Tag: Ezra Nawi

Leftist gets month in jail for assault

Aviad Glickman | YNet News

21 October 2009

The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court sentenced left-wing activist Ezra Nawi to one month in prison, after convicting him of assaulting police officers and rioting during the demolition of illegal structures near South Mount Hebron in July 2007.

Nawi was also ordered to pay a fine of NIS 750 (roughly $202), and an additional NIS 500 ($135) compensation to each officer he assaulted.

Judge Eilata Ziskind wrote in her ruling that “even if there is a supreme goal, it cannot be used as an excuse to commit offenses.” Nawi said in response that “the court has been permitting the occupation. The punishment doesn’t scare me, and neither does the judge.”

Ziskind’s verdict read, “Freedom of expression is not the freedom to incite and take actions that prevent or disrupt police work…Freedom of expression does not allow for riots, incitement or violence. Democracy cannot allow this, for if the law enforcement system collapses, anarchy will reign and democracy and freedom of expression will be no more.”

The judge added, “The fact that a person is acting in the name of one ideology or another, as justified as it may be, is no excuse to commit offenses in the name of that ideology, and in this matter there is no difference between left-wing activists, right-wing activists, religious, seculars, or other groups in conflict.”

After the sentencing Nawi told Ynet, “The judge would rather take the word of two Border Guard officers who lied and coordinated their testimonies. The entire system wants to see me in jail.

“The court has been permitting the occupation for years, they are trying to stop me at all costs. The judge doesn’t scare me, and neither does the 30-day sentence. This is testimonium paupertatis to the court, I tried to stop criminal activity, and I ended up having to pay two officers who acted brutally. This is the Israeli reality.”

Nawi, a leftist and member of the Ta’ayush organization, was arrested after he objected to the demolition of illegal structures and tin huts of Bedouin residents of Umm al-Kher and was convicted of inciting the residents of the area and causing riots.

In his verdict, the judge accepts the officer’s claims and ruled that Nawi hit one of them in the face.

The Yesha Human Rights Organization in response criticized the one-month prison sentence.

“One month in jail is like mocking the poor and emphasizes the selectivity of the law enforcement system in Judea and Samaria. (The system) allows Nawi to run wild, cooperate with Hamas members and hurt settlers, and remembers to enforce the law only when he hurts policemen,” the organization said in a statement.

The Nation: ‘Israel’s man of conscience ‘

Ezra Nawi | The Nation

29 June 2009

My name is Ezra Nawi. I am a Jewish citizen of Israel.

I will be sentenced on the first of July after being found guilty of assaulting two police officers in 2007 while struggling against the demolition of a Palestinian house in Um El Hir, located in the southern part of the West Bank.

Of course the policemen who accused me of assaulting them are lying. Indeed, lying has become common within the Israeli police force, military and among the Jewish settlers.

After close to 140,000 letters were sent to Israeli officials in support of my activities in the occupied West Bank, the Ministry of Justice responded that I “provoke local residents.”

This response reflects the culture of deceit that has taken over all official discourse relating to the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

After all, was I the one who poisoned and destroyed Palestinian water wells?

Was I the one who beat young Palestinian children?

Did I hit the elderly?

Did I poison the Palestinian residents’ sheep?

Did I demolish homes and destroy tractors?

Did I block roads and restrict movement?

Was I the one who prevented people from connecting their homes to running water and electricity?

Did I forbid Palestinians from building homes?

Over the past eight years, I have seen with my own two eyes hundreds of abuses such as these and exposed them to the public–therefore I am considered a provocateur. I can only say that I am proud to be a provoker.

Because I am a provoker, the police together with their allies have threatened me, beaten me and arrested me on numerous occasions. And when I continued to “provoke” them, they did not hesitate to out me as a gay man; indeed, they spread rumors among the Palestinians with whom I work that I have AIDS.

One of the reasons I have been singled out has to do with who I am. It is difficult to explain, but as a Mizrahi Jew (descended from Jewish communities in the Arab and Muslim world), a gay man and a plumber, I do not belong to the elite of Israeli society and do not fit the stereotype of the Israeli peacenik–namely, an intellectual Jew of Ashkenazi decent. Actually, the police officers who constantly arrest me and I are part of the same social strata. I was programmed like them, have a similar accent, know their jargon and our historical background is comparable. And yet, in their eyes I am on and for the other side, the Palestinian side.

This simple fact seems to disturb them so much that they have to vilify me; that is the only way their worldview will continue making sense. I threaten them precisely because I undermine the categories and stereotypes through which they understand the world.

But the policemen are only actors on this stage. The military, civil administration and the judicial system are all working with the police, and all of them together follow the commands of their masters, the Jewish settlers.

This unholy alliance is extremely dangerous, because for them the end–gaining full control of the Land of Israel–justifies the means. In order to advance this end they dehumanize the Palestinians; and because the Palestinians in their eyes are not human, everything is permitted. They can steal their land, demolish their homes, steal their water, imprison them for no reason and at times even kill them. In Hebrew we say damam mutar, taking their blood is permissible.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that the evil I confront every day in the West Bank could not have been carried out without the Israeli court system. Judge Eilata Ziskind not only mistakenly found me guilty but she instructed the court to invite a translator for the sentencing, as if I do not speak Hebrew; in her mind I, a Mizrahi Jew, am a Palestinian Arab–and Arabs are, almost by definition, guilty. My case is merely part of a pattern. All the crimes committed by the state and its proxies in the territories over the past four decades were made kosher by the Israeli courts. Therefore, the courts are just as much to blame for the ongoing cruelty.

Because I am a provoker the state subjects me to continuing harassment, and yet I have remained persistent. What strengthens me and gives me energy is the widespread and constant support I have always received from political allies. When I was beaten by settlers, when my car was stolen, when I was arrested, I never felt alone. I know that thousands of people, both in Israel and abroad, support what we in Ta’ayush (Jewish-Arab Partnership) are doing against the occupation.

“Ezra” in Hebrew means help, and I know that in times of trouble I can rely on my friends for help.

Help Israeli human rights activist Ezra Nawi

Without international intervention Israeli human rights activist Ezra Nawi will most likely be sent to jail.

Ezra Nawi has been active for years in the area known as South Mt. Hebron. The Palestinians in this small desolate area in the very south of the West Bank have been under Israeli occupation for almost 42 years; they still live without electricity, running water and other basic services, and are continuously harassed by the Jewish settlers who constantly violate both Israeli and International law, and are backed by a variety of Israeli military forces, all of which operate in an effort to rid the area of its Palestinian inhabitants and create a new demographic reality in it.

Nawi`s persistent NON VIOLENT activity in the area is aimed both at aiding the local population in its plight to stay on their lands, but also at exposing the situation in the area to both the Israeli and international public eye. The latter is very much not in the interest of the Israeli settlers who complain that Nawi is disturbing the “status quo” in the area. Nawi has received threats on his life from the settlers in the past. The chief of the investigations in the Hebron Israeli Police once admitted that what Nawi is doing in the area is “exposing the dirt laying under the rug…”

Ezra Nawi`s efforts have been fruitful in the sense that the attempt to rid the South Mt. Hebron from its Palestinian inhabitants has become a visible, internationally acknowledged issue.

The settlers, army and Israeli police have a strong interest to restrict his movement and ban him from the area. Therefore they constantly falsely accuse him of violating the law. Lately he has been pronounced guilty of assaulting a police officer who was demolishing a Palestinian house on July 22, 2007. He will be sentenced this coming July.

As chance would have it, the demolition and the resistance to it were captured on film and broadcast on Israeli news. As depicted on the film (a must see), Nawi, the man dressed in a green jacket, not only courageously protests the demolition, but after the bulldozer destroys the buildings he also tells the border policemen what he thinks of their actions. Sitting handcuffed in a military vehicle following his arrest, he exclaims: “Yes, I was also a soldier, but I did not demolish houses… The only thing that will be left here is hatred…”

Nawi`s case is not only about Nawi. It is also about Israel and Israeli society, if only because one can learn a great deal about a country from the way it treats its human rights and pro-democracy activists.

To support Ezra, please write a letter or email to the Israeli embassy in your country, and send us a copy to support.ezra@gmail.com