The Thin End Of The Wedge

On my first trip to Israel, almost 50 years ago, both I and the country were young and naive. But even the youthful exuberance, wonder and awe, could not keep me from noticing the inordinate bureaucracy, and the almost dictatorial socialist behaviour of the police and government functionaries, the pakidim.

As a Zionist-Revisionist, a Betari, and devotee of Jabotinsky and Begin, the incident of the Altalena, when Ben Gurion ordered Jews to open fire on Jews, and the order was carried out by Yitzchak Rabin, was fresh in my mind. But as I walked the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Haifa and Eilat, all could be overlooked. To be in a Jewish homeland was what mattered, all the rest were minor irritants and could be ignored. Boy, was I wrong.

Then, over the years, as the light began to penetrate, I was still loath to publicly find fault with the State. In a sense, I still am to this very day.

However, the use being made today of the police and security services to ram a policy down the throats of the people is going just a little too far. There was the Avishai Raviv affair where the lunatic conduct of a Shabak agent led, directly or indirectly, to the assassination of a Prime Minister.

Now, once again an agent provocateur is being used to discredit the right of the political spectrum. And if that is not enough, you have people who disagree with government policy being thrown into jail in "administrative detention". No right to a trial, no crime specified, just thrown in jail because the Shabak, or the police or the Prime Minister, or some nameless functionary doesn't like what they are saying. And all this in the name of democracy.

The law governing "administrative detention" is a left-over from the British Mandate period. After the declaration of statehood in 1948, Israel just never got around to getting rid of it. In 57 years they could never get around to rescinding the law. In any event, surely in a democracy one may speak out against that with which one disagrees. One may even go so far as to urge the defeat of a government and the formation of a new government. If not, where is the democracy?

Martin Luther King was never placed in "administrative detention" because the US, unlike the hypocritical British, never had such a quaint concept. Yet Israel chooses to maintain this iniquitous tool, and to use it with increasing frequency. If someone is speaking sedition or committing treason, charge him accordingly, and present your evidence in a court of law. Otherwise, to speak out is his democratic right. To attend demonstrations and rallies is equally his right. Those in power may disagree with what he urges, but they must always accord him the right to urge it publicly and freely.

Lately I am reading about incidents where the police are alleged to have beaten youngsters for no reason other than they were attending or participating in demonstrations against government policy. Some of these youngsters are at an age where they are about to be inducted into the military. What a novel way of instilling patriotism! Here is the coverage from Arutz-7 - Israel National News.

Arutz-7 – Israel National News,
2/27/2005

Two families told Arutz-7 the same thing today: "We've filed a complaint with the
Police Department against the policemen in question, and are planning to file a civil lawsuit as well, via Honenu."
Both families, the Alberts and the Halfons, underwent the same trauma at the hands of violent policemen, just a day apart. A member of each family was arrested by police for no apparent reason, and was beaten up repeatedly by policemen on the way to - and in one case, inside - the police station.

The story of Hanoch Albert, 25, of Givat Ahiyah near Shilo, was told to Arutz-7 in detail by his brother and wife. On Feb. 15, police came to arrest Hanoch's friend for having planted a tree a month earlier at the site where he was wounded and a friend was killed in a terror attack in May 2003.
Hanoch attempted to dissuade the police from arresting him, explaining that his friend was a terror victim, etc. There was no violence, but finally the police decided to take Hanoch as well. On the way to the police station, they threatened him – "We know your family; you'll end up in the hospital in pieces" – and at one point, took him out of the car and began beating him frightfully and powerfully. He protected his face and head as best he could, but received strong blows on his head and neck – and still suffers from pain and nausea today. The police brought him to the Shaar Binyamin police station just north of Jerusalem, where they interrogated him and continued to strike him.

"He called me for a second," his brother Elchanan said, "and just managed to say that I should come to Shaar Binyamin, and when I got there, I heard from behind the door how the policemen were laughing about how they had hit him, and complaining that he would probably be released soon.

"Ariel Halfon, a 17.5-year-old resident of Shilo, has a similar story: "On Feb. 16, I was walking away from the [anti-disengagement] protest in Tel Aviv with my friend when a police car drove by. We paid no attention. Suddenly, policemen jumped out and arrested us. I asked one of them for some identification, and I received a strong slap. The other policeman also didn't show identification... they really beat me up. They then threw me into the car and put me in the back. A policeman sitting next to me [his name is being withheld in the meanwhile at Ariel's request – ed.] struck me throughout the whole ride, with the other policemen encouraging him.

"When we got to the station, a policeman asked me for identification. I hesitated for a moment, and when he saw that, he took the very heavy log book and gave me a terrifically strong blow on my head, and then struck me in the legs." They interrogated him for several hours, and then took him to Ichilov Hospital to have his eye - which was hurt during the course of the beatings - looked at. No x-rays of his limbs or other organs were taken, and the family was unable to receive a copy of the
medical records for several days.

Both families say they wish to publicize their stories in order that the guilty be punished and to deter other policemen from acting the same way. They are in contact with Honenu, an organization that has set as its goal the provision of legal aid for those who find themselves in legal trouble as a direct or indirect result of the military/political situation in Israel.

Shmuel Medad of Kiryat Arba, who heads the organization, told Arutz-7 today, "The film clip on our site shows just four examples – but we have a lot to update it with, ever since they started this unprecedented and terribly ugly wave of arrests of protestors against the disengagement. Just today I was informed of a boy in the Old City who was kept overnight in the Old City police station last night for an incident of spitting that occurred a month ago, and of two Chabadniks arrested for taking part in a protest, and of someone from Maon who was beaten mercilessly... We are collapsing under the burden, but we can't give up."

Now the Attorney General takes it one step further. He is urging legislators to change the law so that citizens may be arrested for what the Shabak, or the police, or the Lord alone knows who else, thinks they may be thinking. According to Menachem Mazuz, the old law requires evidence. Usually there isn't any. So let's do away with that silly requirement and simply throw them into jail. To quote Dr. Aaron Lerner of Imra:

Israel TV: AG Mazuz proposes outlawing expression as "inciting" even if doesn't lead to violence

Aaron Lerner Date: 27 February 2005

Israel Television Channel One news correspondent Avi Fierst reported on Mabat tonight that Attorney General Mazuz explained to the cabinet today that the incitement law now requires that political expression can only be prosecuted as illegal if it "has a real possibility of leading to violence" and thus cases don't hold up in court as a conviction essentially requires that someone armed who is exposed to the expressions actually acts on the words."If you want us to act," Mazuz told the cabinet, "then change the law."

Fierst's report on Mabat also featured, within (sic) considerable fanfare and graphics, the contents of a pamphlet that was "revealed" by Shabak (ISS) head Avi Dichter to the cabinet: "Instructions to the protestor against disengagement from the Legal Center of the Headquarters for the Struggle Against Disengagement

"Recommended to bring a camera - if arrested - pass to a friend."

"Equip yourself with a cellular telephone with the number of the legal assistance center in the memory."

"During the course of the interrogation say: "this is a political interrogation and thus I have nothing more to say."

"Record the names of the police for the purposes of filing a proper complaint."

"They always have complaints that they were hit and beaten etc. etc.", Fierst explained.

The advice is what any competent first-year law student would give. As to Fierst's closing comment, he fails to take into account that the complaints may well be true. But all of that aside, the attitude of the authorities smacks of George Orwell's 1984. All the more so when the putative guardian of the rights of the people, the Attorney General, is the one suggesting abrogating, if not eliminating, those rights.

If one emulates the worst conduct of one's enemy to protect oneself from that enemy, is one any better than that enemy? The end does not always justify the means. Indeed, it rarely does. To abridge democratic rights is to fly entirely against that which the world needs most. We must not let the thin end of the wedge under the door.