank and the Gaza strip), and in it they [Jewish people] were 85% of the population, together with a small minority that we today call the Palestinians of 48. They did not expel these Palestinians but they imposed their military rules on them, which to me is another kind of ethnic cleansing. You don’t physically get rid of them but you make them leave their houses, you don’t allow them to move freely, you don’t allow them their basic rights. In this instance, it was not about dispossession by uprooting someone but instead by making them prisoners, aliens in their own land. In 1967 the territorial apartheid in Israel grew. Now they wanted the rest of the land of historical Palestine. They achieved this with the Six-day war. Then they did something absurd from their own perspective. In 1948 they threw out from the country about 1 million Palestinians and in 1967 they incorporated about 1 million and a half Palestinians (those who were living in the West Bank and Gaza strip). So again, they had a problem with the Jewish majority democracy. Palestinians became again a demographic threat.
In 1967 they also expelled Palestinians, mostly from Jericho, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nablus, Qalqilya, but we don’t know the exact numbers. In order to understand this particular ethnic cleansing afterwards, we need to look at how they solved their problems in 1967. The war was a big victory for Israel because they got the land that they always wanted, the land of the ancient biblical cities (like Jericho, Hebron and Nablus). They didn’t expel the Palestinians but they didn’t give them citizenship either. The problem is that they colonized the rest of the land, denied citizenship to the natives and then they told the world that they wanted peace. So what they did, and they still do, was lie to themselves and to the world about their intentions. All the peace processes were just a cover.
Now, what to do with this new demographic threat? (there are now around 5.5 million Palestinians in the whole region of historical Palestine) I call it ethnic cleansing by different means. Some of the Palestinians lost their homes (between 1967 and today an average of 300,000 to 400,000 Palestinians have been individually expelled). They were either expelled or when they were travelling abroad, for example during a business trip to Rome and they didn’t come back within a year, they lost their right to return. Even if they came back within a year and later they leave the country again, even only for a few days, they also lose their right to return. It is hard to describe the ethnic cleansing because it is only about individuals and they succeeded with many. Then they expelled the Palestinians from the biblical areas that they wanted to be purely Jewish, like the greater Jerusalem area, where a lot of people were forced to become West Bank Palestinians after the occupation of 1967.
The ethnic cleansing is not only taking place in the West Bank or Gaza strip. For example in the Galilee, Palestinians are not allowed to develop their cities and villages. Sometimes you don’t even need to expel people as long as you don’t allow them to expand, to build their infrastructure, to have a decent job. In fact, a lot of Palestinians in the Galilee left because of the policies of Judaisation. We also have ethnic cleansing of the Bedouins in the south (Negev). Next month (June 2013), Israel is planning to push 30,000 Bedouins out of their lands and homes, to put them into some special centres. A little bit like the Native Americans reservations. What we have here is a constant policy since 1948.
How can you solve the problem of a country that wants to be both Jewish and democratic? How can you maintain a situation by which those who are citizens are only one people? You can tolerate a small number of Palestinians, and this is actually good for Israel because it creates a façade of them being the “only democracy in the Middle East”. However 20% of Palestinians (that’s the current percentage of Palestinians living in Israel) is too much because they could hypothetically have an impact in the Israeli political system. So, how to proceed? In 1948 it was about taking them out of their homes, now they are doing it in a different way. They created an apartheid system within Israel and they make the West Bank a place where people lack citizenship.
Ethnic cleansing of Palestinian land, comparison between 1948 and 2000
ISM: What are the concrete administrative and legal obstacles for the Palestinians living in Israel?
IP: The Palestinians in Israel are discriminated on 3 levels. The first is legal. By law, the fact that you are Palestinian means that you have fewer rights than a Jew. The most important law in this regard is the law on land ownership. According to the Israeli law, the land in Israel belongs to the Jewish people and them only. As a non-Jew, you are not allowed to trade or to purchase land and we are talking about 93% of the land. That’s why the Palestinians can’t grow and expand within Israel. Other laws do not specifically talk about the Palestinians, this is an old Israeli trick. The law says that if you have not served in the army you cannot have full rights as a student for example. You won’t get student’s subsidies, health services allowances, social security et al. All those things that the Western countries try to give to their citizens come with the precondition of military service in Israel. It is a trick because the Israelis do not want the Palestinians to serve in the army, in fact they are not allowed even if they would want to. There is an exception when it comes to Orthodox Jews, they do not serve in the army but they are not discriminated because they have a special annex to the Israeli budget. The Orthodox Jews get the money that the state would have used if they would have served in the army. So, Israeli law speaks for itself because it says that if you are Palestinian, you are a second-class citizen.
The second obstacle is policy discrimination. With this I mean that theoretically all citizens are equal. But when you look at the allocation budgets for schools, roads, infrastructure, anything at all, the Palestinians always get half or less than half of what the Jewish communities get. Here in Israel, you can see if you are in a Palestinian village just by looking at the quality of the roads. This is even nastier than you realise, because you can only improve the quality of the village by collaborating with Israel.
The third level is the worst one. It is the one of the daily encounter that Palestinians have with whoever represents the law in Israel. We undertook research in Haifa many years ago, which showed that in court, for the same charges, Palestinians always, always, got – and still get – double the punishment than their Jewish counterparts got.
To these three levels I will add two things. The Palestinians know that in the eyes of the Israeli authorities they represent a demographic threat. They live their whole lives knowing that the state they live in see them as a problem and want to get rid of them. That does not just mean the overt discrimination they face, because on top of that they are psychologically destroyed from within. We are not even talking about immigrants, but about people who are living in their homeland. This is exactly what Israelis do not understand, that the Jewish people were in the same situation when anti-Semitism was spreading around Europe.
Finally, if we want to compare this situation to South Africa, it is true that here we do not have a “petit-apartheid”, the one which for example creates separated benches and toilets for white and for black. Here it may not be visible to the public eye but is as bad as the one of South Africa.
ISM: The ISM team in Al Khalil (Hebron) has observed the expansion of mass child arrests, which have increased sharply in the last year. For example, 27 children aged between 7 and 16 were arrested on 20th March this year on their way to school. What do you think are the specific reasons behind these unjustified actions?
IP: First of all, this is not new. I remember I wrote an article some years ago for the London Review of Books entitled “Children in Prisons”. I also remember when I went to Ofer prison, near Ramallah, after a journalist had told me to go there and watch this children’s court. I saw many children together, all shackled and wearing orange prison uniforms, with a female judge who quickly accused them of throwing stones or something like that.
The policy of child arrests has intensified in recent years, and I think there are two specific reasons for this. Firstly, the Israeli secret services find it more and more difficult to get Palestinian informers. This is directly related to child arrests, and arrests without trial in general, because the main reason why the secret services want to make arrests without trial is that it gives them a really good chance to tell the arrested person that, if they want to be free, they have to work for the secret services. Nobody knows the numbers, but this succeeds. And it doesn’t need to be a sophisticated collaboration, maybe the person will just have to send a report every two weeks about something suspicious. And there’s nothing stronger than threatening a family by arresting their children. If you look at the graphs of child arrests since 1967, you will see that it goes up and down – this might be related to the number of collaborators that Israel can count on.
Some of the child arrests documented by the ISM in 2013 (Photos by ISM)
The second point is that Palestinians have changed their strategy since ‘67, to a non-violent-bordering-on-violent resistance (if you assume that stone throwing is violent). They used this way during the First Intifada, and many children participated in it. Then during the Second Intifada, there were many suicide bombers and weapons, and fewer children participating, therefore fewer child arrests. Now, the Israeli military and secret services feel that something is boiling in the West Bank and they are preparing for a Third Intifada. It is very clear that it will be less violent than the previous ones. The State of Israel feels, or wants to feel, like it already started. That’s why they are reporting constantly about the increase of stone-throwing, which automatically leads to more children being arrested and harassed. Israeli soldiers, of course, say that stone-throwing is a form of terrorism, putting lives in danger. Moreover, it makes soldiers feel humiliated, that they can’t respond brutally to this act and to non-violent protest (even if they actually do).
There is an interesting Israeli NGO named “There is a Limit”, whose members were part of the first refuseniks. All Israeli soldiers have a little green book of regulations in their pocket, called “The Soldier’s Guide”, about how to act in different situations, and this NGO made a copy of the book and called it, “Guide To War Crimes”. They took all the instructions of the real book and changed them, in order to show soldiers that they are actually asked to commit war crimes, especially against Palestinian children. But the soldiers don’t care. If you tell them that arresting a child is against international law, they will just say that international law is anti-Semitic, created specifically against Israel. They seem to forget that international law was actually developed also because of the Holocaust.
ISM: You said previously that the Zionist idea of creating a Jewish state didn’t change. What do you mean by the term Jewish state? Do you think that Israeli final goal is to have complete sovereignty on the whole territory of historical Palestine?
IP: The Zionist goal from the very beginning was to have as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians in it as possible. There is no actual difference between what we today call left and right Zionism. The only difference is that the right wing speak their mind more, in the fact that they continuously let us know they want to take more and more land from the Palestinians. They do not care if it is not the right historical moment or if they have enough resources to do it or if the international atmosphere is not good. Whereas the left, the pragmatic left, say that they cannot take land all the time. So, for example, you need to look for good historical moments. Some of the left says that it’s enough to have 90% of historic Palestine for Israelis, with the last 10% for the Palestinians, who would also be denied Israeli citizenship.
This is the two state solution vision from the Israeli perspective. This solution was born as an idea of the Zionist left. They said give a little bit of the West Bank and the Gaza strip to the Palestinians and let them call it a state, even though it is not even connected. What they did is draw a map of the Palestinian state which only shows where the Palestinians live now, not one centimetre more. If you look at the map of the West Bank you can see it, Nablus is Nablus, there are no suburbs of Nablus. According to Israel if there are no Palestinians living there, it’s Israel, regardless of why they are not there. Yet, if you have a settlement, you will need a parameter to protect it. This partition is something that the Zionist left already came up with in 1967. Palestinians can stay where they are but cannot have more space.
ISM: So this is the idea developed with the Oslo accords in 1993, which divided the West Bank into three areas (A, B and C)?
IP: Yes, this is correct. But this idea was developed, as I said, in 1967 by the leftist Zionists, way before the Oslo agreements. The great architect of all this was the Zionist Minister of Labour, Yagel Alon. In 1967 Alon wasn’t speaking about areas A, B and C specifically but instead, he was saying that if we want a solution we need to divide the West Bank into two areas, one under Israeli control and the other under Palestinian control. He said that he didn’t care if the Palestinian area would be called a state one day – he had no problem with that. The problem will be who controls the West Bank’s strategic areas and resources. Israel must control the air and the Jordan river and the Palestinians must have no army to stop this. The whole concept of Oslo, to my mind, was truly birthed by the Israelis in 1967.
ISM: In the occupied West Bank, land appropriation is a daily occurrence, especially but not only in Area C. Do you see a present or future parallel with South African’s Bantustans and the reservations of Native Americans at this rate?
IP: Yes. I think I already talked about this, but I will repeat it with a different focus.
Israeli strategists understand that they will not be able to physically get rid of all the Palestinians Palestinians as they will stay where they are. So, instead of getting rid of them, they are putting them in small prisons, so that they don’t feel they are part of Israel. You bring more Jewish people, you colonize, and in order to build houses for them you need to expropriate Palestinian land, because there is no Jewish land to expropriate, so you demolish Palestinian houses. Secondly, you build a separation wall between the Jewish space and the Palestinian space, and you expropriate more land, not only for the settlements but also to create a buffer zone, so that Jewish people and Arabs won’t live together. More importantly, you also take the best land – where the water resources are, and the quality of the land is good. And you take the good water from Palestinians and put it in the hands of the settlers, and make sure that the waste water flows onto Palestinian land. So it is even more cruel – not only do I take your good water, I also sell you bad water for double the price, which is just terrible. And as I said before, yes, I believe that there is a clear parallel between today’s situation in Palestine and the sad historical examples of Native Americans and South African apartheid.
This is the first of a three part interview series: Ilan Pappé in conversation with the International Solidarity Movement. Look out for the second part on Israeli politics and society next week.
16th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Nabi Saleh , Occupied Palestine
M. and A. are two independent paramedics who regularly attend different protests against Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Israeli forces usually respond to Palestinian popular resistance with extreme violence, including the shooting of tear gas canisters, rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition. Considering that injuries are very common and that the nearest hospital is usually far from the village where the protests are taking place, the presence of medical personnel in these demonstrations is essential and highly appreciated by protesters.
Last Friday, we had the opportunity to talk to M. and A. during the weekly demonstration in Nabi Saleh, which they regularly attend.
International Solidarity Movement: How long have you been volunteering as paramedics? Why did you choose to volunteer?
M: Since 2009. In the beginning I was working in a project with the Danish Red Cross Youth and then I joined the Red Crescent.
A: I have been volunteering since 2004. I do it because I like to help people and this is the way I want to do that.
ISM: You go to a lot of demonstrations as paramedics – why do you think that these protests are important to the community and to Palestine?
M: Well it is better to do something than to do nothing. Also, when there are medics at demonstrations people have more courage to go to the front because they know that we are there to assist them in case something happens.
A: As you know, we live under occupation so people have to move and do something to end it. We have to protest and attend demonstrations anytime and anywhere.
Protesters marching at last Friday demonstration in Nabi Saleh (Photo by Tamimi Press)
ISM: Nabi Saleh demonstration, for example, receives a lot of press coverage. What lesser known demonstrations do you cover and how are these different?
M: Sometimes there are protests at Ofer during the night and no one knows anything about this. This is one of the unknown protests. Also at Qalandiya, there is no press, there are often no medics, only a few people there. I go sometimes to these clashes. A. is always there.
A: Yes, I’m always there, at Ofer, Qalandiya. But no one knows about it. All the media is in Ni’lin, Bil’in, Nabi Saleh – the villages outside Ramallah. Those other places, nobody know about them, especially the media. However, I think the places where there is no media can be good for shabab (Palestinian youths) as they can do whatever they want for the resistance.
M: But it is also good for the soldiers, they can also do whatever they want and no one will film them.
A: This is the difference. But even if there is media, the Israeli soldiers can do whatever they want, no one can stop them, we know that.
ISM: Do you think that the presence of internationals, such as ISMers, makes any difference at demonstrations in Palestine?
M: Actually,there is difference between internationals and ISMers. Some internationals like to be here because they think they are going to liberate this country but they are actually doing nothing, they are just messing up the situation more and more. But some people, like ISMers, do something at least. They try to help in an organised way. But it depends, there are different internationals, some just come to see what is happening, some come to take photos, there are differences. It depends on which international we are talking about.
A: I will say like him, in short way, there are people who come here just to take a photo, like if this was an adventure. They think there is adventure in the West Bank so they come. And there are people who come to support Palestinian cause and popular resistance.
M: Some people think it is a game.
A: Yes, they think there is adventure – they think “let’s go to see it, to try it”.
ISM: There have been some deaths of paramedics. Do you think medics are deliberately targeted at demonstrations?
M: There is a difference between us, medics who work in the field, and people who work in the ambulances. The Israeli forces target a lot of ambulances in Gaza and also the hospital there. But, yes, sometimes they do target us as well. Sometimes they just shoot directly. If there is no media, then they’re just going to do it. They did it at Ofer and also here at Nabi Saleh several times. One time he [pointing at A] got shot – they shot him directly with a tear gas canister. Directly at him. He ducked just in time, so he didn’t get shot in the head.
A: They tried to kill me!
M: Once they targeted me when I was with just a couple of other protesters before the demonstration – because there was no media, and it was before the protest had started they just shot directly at us. So yes, sometimes they do this, yeah. They don’t care.
A: They think we are Palestinian so we have to die. They don’t care if we are medics or not. They target everything.
M: Also at Qalandiya on Nakba Day, they [Israeli forces] started restricting the ambulances from the PMRC and the Red Crescent – they don’t want them to help the shabab (Palestinian youths) because if there are more ambulances, the shabab will just keep going, because they know someone will carry them and help them if they get shot.
Palestinian medics evacuate a Palestinian youth after he was shot by Israeli soldiers during clashes at Ofer prison (Photo by Activestills)
ISM: You told us about the Israeli army aiming at your head – could you tell us about your injuries?
M: Yes, that day I was walking towards him [A] and then they started shooting directly tear gas at his back so I shouted [A] at him, so he turned and ducked and just got two shots in his legs. They [Israeli soldiers] called the ambulance and told them “Yeah, one of your medics got shot.”
A: Yes, they called the driver and asked him “how is the medic? If you want to take him to hospital, you can go through the checkpoint – you can cross it.” But actually they wanted to arrest me. I didn’t go in the ambulance.
M: A bit later, the ambulance took someone else and the soldiers stopped the ambulance for fifteen minutes – checking the ambulance.
A: They were asking the driver “where is the medic?” – the ambulance driver called me and said “they’re looking for you.” They had been targeting me – he shot me from close distance, maybe 40 metres. He saw it – and then they wanted to arrest me. About my injuries? I don’t know about him [M], but me, I have been injured many times. At Nabi Saleh, Ofer, Qalandiya, Bili’in,
M: They also once shot directly at us just over there [pointing] but I went like this [dodging] – so it hit him!
A: I am like a magnet.
ISM: So this is despite the fact that you are wearing medics’ clothes and backpacks – you are easily identified as medics?
M: Yes, it’s obvious that we are medics, so they shouldn’t be shooting us or targeting us, according to international humanitarian law. But they don’t care about this.
A: Actually, with this uniform they are targeting us, we are clear – “there is a medic, we can shoot him directly now, he is clear for us.”
ISM: So you spoke about the ambulance being stopped at the checkpoint and searched, obstructing medical care. In what ways has the Israeli army obstructed your work?
M: Actually the thing with the ambulance has an explanation – they [the Israeli army] are allowed to check ambulances for fifteen minutes – no longer than that. Because in the second intifada there was a suicide bomber inside an ambulance and they stopped it at Jabaand the Israelis brought all the media and filmed it. So since that they are allowed to stop the ambulances and check them for fifteen minutes. That was part of the agreement.
Once in Nabi Saleh they didn’t allow the ambulance to get in after a girl who got shot down the hill with a tear gas canister. For three hours we kept calling the Red Cross, the Red Crescent but nothing happened. In the end they brought another ambulance from Nablus – so they came from the other direction. And there was a guy who got shot with a rubber coated steel bullet from a short distance, grazing the top of his head and leaving him with a three centimetre cut – but he was fine. They [the ambulance crew] told him, if we pick you up and take you to the hospital then they’re going to arrest you. So he decided to stay in Nabi Saleh. After that, when a guy got shot with a dum dum bullet – that’s the only time that they let the ambulance get out. We had to take the other two guys with a service [shared taxi] to Ramallah hospital.
ISM: How many injuries do you usually treat at a demonstration, and what kind of injuries are they typically?
A: That depends! If the soldiers are having a nice day, maybe they will shoot fifteen, sixteen. But if they’re angry, more than this number. Twenty, twenty-five.
M: They use tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets – the worst is the rubber coated steel bullets, because they go randomly and hit many people. When they aim with live bullets they just shoot one guy, but when it’s rubber coated bullets, it’s spread over many. It also depends if you want to count the tear gas inhalation as an injury.
A: You can see, in Nabi Saleh there are maybe five or six injuries in the protest. Maybe more sometimes. But if you look at Ofer, eighteen, nineteen – even one hundred, sometimes even more.
M: Usually they just use tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets. I think in Nabi Saleh there was just one guy who was shot with live ammunition.
A: In Nabi Saleh, no, not just one. Three. One of them was shot on this mountain in his leg with a live bullet. Another in his hand. And Rushdi, who died last year, was shot in his leg on that mountain.
A medic treating an injured protester from rubber coated steel bullet in Nabi Saleh (Photo by Tamimi Press)
ISM: Were there medics there when Rushdi was killed?
M: No, we were not here, because they shot him on Saturday – it wasn’t a demonstration day. In the beginning they shot him with a rubber coated steel bullet so he couldn’t move, and then they shot him with live – just like that.
A: When he was on the ground. The bullet passed through his leg and stopped in his back. He died after five days.
M: In the beginning they didn’t allow him to be taken to hospital – they tried to arrest him.
A: Yes, they tried to arrest him, they were pulling him. When he was shot there were three metres between him and the soldiers and he was on the ground.
ISM: You were present at the demonstration when Mustafa Tamimi was killed – can you tell us a little bit about that?
A: I don’t know what you want exactly…I saw him when he died. Before he got shot, I was on the mountain – a bulldozer was brought into the village, so all the shabab chased the bulldozer and threw stones. The jeep turned around down there [pointing to the road into the village] and came back. There was Mustafa and someone else close to the jeep, throwing stones – they were like four metres away. Then the soldier in the jeep got an order from his commander that said “shoot him.” So he shot directly into his [Mustafa’s] face.
The canister went inside his face like five centimetres – so when I went to him and looked at him, I told everyone nearby “he has died. We can’t do anything for him.” We carried him and put him in a service and sent him to the soldiers at the checkpoint. The commander said “he is fine, but we’ll take him to the hospital now”. But then they kept him like half an hour at the checkpoint, on the ground – they took him out of the service and put him on the ground – after that they took him with a military ambulance to a village further down and then took him in a helicopter to a hospital in forty-eight, near Tel Aviv.
They took him there and the doctor said “his eye is okay” – but his eye was not okay! I saw it out, beside his face. I brought it back to his face. His brother told me, the doctor says he is okay, he will live, we will fix his face – but he’ll have to stay in the hospital four or five months for treatment. But I told them – he has died. When we carried him from the ground, he was dead. But no one believed me you know, because I’m not a doctor. But the next day they believed me, when the hospital said “he is dead.”
They [the Israeli authorities] did that just to stop people reacting – because if they know he is dead, something bad will happen. I think, if the people had known then they would have continued demonstrating and there would have been more people dead after Mustafa. But the soldiers came back and said, “he is okay, don’t worry”. They gave his family and other people from the village permits to go to the hospital to visit him. They never give these to anyone, but they gave five permits to Nabi Saleh that day. They just wanted the people to calm down that day. The next day, they said he was dead and sent him to Ramallah hospital.
