Tag: Yesh Din

Would Israel arrest a Jewish terrorist with only Arab victims?

Avi Issacharoff | Ha’aretz

2 November 2009

It’s reasonable to assume that if Yaakov (Jack) Teitel had focused only on attacking Palestinians, he would have encountered few problems with law-enforcement authorities. His big mistake, it seems, was targeting non-Arabs as well.

Experience – and statistics – show that Israeli law enforcement is remarkably lax when it comes to tackling violence against Palestinians. Twelve years ago, Teitel confessed to killing two Arabs and then took a break from such activity. Sure, he was detained for questioning after the murder of shepherd Issa Mahamra, but he was released due to insufficient evidence. As with many other cases of murder and violence committed against Palestinians, the story of the shepherd from Yatta and the taxi driver from East Jerusalem disappeared into oblivion – until Teitel returned and attempted to harm Jews, bringing the wrath of public opinion, the Shin Bet security service and the Israel Police down on his head.

The (justifiably) prevailing feeling among Palestinians in the West Bank is that their blood is of no consequence. It’s hard to find a Palestinian today who will make an effort to approach the Israeli police about a settler assault, unless Israeli human-rights groups help him. The way Palestinians in the territories see it, Israeli law is enforced only if Jews are harmed, while incidents in which Palestinians are murdered, beaten or otherwise wounded are treated cursorily at best – and more often, are ignored entirely.

For instance, at least six shooting attacks against Palestinians in 2001-2002 have remained unsolved. The most shocking incident took place in July 2001, when three members of the Tamaizi family were shot to death by a man in a skullcap, according to relatives. The gunman asked the driver of the vehicle to stop, as it drove from one end of the village of Idna to the other, after a family wedding. When it stopped, he opened fire. But it’s doubtful that Israelis remember that 3-month-old Dai Marwan Tamaizi, born after his parents underwent 14 years of fertility treatments, was killed that day – as were Mohammed Salameh Tamaizi, 27, an only child, and Mohammed Hilmi al-Tamaizi, 24, who was engaged to be married.

One relative recalled last night that to this day, the Israeli authorities have not bothered to update the family on the outcome of their investigation.

Investigations by Palestinian-rights advocacy group Yesh Din has found that 90 percent of police investigations of cases in which Israelis are suspected of committing offenses against Palestinians in the West Bank are left unsolved and are closed. In a 2006 case, four settlers were suspected of beating an elderly Palestinian man with a rifle, leaving him unconscious for three weeks – but police didn’t check the alibis of two of the suspects, and a third wasn’t even questioned.

There are many more such incidents that indicate that the impression of Palestinians in the West Bank is rooted in reality. Maybe it’s Arab terrorists simply interest the law-enforcement authorities more than Jewish terrorists.

State won’t prosecute officers filmed beating Palestinians

Liel Kyzer | Ha’aretz

21 October 2009

Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan rejected an appeal against the decision not to investigate Border Police officers who documented themselves abusing Palestinians.

The appeal was filed by the Yesh Din human rights group.

Senior deputy to the state prosecutor Nechama Zusman wrote last week on Nitzan’s behalf that “the beating in the case was extremely slight and did not cause any actual damage. Therefore, the deputy state prosecutor did not think it was appropriate to intervene in the decision of the Justice Ministry’s department for the investigation of police officers to transfer the case to the care of the Israel Police disciplinary department, along with a recommendation to discipline the officers in question.”

Yesh Din issued a sharp response on Tuesday. The organization’s legal adviser, Michael Sfard, wrote to Zusman that, “Your position demonstrates unprecedented tolerance of abuse of people in custody by a person of authority, through the use of violence and humiliation.”

“The question of damage suffered is completely irrelevant, as criminal law prohibits assault and without qualifying it by the gravity of the damage caused,” the letter continued. “The argument that beating a prisoner is not a criminal act is even worse than the beating itself, and amounts to a dangerous move by the prosecution.”

The organization called upon the prosecution to review its decision to close the criminal case. Sfard asked for disciplinary proceedings to be stalled until a final decision is made, and made clear that Yesh Din is considering further legal measures if the original decision is upheld.

The video clips in which the officers documented themselves beating and humiliating Palestinians in East Jerusalem were revealed over a year ago, and appear to have been filmed in July 2007 and August 2008.

One clip shows an armed Border Police officer hitting a Palestinian detainee on the back of the head. Another shows a different officer forcing a Palestinian youth to salute.

Yesh Din, which made the clips public, said they were found in a cell phone apparently lost by one of the officers.

When the footage became public, Yesh Din approached the investigations department with a request to examine the events in an open criminal proceeding against those involved.

After looking into the matter, the department decided not to press criminal charges and to transfer the case to the police disciplinary unit.

Israeli Soldier indicted for beating Palestinian grassroots leader Mohammed Khatib in Bil’in

Yesh Din

19 October 2009

On October 15, an indictment was filed against an Israeli soldier accused of beating up well-known nonviolent protester and secretary of Bil’in’s Regional Council Mohammed Khatib one month ago (September 15) during a night raid on the village. The organization Yesh Din filed a complaint and demanded that an investigation be launched immediately after the incident. The soldier was arrested on October 6th and remains in custody.

The alleged beating took place shortly after 1:30am on September 15th, when the Israeli military raided the Bil’in residence of Abedullah Abu Rahma, Coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall, in an attempt to arrest him. However, he was not home at the time. Soldiers sealed off the house while operating inside. When Mohammed Khatib came to the house and attempted to enter to check on Abu Rahme’s family, he was severely beaten. He was taken to a hospital in Ramallah for treatment and returned to the village later.

Attorney Michael Sfard, Yesh Din Legal Council: “The Israeli Military record in its treatment of Palestinina complainsts against soldier violence is unacceptable. While of course we are glad to see the soldier who beat up Mohammed beginning the process of being brought to justice, the indictment filed today is the exception. Yesh Din has filed several complaints regarding severe violence in Bil’in over the past few weeks and in NONE of them were the offenders made accountable for their behavior.”

Mohammed Khatib: “This indictment – against the soldier who beat me – clearly shows how the Israelli Military’s attempt to quash the village’s resistance has gone completely out of control, forcing even the military investigative police and military prosecution to intervene. A simple glance at the statistics of indictments should be enough for anyone to realize how rare such intervention is and how impenetrable impunity is in the Israeli army. The real problem, of course, is not an individual soldier, but rather the fact that the army employs military means to deal with civic, unarmed resistance, as if we were an armed enemy.”

Indictments of Israeli Soldiers:
According to Yesh Din’s report “Exceptions”, of the 1,246 investigation files opened by the MPCID (military police criminal investigations department) from the start of the Second Intifada in 2000 until the end of 2007, only 78 (6%) led to indictments against one or more soldiers. Of the thousands of Palestinian civilians killed, perpetrators were convicted in only 4 cases.

Bil’in arrests and night raids:
On June 23rd of this year, the Israeli Military began conducting regular nighttime incursions into Bil’in, evacuating homes and searching for participants in the Friday demonstrations, particularly the leaders of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, as well as teenage boys accused of throwing stones at the wall. 28 residents of the village have been arrested over the past three months along with two internationals and one Israeli. Of the 28 residents arrested, 12 are minors (under the age of 16). Of the 28 arrested, 10 people have been released on bail, meaning that 18 are still held in custody, among them 10 minors. Of the 28, three members of the leadership have been arrested – Mohammed Khatib, Mohammed Abu Rahme (“Abu Nizar”) and Bassel Mansour. At least one other leader is wanted – Abedallah Abu Rahme – and the military has broken into his house several times over the past weeks in attempts to arrest him. The villagers and many of their Israeli supporters believe that these arrests are part of a targeted Israeli attempt to quash the years-strong non-violent Palestinian resistance movement, beginning with the village that has become its symbol.

Bil’in vs. Green Park

Corporate Watch

24 July 2009

The Green Park construction company is engaged in building illegal settlements in the West Bank, notably, the settlements of Mattiyahu East and Modi’in Illit, which have been built on land annexed from the Palestinian village of Bil’in, by the Israeli apartheid wall.

The village of Bil’in has been struggling against the construction of the wall for over five years, holding weekly demonstrations, first at the construction site and then at the gate in the apartheid wall separating the villagers from their land. The Israeli army has often responded by attacking demonstrations with water cannons, sound bombs, plastic bullets and live ammunition. Bil’in has also been used as a testing site for new weapons. Demonstrators have been subjected to high-pitched screeching and doused with nerve agents, blue dye and, most recently, a foul-smelling ‘skunk’ weapon. In March 2009, an American activist, Tristan Anderson, was critically injured after a new brand of tear gas canister was fired at his head. He remains in a coma. In April 2009, Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahmah was killed by a plastic coated bullet while demonstrating against the wall. Despite this weekly demonstrations continue unabated and have been successful in saving some of the village’s land.

For years international campaigners from all over the world have been attending the weekly demonstrations in Bil’in. Three international conferences on non-violent resistance to the wall and the occupation have been held in the village. The residents of Bil’in have brought several cases to the Israeli supreme court against the seizure of their land for the construction of the wall. Now the village is extending its resistance from the contractors building the wall and the soldiers protecting it to the international companies profiting from the building of the settlements the wall is designed to benefit.

Last year Bil’in’s village committee, with the help of Israeli human rights group Yesh Din (‘There is Law’ in Hebrew), began work on a case against two Canadian companies linked to Green Park. Green Park International Inc. and Green Mount International Inc. are both registered companies in the Province of Quebec. Lawyers for the village claim both companies are involved in building residential and non-residential units for settlers on land belonging to the village. They further claim that the village is due the protection of the Geneva conventions as it is based in territory subject to military occupation.

In what appears to be a deliberate attempt to evade restriction of its business, Green Park has nominally registered itself in Canada. Green Park has a token Canadian director who has little to do with the company’s operations in Palestine.

The Bil’in committee claims that Green Park International Inc. and Green Mount International Inc. have violated international law and Canadian domestic law and that the village has a right to protection under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Both statutes prohibit an occupying power from transferring its civilian population into territory that it has occupied as a result of war. Bil’in also relies on the Canadian Geneva Conventions Act and the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, which contain the same prohibition. The acts have jurisdiction over Canadians regardless of where in the world the offence has taken place.

Lawyers for Bil’in are claiming damages as well as attempting to obtain an order for settlement construction to cease. If successful, they plan to try to force the Israeli supreme court to enforce the Canadian court’s order.

Green Park International Inc. and Green Mount International Inc have lodged motions in the court for the claims to be thrown out on the grounds that the court did not have jurisdiction. Bil’in’s Canadian lawyers argue that, as the companies are registered in Canada, the court does have jurisdiction. The judge’s decision is likely to come after September 2009.

The case of Bil’in vs Green Park is similar to the case lodged by the Association France Palestine Solidaritie against Veolia and Alstom, two French companies engaged in building a tramway on illegally occupied territory (see Corporate Watch Newsletter 43 – www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=3400). In that case, it was accepted that the French court did have jurisdiction to hear the case.

HeidelbergCement tries to sell West Bank mines as legal, boycott pressures grow

Adri Nieuwhof | Electronic Intifada

13 July 2009

HeidelbergCement, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of building materials, has become the target of legal action in Israel because of its activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The company’s subsidiary, Hanson Israel, manufactures ready-made cement, aggregates and asphalt for Israel’s construction industry and operates a quarry in the occupied West Bank.

In March, the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din filed a petition with the Israeli high court demanding a halt to illegal mining activity in West Bank quarries, including Hanson Israel’s Nahal Raba quarry. Attorneys representing Yesh Din called upon the court to put an end to this “clearly illegal activity, which constitutes blunt and ugly colonial exploitation of land we [Israel] had forcefully seized.”

Yesh Din’s attorneys argued that the practice is reminiscent of occupation patterns in ancient times when there were no laws of war and the victor could plunder the occupied territory, enslave its economy and citizens, and transfer the natural resources of the vanquished to its own land. In May, Israel ordered a freeze on the expansion of Israeli-run stone and gravel quarries in the occupied West Bank. The Ministry of Justice asked the court to delay a hearing for six months to study the legal position of the quarries. In addition to its mining activity at Nahal Raba, the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace reported on the website Who Profits from the Occupation? that Hanson owns two concrete plants in the settlements of Modiin Illit and Atarot, and an asphalt plant south of the Elqana settlement.

Five years ago, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) reaffirmed in its authoritative ruling the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people, that Israel is the occupying power in the Palestinian territories, and the illegality of settlement construction, which includes the construction of industrial sites in the settlements.

Transnational corporations like HeidelbergCement are required by international law to comply with international rules governing corporate responsibility with respect to human rights.

In 2003, the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights defined norms on the responsibilities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights. The norms are framed within the general obligation that “States have the primary responsibility to promote, secure the fulfillment of, respect, ensure respect of and protect human rights recognized in international as well as national law, including ensuring that transnational corporations and other business enterprises respect human rights.”

“Transnational corporations and other business enterprises,” the UN norms state, also specifically “have the obligation to promote, secure the fulfillment of, respect, ensure respect of and protect human rights recognized in international as well as national law, including the rights and interests of indigenous peoples and other vulnerable groups.”

Hanson Israel’s concrete and asphalt plants in the OPT — just like the Israeli settlements — are contrary to international law. Israel’s mining of Palestinian natural resources, mainly for the Israeli market, also violates international law. Through Hanson Israel’s operations in the occupied West Bank, HeidelbergCement is involved in Israel’s violations of international law and the company acts against the rights and interest of the indigenous Palestinian people.

The UN Norms for transnational corporations are an authoritative guide to corporate social responsibility. Institutional investors and asset managers are increasingly insisting on corporate social responsibility as a requirement for their continued investment. As states fail to meet their obligations to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law, economic pressure can be used as a tool to hold companies who render aid or assistance to Israel’s violations of international law to account.

In early 2008, for example, the Dutch ASN Bank divested from the Irish construction firm Cement Roadstone Holding (CRH), a competitor of HeidelbergCement. CRH owns 25 percent of the Israeli Mashav Group, the holding company for Nesher Cement. According to the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace, Nesher provided cement for Israel’s wall, checkpoints and illegal settlements in the OPT. Activists in Ireland have demanded that CRH end all of its activities that facilitate the Israeli occupation.

The growing global movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel has brought major investor, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund, under pressure to distance itself from companies benefiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestine. In May, 20 Israeli organizations sent a letter to the pension fund calling for divestment from 15 companies, including HeidelbergCement.

Following a sustained campaign calling for an end of French transportation giant Veolia’s complicity with Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, it was reported last month that the corporation planned to abandon its involvement in a light rail project in Jerusalem that would effectively normalize the illegal situation of Israel’s settlements.

Although Veolia’s headquarters in Paris has remained silent, the company’s communications manager in Sweden, Gunhild Saumllvinn, told the Swedish news agency TT on 14 June that heavy criticism of Veolia’s participation in the project and the loss of several major contracts is “probably is one of the reasons behind the decision” to withdraw involvement.

It seems that like Veolia, HeidelbergCement is attempting to sell off its Israeli subsidiary. The Israeli business magazine Globes reported in May that the Mashav Group and Engelinvest Group have shown interest in acquiring Hanson Israel. If Mashav buys Hanson, however, Irish firm CRH can expect to be greeted with increased pressure to divest from the Mashav Group, likely achieving a similar end as the Veolia divestment campaign.

Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate based in Switzerland.