Many years ago I attended the first Gay Pride Parade held in Tel Aviv. A fellow student at the History Department, a lesbian who
"came out" about a year earlier, asked me to come and take part. The
organizers were quite apprehensive. At the time, homosexual relations were still
illegal in Israel, under a British law which had been abolished in the UK
itself. Though the Attorney General no longer filed charges under this law, the
police still often acted violently
towards homosexuals. At that first Pride Parade we were several dozen people, feeling
very isolated in the huge square in front of the Town Hall. There was no overt
hostility from passers-by, but certainly also no manifestations of sympathy or
support.
"Tel Aviv is marching towards equality"
This morning, several decades later, again a Gay Pride Parade in Tel
Aviv. As has been the case for quite a few years already, it was held under the
very enthusiastic auspices of the Tel Aviv Municipality, which took care a week
in advance to decorate the entire city with colorful Pride Flags. At the point of
departure, Mayor Huldai made a festive greeting to the crowd, estimated by
organizers at one hundred and twenty thousand. Participants then embarked on “a
colorful parade, a rainbow carnival, a joyful and positive protest at the still
remaining forms of discrimination against the Gay Community." The annual Gay
Pride Parade through the streets of Tel Aviv became a prime global showcase of
Israel – the democratic liberal and open Israel, stronghold of democracy in the
Middle East. No wonder that a special effort was mounted to bring to Tel Aviv a
record number of gay tourists, especially for the parade - about twenty-five
thousand of them from all over the world.
And just at the time when the parade of joyful and positive protest
moved through the streets of Tel Aviv, a
bit less joyful protest took place at the Mosques Compound in East Jerusalem (Temple
Mount/Haram a-Sharif), one of the most sensitive points in our region. After the
noon prayers, hundreds of worshipers marched in support of the Administrative Detainees
on hunger strike in Israel's jails. This quickly developed into mass
confrontations with the police. The Special Forces began firing stun grenades
and rubber-coated metal bullets as well as beating protesters with batons. Some
of the Palestinians barricaded themselves in the mosque, whereupon the police
fired in pepper gas grenades, whose effect is particularly severe in enclosed
spaces. Journalists and ambulance crews were not immune to the police shooting,
either.
Today's confrontations ended with relatively moderate results - twenty-eight
Palestinians injured and eight arrested. The settlers and their friends are now
preparing the ground for the next outbreak. Tisha B'Av, the traditional Jewish Day
of Mourning over the destruction of the Holy Temple - which had stood in that location
a bit more than one thousand and nine hundred years ago - some religious-nationalist-messianic
groups intend to “take strong action in order to to get a Jewish grip over this
Holy Place." So, Tisha B'Av this
year will probably also be a hot day in Jerusalem.
Day before the Pride Parade in Tel Aviv, a bit less prideful event took place in the arid area of the Negev
northwest of Beersheba. From the morning until noon, large police forces, Israel
Land Authority personnel, and bulldozers were engaged in systematically destroying
the cemetery compound at the Bedouin village of Araqib.
The Government of Israel does not recognize the existence of the village
of Araqib or any property rights whatsoever which the Bedouin residents might
have over this land. As far as the authorities are concerned, all of the hundreds
of Bedouins who cling tooth and nail to the soil of Araqib are illegal
squatters on state lands, who are to be evicted and expelled. The state has many
times destroyed the village of Araqib, and each time the residents rebuild it -
or at least set up some huts where their houses had stood. But until now, the
forces of destruction did not touch the cemetery where residents have been
buried over generations, including many who died long before a state called
Israel was established.
In accordance with new eviction orders, which were approved in court at
the end of a judicial wrangle of appeals on appeals, police and bulldozers
destroyed the fence that surrounded the cemetery complex, and opened the way to
break in and destroy the huts erected by the residents Araqib among the graves
of their ancestors. The residents - along with volunteers who came from Tel
Aviv and Jerusalem late on the previous night - were rounded up by police and
concentrated in the structure of the mosque adjacent to the cemetery. In the
afternoon, after the huts were destroyed along with the sheds for sheep and
goats and the water tanks, residents and volunteers were ordered to vacate the
enclosure in order to facilitate demolition of the minaret which was erected last
year. Some of them refused to leave and police arrested eight of them - six
local Bedouins, and two volunteers, Rabbi Arik Asherman and Yuval Halperin.
After the detentions and the removal of the people, the minaret was destroyed. The rest of the mosque structure
was spared. At least for the time being.
Meanwhile, Israel has a new president, after a very stormy – and rather
smelly - elections process. The powerful emotions aroused were inversely
proportional to the actual power and authority which the President of Israel
yields. One by one, candidates were forced out of the race when various
skeletons which they had in the cupboard were exposed. In the aftermath we have
a new president named Reuben “Ruvi” Rivlin
who has the good reputation of an honest and fair man, who sincerely cares
about democratic freedoms in Israel including the rights of the Arab minority.
At the same time, he is also known as a staunch supporter of the Greater Israel
ideology who wholeheartedly supports the settlers, and that in former position
as Knesset Speaker he had lashed out furiously against the actors who had
followed the dictates of their conscience and refused to perform at the "Hall
of Culture" of the Ariel settlement on the West Bank.
Which of these two sides of the man is going to be the more significant
in the career of the new President? Time will tell. Perhaps the most important
will be the only moment when the President of Israel wields a significant
political authority – the time just after general elections when the president must
decide which Knesset Member form which
party is to be entrusted with forming the new cabinet. Will that be a moment
when a bitter rivalry will come to light – the rivalry between the new President
Rivlin and the veteran Prime Minister Netanyahu, both (at least officially)
members of the same party?
Anyway, it is hard to expect that President Rivlin, with all his
declared support for democratic freedoms, would raise his voice against the
institution of Administrative Detentions without trial, which has been used in
Israel since its inception (in fact, Israel inherited also this from the legal
system of the British Mandate). Every night, military forces raid villages and
cities on the West Bank and take Palestinians to prison according to detention lists
prepared by Israeli secret services. Approximately ten percent of these detainees
are placed under Administrative Detention, based on an arrest warrant signed by
a military officer and authorizing the placing of a person behind bars without
trial or charge of any kind, other than the general statement that "the above
mentioned person poses a threat to security".
In the past, some Administrative Detainees held personal hunger
strikes, and were invariably set free at the moment when the prisoner was on
the verge of death – as the authorities were apprehensive of riots breaking out
upon the detainee’s death. But this time it is a collective hunger strike by all
Administrative Detainees, and their demand is to be released as a group - and further,
that Administrative Detentions be altogether abolished, and that Palestinians be
placed in Israeli jails only under the verdict of a judge, for specific offenses
which had been proven in court. In the Security Services’ eyes, the Palestinians
had this time gone too far. They recommend that it would be better to take a
tough stance now and risk also the death of hunger strikers and the riots which
would follow; even better, break the hunger strike by force feeding. This week
a bill passed its first reading in the Knesset which would permit the forced
feeding of hunger strikers - though doctors who would implement that action might
be charged by the Medical Association with a serious violation of medical
ethics and possibly they could also be liable to prosecution for violating International
Law.
"A hunger strike is a weapon of the weak" wrote this morning the
Yediot Aharonot columnist Yoaz Handel, who is far from being identified with
the Israeli Left. "In 1909, Marion Dunlop was imprisoned after writing
graffiti criticizing the King of England on the wall of the Parliament
building. Marion was a feminist who wanted women to have the right to vote, and
en route she also invented the right to hold a hunger strike. Her example was followed
by Irish freedom fighters, by Mahatma Gandhi in India and Andrei Sakharov in
the Soviet Union, and also by terrorists and criminals” Handel adds. “Hunger
proved to be effective, regardless of religion and state. The self-imposition
of death in prison has become a threat to democratic governments, and sometimes
even to those that are not. In Israel, the hunger strikes of Palestinians become
part of the struggle for hearts and minds. The controversies are over photos
and body counts. Any footage of a shooting starts a debate on the international
arena, each dead prisoner becomes a symbol for the organizations that seek to de-legitimize Israel. (...) The security
apparatus is opposed to another agreement with the hunger strikers. It would
convey a problematic message. Every prisoner release entails further releases. The
choices facing Israel are to force-feed them or to let them die. Both are bad
choices, both will be used to condemn Israel. "
Coincidentally or not, just this week a major international campaign reached
its peak, targeting the big British security company G4S, which is involved in
providing logistical support to the Security Services and Prison Authority of
Israel. An impressive list of public figures called upon the company to sever such
ties - and should it refuse they called upon other companies to withdraw their
investments from G4S. This morning the campaign reported a success in terms of
both propaganda and actual results: the famous Bill Gates of Microsoft and his
wife Melissa last week announced their decision to significantly reduce their
investments in G4S, and after several more days of deliberation and public
pressure they have decided on complete divestment of all they had put into G4S
– to wit, 184 million dollars. "The choices facing Israel are to force-feed
hunger strikers or to let them die. Both are bad choices, both will be used to condemn
Israel" wrote Yoaz Handel. Both options will strengthen and empower public
campaigns of this kind, worldwide.
While I was writing this article, a new issue came up, which at least in
the Israeli media takes immediate precedence over everything else: Three boys
studying at a religious seminary in the settlement of Alon Shvut on the West
Bank have disappeared, apparently kidnapped when trying to hitchhike close to midnight
on a dark highway. From then on, the army and security services launched a very
intensive effort to find the boys, and all the Palestinian towns in the
southern West Bank are undergoing a massive military invasion and house to
house searches. What did happen to them? Who captured them? Is there an
intention to try exchanging them for prisoners and detainees in the Israeli
prison?
So far, nothing is known - but Prime Minister Netanyahu has already
found the culprit: "Abu Mazen is responsible for the welfare of the boys, all
this is the result of the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and
Hamas." President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) noted that the boys appear to
have been kidnapped from an area under exclusive Israeli security control, and that
the Palestinian security personnel under Abu Mazen’s orders have been
instructed to take an active part in searches. Netanyahu did not care for all
that. The PR and propaganda line accusing Abbas of anything and everything
which might happen on the ground was pre-determined long ago.
Indeed, after everything else failed, why not pray.
