Israeli Oppression as a Means of Forcible Transfer

B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories,  has just published a new report entitled, "Playing the Security Card: Israeli Policy in Hebron as a Means to Effect Forcible Transfer of Local Palestinians."

The report does a good job of describing  the  hardships imposed on the people of Hebron by the settlers and Israeli military.   But it also does more.  The report argues that  making life so hard on people that they are forced to leave their homes for  a decent life elsewhere constitutes "Forcible Transfer".  The report states that such mistreatment is legally the same under international law as Forcible Transfer at gun point.  "Forcible Transfer" is a war crime under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The report  quotes  a 2007 Israeli Assistant Minister of Defense saying: "There is no written order to empty Hebron of Arabs, but that's the greatness of military rule. It can simply refrain from doing: it can refrain from enforcing the law on settlers and it can refrain from allowing Palestinians to move around."

The B'Tselem report focuses on the old city of Hebron but  also notes that Israel pursues  similar policies in other parts of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, i.e., policies aimed at making people leave by creating unbearable living conditions.

Thus, Forcible Transfer may be added to the other crimes committed by Israel under article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, namely: transfer of an occupying power's citizens into the occupied territory (the settlements); transfer of prisoners from the occupied territory to the occupying country; and indifference to the welfare and abuse of the people  in the occupied territory.

A little more background about Hebron and the hardships faced by the Palestinians there is helpful in understanding what is happening in Hebron.

Hebron is divided into two parts H1 and H2. H1 has about 400,000 Palestinians and is nominally controlled by the Palestinian Authority. H2 contains the old city of Hebron and five Israeli settlements.  About 30,000 Palestinians and 200 to 800 settlers live in H2. H2 is controlled by the Israeli military and border police.

Map of Hebron from B'Tselem report. 

The pale grey area is the area of maximum Palestinian movement restriction. The dark blue, light blue and dark gray areas are settlement areas.  The colored roads are roads on which Palestinian foot traffic and vehicular traffic are restricted.  

Movement into and through the old city is severely restricted: the five settlements in the city center are surrounded by impenetrable walls and razor wire; 22 checkpoints throughout the old city are staffed by Israeli military and border police who demand ID and carry out frequent  body and bag searches; many streets are closed to Palestinian pedestrian and vehicular traffic; and 64 barriers keep Palestinians from major streets and the vicinity of settlements.  These movement restrictions impede children going to school and people doing their shopping, visiting friends, visiting family or going to worship.  It is humiliating for people to be subjected to ID checks, body searches and checkpoint closures by a hostile and essentially foreign power as they try to move about in their own city.  

Palestinians waiting at a checkpoint to worship at the Al Ibrahimi mosque.

Activity in the old city is continuously monitored from checkpoints, watchpoints on top of Palestinian buildings and cameras throughout the old city. The matrix of control established by checkpoints, cameras, watchpoints, settlements, barriers and roadblocks are nicely shown as PDFs in interactive maps produced by the Hebron Human Rights Defenders at their website https://www.hebronapartheid.org .

Two of my previous blogs described Israeli settler violence against the families of Hani Abu Haikel and Emad Shamsiyeh in Tel Rumeida. The B'Tselem report and the above Human Rights Defenders website describe similar cases of settler violence against other families in Hebron. 

The Israeli military is complicit in the oppression of Palestinian families.  Although they sometimes intercede to prevent acts of settler violence, they usually do nothing to stop it.  Relations between settlers and soldiers are close. For example, the settlers took over a Palestinian building and made it into a place for rest and relaxation of Israeli soldiers. The settlers bring cakes to soldiers and invite them into their homes for meals that are much better than military fare. The settlers know that the soldiers are there to  serve them.

The Israeli military are more than passive observers of settler violence.  They also engage directly in arbitrary arrests, home intrusions, home demolitions and harassment of Palestinians, as richly documented by  Breaking the Silence, an organization of former Israeli soldiers that began in Hebron.  Breaking the Silence seeks to "... expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories.." and to show "...the price paid for a reality in which young soldiers face a civilian population on a daily basis, and are engaged in the control of that population's everyday life." They are opposed to the occupation.

The hardships, the movement restrictions, the shutting down of shops and streets have changed what was once a thriving market center for the entire Southern West Bank into a ghost town.

Filming Violence in Tel Rumeida

We visited Emad Abu Shamsieh and his wife Faize in their home in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron.  He and his family had to leave the home in 2000 during the second intifada because of the fighting, but he was able to return to it  in 2009 .

Israeli settlers and Palestinians live right next to each other in Tel Rumeida. Six months after Emad returned a settler threw a rock at his 12 year old daughter that broke her jaw and put her in a coma for 12 hours.  He filed a complaint with the Israeli police, but  they told him he had to prove that it was a settler that threw the rock. He said, "Look you have security cameras all over the place, just go look at your recordings." They told him, sorry but the cameras were broken.

After that experience he decided to get a camera for himself and began filming interactions with the settlers. Members of the community would let him know when something was happening. He found that settlers were less aggressive when they were being filmed.  He and his friends formed an organization called "Human Rights Defenders". They have made hundreds of videos in a project called "Handcuffing the military with cameras."

Painted sign " Human Rights Defenders" outside Emad Shamsieh's home 

On March 24, 2016 he made a video that was seen all over the world.  On that day a Palestinian named Abed al-Sharif had apparently stabbed and lightly wounded an Israeli soldier near Emad's home. A soldier shot Al-Sharif who fell to the ground, badly wounded. After he had been lying on the ground for several minutes receiving no medical attention, an Israeli medic named Elor Azaria came up and killed him with shots to the head.  Emad had filmed the incident and B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, distributed it widely.

Emad Shamsiyeh with his camera

The extrajudicial execution-style killing of a man who posed no threat was widely condemned internationally and by many Israelis, but a large segment of the Israeli public viewed Elor Azaria as a kind of hero, and prominent Israeli right wing politicians Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman said that  criminal proceedings against him should be canceled. Finally, a trial did occur and Azaria was convicted of manslaughter, serving nine months of a one year three month sentence.  Emad's film was critical in getting that conviction.

Emad said that a party was held by settlers and soldiers with Azaria at the site of the killing in Tel Rumeida after Azaria's release from prison.

The critical role played by Emad's film in the prosecution of the case against Azaria led to extreme harassment of Emad and his family by settlers and soldiers.   It began a few days after the killing  of Abed Al Sharif. Settlers surrounded the house and threw rocks at it, chanting death to Emad Shamsiyeh. They also tried to set fire to the house. Soldiers repeatedly invaded and searched the house. Settlers posted a picture of Emad  and his family  on Shuhada street just below Tel Rumeida with a statement that they should be killed. He received hundreds of death threats, but when he went to the police to complain about the threats they detained him, so he stopped complaining. Settlers have physically abused all of his children and one child was  shot in the knee.  Settlers poisoned his water tank but fortunately he noted the strange yellow color of the water before he or members of his family drank the water.

Emad and the Human Rights Defenders of Hebron continue to make videos. Emad said to us as we were leaving, "One day I will be killed but the project will continue."

Violence and Non-Violence in Tel Rumeida.

Hani Abu Haikel told us a story about  the prophet Mohammed when we visited  his home in the Hebron neighborhood of Tel Rumeida. The story goes that Mohammed once had a nasty neighbor who threw trash over the wall into Mohammed's yard every day. But on one occasion, no trash came over the wall for three days. Mohammed then prepared food and took it to his neighbor. When his puzzled neighbor asked why, Mohammed said, "Well, when you didn't throw trash over the wall for three days, I thought you must be sick and needed food."

Hani's own commitment to non-violence began some years ago after he had been in an Israeli prison for six months under a procedure called "administrative detention" in which Palestinians can be imprisoned for six months with no charges made and no trial held. After six months are up, another six month sentence can be imposed.  Hani was at home celebrating his release from prison with friends when they saw images on television of a man sitting in the middle of a street in the old city of Jerusalem holding a big sign saying "Stop the occupation." The police detained the man for a few hours and then let him go. Hani's friends laughed at the man thinking him foolish, ineffective and even cowardly, but Hani didn't. He saw how the man's action had embarrassed the Israelis, brought wide attention to the issue, and could not be used by the Israelis to justify more oppression of Palestinians, in the way that violent acts of resistance are used. Palestinian violence also helps  maintain support and sympathy for Israel in the international community. As Hani said, "Violence is the oxygen of the Israelis."

Israeli settlers and Palestinians live right next to each other, cheek by jowl, in Tel Rumeida and other parts of Hebron.  Settlers, do all they can to expand their territories and push Palestinians out, so there are many opportunities for creative non-violence. Some years ago the settlers cut the water pipes to Hani's house. The Palestinian municipality of Hebron  agreed to bring a tank truck with water to Hani's house to fill his home tank. But when the truck arrived at the street below Hani's house the soldiers at the check point would not let it through.  So Hani got all the members of his family and many friends to walk down the street with an assortment of pitchers and other water containers and bring back water to Hani's tank. After this went on for a while and was filmed, the military became embarrassed and let the water truck go to the house.

Unfortunately, violence against Palestinians by settlers is common in Tel Rumeida. Hani's father was beaten to death by settlers, a settler drove his jeep over Hani's foot breaking the ankle. His grape vines have been burned and his almond trees have been bulldozed for a settlement. Hani was once shot at  by a settler from a nearby house, and Hani showed us bullet holes in the steps made at the time of the shooting.  But he is not leaving, showing once again the steadfastness ("sumud") of Palestinians' and their ties to the land.

Abdul pointing to bullet holes in stairway 

The Peruvian Nobel Prize winning novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa, visited Tel Rumeida in 2005. He was struck by the resilience of the 50 Palestinian families who had managed to remain in Tel Rumeida in the face of 'a ferocious, systematic persecution by settlers'. The latter: "throw stones at them, toss rubbish and excrement on their homes; organize raids to invade and devastate their houses, assault their children as the latter return from school while Israeli soldiers look on with total indifference. No one told me about this: I saw it all with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears from the mouths of the victims themselves. I possess a video which shows a hair-raising scene where the boys and girls of the Tel Rumeida settlement hurl stones and kick Arab students and their schoolmistresses."

I have known about the settler harassment of Palestinians for some time, but I have also wondered if there might not be some settlers who don't like the conflict and would like more  friendly relations with their neighbors. So I have asked many Palestinians here about that possibility.  The answer in Hebron at least is largely no. They told me that you just can't talk to the settlers here.  One Palestinian told me that he once asked a settler if they could just be normal neighbors, but the settler told him "No, I will only be your neighbor when you move to Jordan or Egypt or Syria." Hani did tell us that  he once had a pleasant exchange with a settler  when  they talked about their families and gardens. But after that one exchange he never saw that settler again. 

Hebron is divided into two parts H1 and H2. H1 is where about 400,000 Palestinians live and is controlled by Palestinians. H2 has about 30,000 Palestinians and 150 to 800 Israeli settlers. H2 is controlled by the Israeli military and border police. All of the Hebron settlements are in H2. One has to go through military checkpoints to enter or leave H2. Tel Rumeida is in H2. I'll say more about H1, H2, checkpoints and the militarization of Hebron in a future blog. 

Checkpoint into Tel Rumeida

Note the cameras above the turnstiles