Students for Palestine

Adalah: We will Seek the Establishment of an Independent, Impartial Investigatory Committee with the Participation of International Experts in Response to AG Mazuz’s Decision to Close the October 2000 Killings Cases

None of the police officers or commanders involved in the fatal shootings of Palestinian citizens of Israel in October 2000 will face criminal indictment, the Attorney General of Israel, Menachem Mazuz, announced yesterday, Sunday, 27 January 2008. His announcement officially closes the case against police over the deaths and injuries of Palestinian Arab citizens who demonstrated in towns and villages across Israel in October 2000 against the government’s oppressive policies towards Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The police used snipers, live ammunition and rubber-coated steel bullets to disperse the unarmed demonstrators, which led to the thirteen deaths and to thousands of injuries.

Mazuz argued in his decision that there was a lack of sufficient evidence to issue criminal indictments against the police officers and commanders. He further found that the police who shot the victims faced direct threats to their lives. This situation, he claimed, necessitated the use of operational judgment and negates criminal responsibility. Thus, even if it could be proven that police officers fired the fatal bullets, it nevertheless could be argued that the shootings were justified.

Mazuz’s perception, as revealed in his decision, is that Arab citizens of Israel are enemies of the state, and as a result the police possess wide discretion to open fire on them. Further, according to the Mazuz, the police officers were facing a real and immediate threat to their lives. These perceptions were sharply criticized by the Official Commission of Inquiry (Or Commission) into the October 2000 events, which issued in its final report in September 2003. In the report, the Or Commission recommended that the Israeli police stop relating to the Arab citizens as enemies. In addition, the Or Commission’s clearly concluded that the use of snipers and the use of live ammunition by other police officers was illegal and that the demonstrators posed no immediate and real threat to the lives of police officers. In Adalah’s view, trust cannot be placed in the Attorney General, who continues to relate to Arab citizens as enemies.

In response to the decision, Adalah stated its intention to seek international justice in these cases. “We will not approach the Supreme Court in these cases. We have now exhausted all legal proceedings in Israel. We will seek the involvement of the United Nations and other international fora”, stated Attorney Hassan Jabareen, the General Director of Adalah, at a press conference held yesterday, the 27 January 2008, following the Attorney General’s decision. The press conference was held jointly by the High-Follow up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, the Committee of the Victims’ Families and Adalah.

At the press conference, Mr. Shawqi Khatib, the Chairman of the High-Follow up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel stated, “This is a black day for justice and human rights and for the hopes of equality and respect between the peoples. Mazuz, with his deafness, has legitimized the killing and the result is that Arab blood flows freely.”

Hassan Asleh, the father of Asel Asleh who was killed by police in October 2000 and the head of the Committee of the Victims’ Families, also spoke at the press conference. He read out the names of the thirteen Palestinian youths killed in October 2000 and those police officers and commanders responsible for each of their deaths. He promised that the family members would continue in their struggle for justice.

Mazuz’s decision endorsed the report on police conduct during the events of October 2000 released by Ministry of Justice’s Police Investigations Department (“Mahash”) in September 2005. In the report, Mahash announced its decision to close all the investigation files against police officers and commanders implicated in the October 2000 deaths on the pretext of lack of evidence.

Following the release of Mahash’s report, and as a result of public pressure, the Attorney General decided to conduct a review of the decision, and to this end appointed a special investigatory committee within the State Attorney’s Office to review the files. At the time and today, Adalah argues that the decision to review Mahash’s report within the State Attorney’s Office lacked all integrity because the office is headed by current State Attorney Eran Shendar. Shendar was the Director of Mahash during October 2000 and bears direct responsibility for the failure to open an immediate investigation into the police officers and commanders responsible for the deaths.

In October 2006, Adalah submitted a comprehensive report entitled “The Accused” to the Attorney General, in which it addressed the shortcomings and failures of the law enforcement authorities – first and foremost Mahash – in investigating the October 2000 killings. The report primarily exposes Mahash’s negligent work and its failure to fulfill its duty to investigate the criminal offenses committed by police in October 2000. In addition, the report discloses how Mahash concealed significant facts from the public and issued a falsified report regarding the events. Mazuz’s decision included specific responses to “The Accused” report.

For more information, see a special web-report on the October 2000 Killings

End the Siege on Gaza
Northern Demonstration

Saturday 2nd Feb 12 noon

BBC Building, Oxford Road, Manchester

Action Palestine, with the support of Stop the War and Palestine Solidarity Campaign, has called a northern demonstration in solidarity with the people of Gaza. The Israeli blockade of Gaza has made life in the world’s most densely populated region in the world even worse in recent weeks. The blockade is an obvious case of collective punishment.

Much of Gaza is once again in darkness, as Israel cut off the fuel to its only power plant. Hospital patients have reportedly died, communications are out, and movement and commerce in an already beleaguered economy have come to a near halt.

Michele Mercier, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said Gaza hospitals still had medications “but it won’t last for more than two or three days.” Now, Gazans must also contend with the possibility of already scarce food supplies being cut off. Christopher Gunness of UNRWA, the UN relief agency, said the agency could be forced to suspend food distribution to 860,000 people because of the shortage of fuel and plastic bags.

The New York Times, always to be counted on to provide the right euphemisms, reported that “Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, ordered a temporary halt on all imports into the Hamas-run Gaza Strip late last week. The measure, along with stepped-up military operations in Gaza, was meant to persuade Palestinian militants there to stop firing rockets at Israel.” (Isabel Kershner, “Fuel Shortage Shuts Gaza Power Plant, Leaving City Dark,” 21 January 2008.)

Terms like “measures” and “persuasion” sound so gentle. But they cover up a brutal reality that Israeli leaders are keen to boast about: they are acting with premeditation to inflict suffering on the Palestinian civilian population, and they display an extraordinary degree of callousness for their victims.

“We are impacting the overall quality of life in Gaza and destroying the terror infrastructure,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak boasted.

As news of mounting suffering came out of Gaza, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert provided further confirmation that civilians were on Israel’s target list: “We are trying to hit only those involved in terrorism, but also signaling to the population in Gaza that it cannot be free from responsibility for the situation.” With fuel running out, he scoffed, “As far as I’m concerned, all the residents of Gaza can walk and have no fuel for their cars because they have a murderous terrorist regime that doesn’t allow people in the south of Israel to live in peace.”

The punishment of Gaza’s population is apparently succeeding beyond Israel’s wildest dreams. Unnamed Israeli “defense officials” told The Jerusalem Post on 20 January “that food supplies were running low in Gaza and would dry up by the middle of the week.” (”Gaza food will run out by midweek,” 20 Jan 2008). Meanwhile, the Israeli daily Haaretz cited “Israeli security officials” who said “that the electrical supply difficulties in the Gaza Strip were greater than Israel had previously expected when it cut off fuel to the coastal territory earlier in the day.” (”Barak: Gaza to get one-time fuel, medicine delivery,” 21 January 2008.)

Israeli leaders are usually careful to lace their statements with pro forma denials that they are deliberately trying to create a “humanitarian” crisis — though they never define what level of deliberately inflicted suffering might cross that threshold. Gaza’s residents “are hostages of a deranged regime, but there is no real humanitarian crisis there,” said housing minister Zeev Boim, apparently referring to Hamas, not his own government.

The logic seems to be that Israel can do whatever it wants, as long as officials use euphemisms to describe it. As Dov Weissglas, Olmert’s advisor, so notoriously put it when Israel began its strangulation of Gaza in early 2006, “It’s like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won’t die.” But they do die, in large numbers.

Some top Israelis make it clear that they do not actually believe that Palestinian civilians even exist. Yuval Diskin, head of the Israel Security Agency (ISA), or Shin Bet secret police, responsible for hundreds of extrajudicial executions of Palestinians, told the cabinet on 13 January that the army and Shin Bet agents had “killed 1,000 terrorists in the Gaza Strip in the past two years.” By B’Tselem’s count Israel had killed 816 Palestinians in Gaza in the previous two years, of whom 152 were children and many others were adult civilians “who took no part in the hostilities.” Thus, B’Tselem concluded, the “head of the ISA defines every Palestinian killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip as a terrorist.” (B’Tselem, “Head of ISA defines a terrorist as any Palestinian killed by Israel,” 13 January 2008.)

From electronic intifada
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Action Palestine

Two students from the University of Manchester were not able to reach An-Najah their twin university in the West Bank due to the city being under siege, curfew, and attack from the Israeli army.

The students were in the west bank on a family visit, and agreed to visit an-Najah for the purpose of collecting important documents for the UMSU. However for the duration of their visit, the city of Nablus was under incursions from the Israeli army, to the damage of 40 million Israeli shekels, and the injury of 38 civilians including 2 disabled civilians and medical staff.

The students had arranged with the staff of the university and the students’ council to visit the university but every time they tried to travel from Bethlehem to Nablus (around 50miles) they were turned away by Israeli checkpoints around the Nablus.

Also, the journey, straight from Bethlehem to Nablus should take no more than one and a half hours. However, due to the status of the Manchester students, they were not allowed to go through Jerusalem, so the detour including waiting at the Israeli checkpoints took them up to four hours each time.

Palestinian students from An-Najah were clearly disappointed the visit was not allowed to happen when he said: “I was looking forward to meeting students from UMSU, the support we had from them is amazing, but it’s different when it’s face to face.”

Rana Batarseh, from UMSU was equally disappointed, “I guess this is why we choose to twin with a Palestinian university, the travel restrictions are collective punishment embossed on a whole people, they don’t allow a normal life to go on, we had been looking forward to this visit for a long time, I really hope, these the conditions change for the sake of the people who are living here. I was also shocked to hear that students from An Najah university were illegally detained by the Israeli army during the incursion without charge, and to this day haven’t been charged. I really think that UMSU should do something to support these students, who add to the 56 already being tortured in Israeli jails.”

The twinning between UMSU and An Najah University began after the motion to twin the two institutions was passed at the March 2006 General Meeting. Since then the two institutions have hosted shared events. The twinning has ignited many a debate on campus surrounding the situation in Palestine and has faced some opposition yet many students support this link and also defended this twinning at Nov 14th General Meeting 2007.

Dr Nabil’s thoughts on the invasion “The invasion happened at a time when the governor of Nablus was able to restore order to the City by collecting arms from all armed men who roamed the streets of Nablus. The invasion disturbed the students who live in the City away from their families after commuting has become impossible because of the atrocities and harassments they are exposed to at the roadblocks. The invasion increases frustrations among the young population of university students, who were anticipating an ease up of the situation after Annapolis only to face a new wave of unjustified harassment. The Israelis always like to abort all attempts made at improving the Palestinian conditions under the pretext of Security. Palestinian young men are aware of the fact that detaining, humiliating and killing helpless young men will certainly not help in promoting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Israeli acts of violence against Palestinians aim at evacuating Palestinian young from their land after driving them to the limits of despair. The invasion renewed scenes of bloodshed in the street of Nablus; one Palestinian young man was shot in the head on his way to the Friday prayer right in front of The Old Campus of An-Najah National University. The killed man was a father of two young children and the Israeli soldiers admitted killing him by mistake. During the incursion, the University was closed for three days, and several young people were arrested.

Nabil Alawi, Ph.D., Director, Public Relations Department

End the Siege on Gaza
International Day of Action
Saturday 26th January

The Cape Town Anti-War Coalition will hold a protest at 10am in Adderley Street, Cape Town, on 26th January 2008.

This has been declared as an International Day of Action to End the Siege on Gaza.

Action Palestine is organising a coach from Manchester to go to London
for the protest outside the Parliament
Leaving from outside the Students’ union at 9am
The coach will be returning on the same day.
Tickets: £5

Tickets available from the Campaigns office in UMSU.

Join us in protesting against Israel blocking desperately ill Palestinians from accessing medical treatment and its escalating military attacks on Gaza.

Saturday 26 January, 4-6pm Parliament

We are particularly appealing to medical staff to join us in uniform to visibly express their opposition to Israel preventing Gazans from travelling for lifesaving medical treatment.

‘The human catastrophe deliberately inflicted on Gaza by western policies over the past two years is one of the great crimes of the century so far’. Jonathan Steele, Guardian 11 January.

Israel’s illegal, brutal siege of Gaza is tightening, restricting fuel and electricity, and preventing even medical supplies, food, essential construction materials and paper for UN schoolbooks from entering Gaza . With lethal military strikes being launched on Gaza , and Ehud Barak has warned that an Israeli invasion of Gaza is nearing.

Even those who desperately need medical treatment are prevented from leaving. Over 65 Palestinians have died as a direct result of Israel ’s prevention of access to medical treatment. Miri Weingarten from the Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said ‘ Israel intends and wishes to punish the general population in Gaza , and they’re not hiding it — in fact, they’ve stated it clearly.’

Dr Ahmed Abu Tawahineh, deputy director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, has pointed out that since last June, only a hundred patients have been allowed out of Gaza to seek treatment - less than 10 per cent of the more than 1,000 applicants.

How long can this inhuman treatment continue unchallenged by international leaders?

Collective punishment is being inflicted upon the Palestinians for voting for a government against the wishes of Israel , the US and the EU.

Call on the British government to end its collusion with these policies, which are imprisoning Gazans and attempting to destroy their lives by limiting access to food, electricity, clean water supplies and medical treatment.

Action Palestine