Eyes on Israeli Military Court: A Collection of Impressions

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Eyes on Israeli Military Court: A Collection of Impressions

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following report was issued by Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association on 4 June 2012.] 

Eyes on Israeli Military Court: A Collection of Impressions 

Introduction

This booklet encompasses a series of reflections on the experience of Addameer volunteers and associates who visited the Israeli military courts situated in the occupied Palestinian territory from 2009 to 2011. The contributors were asked to write about what they saw and how they felt during their time at the court, where they witnessed hearings for Palestinians accused of stone-throwing, involvement in demonstrations and other political activities deemed an offense according to Israeli military regulations. They saw Palestinians of all ages and backgrounds being tried in the courts, including minors, and the treatment of their families and lawyers during the hearings.

The aim of these impressions is to offer an insight into the workings of a military court system which is under-reported, under-exposed, and has been labeled both a "kangaroo court" and "Kafka-esque" by observers, owing to its disregard of basic fair trial standards and the chaos of its proceedings.

The impressions originate from a range of people from different backgrounds, some of whom have drawn out the stark contrasts between the military court and the judicial system that most people in the Western world are used to, as well as the worrying comparisons with the system operating in Guantanamo Bay. A common thread throughout the impressions is how the security checks, the long waits before being let into the courtroom, and the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli military judges and officers portray the Israeli occupation in microcosm. Indeed, the Israeli military court is but one of many expressions of an apartheid system which discriminates against Palestinians of all ages and backgrounds on a daily basis, by identifying many of them as a "security threat" before they are even arrested, and by subjecting them to a legal system in which the onus falls on the Defense to prove their innocence. Also highlighted are the hopes, steadfastness, and humility of the prisoners as they appear shackled in the court room, as well as the subtle acts of resistance as family members attempt to communicate with their loved ones and make plans with them for the future.

The continuing presence of international and Israeli human rights activists at any court hearing for Palestinian political prisoners has been vital as a way of publicly exposing the extreme inadequacies and injustice of the military court, as will be demonstrated in this booklet. Following the arrest and detention of a number of leaders from the Palestinian popular resistance and peaceful protest movement, some of whose trials are referred to in this booklet, the European diplomatic community started to implement a court monitoring rotation system, whereby a European Union (EU) representative is present at every single hearing of a Palestinian defined as a human rights defender. This too has been crucial in pressuring the military judges to abide by international law and respect fair trial standards when overseeing the trials of peaceful activists from the popular resistance. The greater and more regular presence of these diplomats and activists, the more hope there is among the detainees that their voices are being heard and amplified beyond the confines of the military court room.

What follows is a brief overview of the military court system and seven impressions from Addameer volunteers and associates, in an order which attempts to give insight into the entire process that awaits anyone - be it a family member of a detainee or an international activist - who attends a court hearing. Addameer would like to thank all those who shared their experiences and contributed to the production of this booklet.

[Click here to download the full report.] 

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412