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CounterPunch
October
16, 2002
Reform by Imprisonment
by SAM BAHOUR
While the most brutal of measures are being taken
against the Palestinian population, the world is being deceived
into believing that political reforms can happen in the Israeli-occupied
territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
As the Bush Administration continues to call for regime change
in the Palestinian Authority, Israel is silently pursuing a
violent strategy of establishing internment camps that imprison
Palestinians from all walks of life. With over 12,000 acts of
detainment and over 5,000 Palestinian detainees now languishing
in Israeli jails, the facade of reform unfolds in a political
vacuum.
Even sadder is the fact that the Palestinian
leadership itself has become consumed with reform and has forgotten
that the finest of Palestinian political and community leaders
are absent from the political reform process and will most likely,
upon their release from Israeli detainment, disrupt any illegitimate
political agreements that are implemented. Reforms offered by
a one-party, one-leader, one- decision-maker system are doomed
to failure. The U.S., of all nations, should be demanding comprehensive
political reform and thus that Israel release all Palestinian
political prisoners so they can participate in this historic
turning point in the Palestinian struggle for independence.
With every Palestinian arrested by Israel,
entire families are being broken up, children are building up
hatred and detainees are becoming more embittered. Why is the
world community  silent while Israel illegally detains
Palestinians as political prisoners and uses them as political
bargaining chips? Where is the Jewish tradition of support for
human and civil rights when Palestinians are being tortured
in Israeli jails? Is the world blind to the fact that the Middle
East will never realize peace if Palestinians continue to be
denied their basic inalienable rights? Does President Bush or
any average Israeli citizen believe that the sons and daughters
of those thousands of Palestinians that are detained will one
day forget the turmoil caused when their loved ones are thrown
behind bars for months or even years on end?
That Palestinians are illegally detained
by Israel, a foreign occupying force, is not new. In addition
to the approximately 5,000 Palestinians who have been detained
over the past two years and are still being held by Israel today,
let us not forget that other Palestinians have been rotting
away in Israeli jails since 1967. One example is Palestinian
prisoner Ahmed Ibrahim Djbara, Abu Sukker, who is 65 years
old and the father of six grown children. He has been in Israeli
prisons for the past 26 years and is the longest serving prisoner!
His crime was that of struggling to end the occupation. The
two most recent detainees are my friends. Haytham Hammouri was
taken from his work desk at the YMCA in East Jerusalem last
Thursday and Khaled Bakr was taken from his in-laws' home last
Saturday in Ramallah. A few months ago another close friend
and neighbor, Wassam Rafeedie, was given six months of so-called
"administrative detention", which is in actuality
imprisonment without charge, with limited legal recourse and
representation, and for an arbitrary time period. Wassam's term
has now been renewed for another six months. The wives and children
of these men, like the thousands before them, now live in constant
fear and agony.
The International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention Against Torture
and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
both prohibit torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment
or punishment, without exception. These international norms
do not faze Israel. Furthermore, Israel's treatment of Palestinian
detainees does not meet the United Nations Standard Minimum
Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, the Body of Principles
for the Protection of All Persons Under Any Form of Detention
or Imprisonment, and the Basic Principles for the Treatment
of Prisoners. These instruments are binding on Israel to the
extent that the norms set out in them explicate the broader
standards contained in human rights treaties. Instead of applying
laws of the community of nations, Israel does not hide its historic
and systematic policy of torturing Palestinian prisoners. Recently
the issue of torture has even become an agenda item that is
openly discussed in the Israeli Knesset.
In November 2001, the UN Committee Against
Torture reminded Israel that there can be no justification for
torture under any circumstances. Torture is a grave breach of
the Fourth Geneva Convention (articles 31- 32, 146- 147). Moreover,
the Fourth Geneva Convention clearly prohibits the transfer
of Palestinian detainees from the Occupied Palestinian Territories
to Israel. Article 76 states that 'Protected persons accused
of offences shall be detained in the occupied country, and if
convicted they shall serve their sentences therein.' It is a
known fact that Palestinians are taken to prisons throughout
Israel proper, far from their families and in violation of international
law.
Palestinian Legislative Council member
Marwan Barghouti, who was detained by Israel in April, is currently
being tried in an Israeli criminal court- a court that has no
jurisdiction over Palestinians from the Occupied territories.
Mr. Barghouti and thousands of other Palestinian political
prisoners are prohibited from seeing their children and on many
occasions from seeking legal counsel.
Those Palestinian detainees who have
suffered torture must be entitled to full and timely reparation,
including compensation and rehabilitation. The thousands that
are currently behind bars only because they stand for the end
to occupation must be immediately released and be allowed to
rejoin their families and be reintegrated into the social and
political life of the emerging State of Palestine.
Anyone who believes that "reform",
and, more importantly, political reconciliation between Palestinians
and Israelis, has any future if it does not include all sectors
of society, regardless of political color or affiliation, are
merely fooling only themselves and are missing a historic opportunity
to allow genuine political reform take place in Palestinian
political life. It is bad enough that many Palestinian political
leaders have been extra-judicially assassinated by Israel over
the past two years. Now is the time to open the prison doors,
end the occupation and allow Palestine to rebuild itself from
the ruins of occupation, again!
Note: Several legal references from this
article are from, UPDATE: Palestinian detainees, torture and
ill-treatment Israel's Supreme Court dismisses LAW's (Palestinian
Society for the Protection of Human Rights & the Environment)
appeal to visit detainees, 15 May 2002, http://www.lawsociety.org.
For more information on Palestinian political
prisoners see:
http://www.freebarghouti.org,
http://www.btselem.org,
http://www.stoptorture.org.il,
http://www.addameer.org,
http://www.hrw.org,
http://www.icrc.org,
http://www.amnesty.org
Sam Bahour
is a Palestinian-American businessman living in the besieged
Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank. He is co-author
of HOMELAND:
Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994).
He can be reached at sbahour@palnet.com.
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