[GushShalom] "The worst of criminals"

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

GUSH SHALOM  pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 www.gush-shalom.org

#"Conscientious Objectors - the worst of criminals"
    report of the court session of Dec. 23 by Adam Keller
# 13 elite refusers - and it spreads...
# Akiva Eldar in Ha'aretz Dec.23, 2003:
     Gush Shalom finds: 52 factories exited the Occupied Territories 

                                \\// //\\ \\// //\\ \\//      
  
#"Conscientious Objectors - the worst of criminals"
    report of the court session of Dec. 23 by Adam Keller

This should have been The Day - the culmination of more than a year of 
legal struggle, the day when the  Jaffa Military Court would finally hand 
down its judgment on Haggai Matar, Matan Kaminer, Noam Bahat, Adam 
Ma'or and Shimri Tzameret.  

More than an hour before the time fixed by the court, hundreds of 
demonstrators turned up, holding signs: "We are all Refusers!" - 
"Refusing to Serve the Occupation!" - "Conscience in Prison -Stupidity in 
Power!" 

The news spreads that today admittance to the court is restricted to family 
members and journalists only - apparently in order to prevent repetition of 
last week's spontaneous rally inside the military court enclosure. But Anat 
Matar, mother of Haggai, negotiates with the court administration and 
succeeds in getting enough of us inside. When the Five filed in, they did 
get the hero's welcome which has become customary.

Captain Yaron Kostelitz, the prosecutor, was visibly heartened by the 
court excepting his arguments last week:

"Your honors did well in finding these five guilty, but your verdict must be 
completed by handing down a suitably harsh punishment. What we have 
here are ideological criminals, and former Supreme Court Judge Yitzhak 
Zamir already noted that these are the worst of criminals, since they not 
only break the law, but flout its authority, and therefore should be doubly 
punished. The very fact that they are idealistic people and in many ways 
positive characters should be counted against them, since it helps them 
find followers and spread their law-breaking further into the society." 
Kostelitz did not explicitly refer to last week's poll, showing that 30% of 
Israeli youths regard refusal as legitimate. He went on quoting many 
precedents on the issue of ideologically-motivated crime - most of them 
cases of settlers and extreme right fanatics such as he notorious Avigdor 
Eskin.

"I object to this terminology of  'ideological crime' which my colleague of 
the prosecution introduces", said defence lawyer Dov Chenin. "It lumps 
together various criminal offenses which have no similarity whatsoever. 
Avigdor Eskin of whom my colleague spoke was convicted in several 
grave charges of assault and arson; there is nothing similar between him 
and the five standing trial today, who did not commit any violent act and 
indeed the act of which they have been convicted last week was their 
refusal to be in any way party to violence."

Meanwhile, Kostelitz makes clear what the military system has in store for 
the Five: "These persistent lawbreakers must be made to render the 
military service which they owe to their country. It doesn't matter how 
long it will take: in the end they will be made to do it. If a heavier 
punishment and the fear of a still heavier one is the only way, then this 
way must be taken. It happened before. There were refusers as defiant as 
these ones, and the military courts knew what to do with them. Take Gadi 
Elgazi in 1980: he refused four times and was sentenced to a month each 
time; and when he persisted the military court gave him a whole year." 
"And that didn't help either!" sounded the voice of  Gadi Elgazi in person, 
from among the public benches....

"Let me complete the story of Gadi Elgazi" said Adv. Chenin. "He was 
indeed sentenced to a year in prison. But after half a year he was pardoned 
and discharged from the army by the Chief-of-Staff of that time, Rafael 
Eitan. There was no question of demanding again and again that he enlist, 
as it seems the military system proposes to do now. I can only wonder at it 
that they want to go far beyond the policies of Eitan, who had the name of 
being a strict disciplinarian. 
'What they don't do out of love, they will be made to do out of fear' - this  
new guideline of the military as expressed by the prosecutor in this 
courtroom, is not really new. Our people have heard it in past generations 
from such institutions as the Spanish Inquisition. In this very week we 
celebrate Hanukka, a holiday instituted to commemorate a provincial priest 
named Mattityahu who was faced with exactly such a guideline by the 
constituted authority of his time, an authority which demanded that he 
bow to an idol and threatened him with death for his refusal. It is part of 
our tradition to proudly remember his refusal and rebellion.

"Such a guideline" continued Chenin, "has no place in a democratic state, 
a state which adopted a Basic Law on Human Dignity. My colleague has 
made extensive quotations of former Supreme Court Judge Yitzhak Zamir 
and of jurist Ruth Gavison. He submitted many articles by them as 
corroborating evidence to this court. Let me quote from one of these 
articles: 'A democratic state may find it necessary to punish a 
conscientious objector, but it should not try to break his will and force him 
into acts which are against his conscience.' In your verdict of last week 
your honors have stated that these five young people have acted out of 
moral and ideological abhorrence of being part part of an army which they 
consider to be perpetrating manifestly immoral acts. True, you have added 
that they also acted out of a wish to change public opinion in general, 
which you consider an illegitimate motive, but you did accept that the 
moral motivation was and is there.  Let me say, that in the course of the 
past year i have come to know these young people quite well, and not 
only are they my clients but I am proud to consider them my friends. i can 
say quite confidently that they are not going to break, also by the 
imposition of  further imprisonment. It will be no use to them, to the army 
or to the Israeli society. Much better to give them a chance to do three 
years of civilian service to the benefit of society as they are willing and 
eager to do.

"My colleague of the prosecution said that a severe punishment must be 
imposed to deter other refusers. Leaving aside that a commission of very 
respectable jurists determined recently that it is inadmissible to impose a 
harsh punishment on a person not on the basis of his own acts but in 
order to deter others. Anyway, what deterrence is needed? Is what these 
young people already endured, more than a year of repeated imprisonment 
and detention, not enough to make crystal clear that the straightforward 
declaration of refusal on grounds of conscience is the most difficult, 
prolonged and painful way of getting out of the army? Is it not well-known 
that different avenues exist for getting exemption, such as appealing to a 
psychiatrist, and that the people who take these routes far outnumber the 
actual and potential refusers?

"To sum up: You have determined that these young people are guilty of 
an offence under the military legal court, and deserve a punishment. In 
determining what the punishment should be you should be guided by the 
practice of your fellow judges in the military courts of the Israeli Defence 
Forces. I have gathered here for your attention several cases which I think 
are relevant. 
--Sergeant Yosef Bachar has been found guilty on three separate counts 
of beating up Palestinian detainees, and got three months of actual 
imprisonment and four suspended.
--Soldier Saguy Harpaz wa found guilty of beating up a Palestinian 
detainee and got five months suspended. On appeal. one and half months 
of these were turned into actual imprisonment.
--A Lieutenant Colonel publication of whose name was forbidden by 
censorship gave his soldiers orders, the fulfillment of which led to an 
unarmed Palestinian being shot to death. The military court which judged 
him stated that 'he had given an order whose illegality cries out'. They 
found that the fitting punishment was one month suspended.
--Four soldiers of the Givati Brigade have repeatedly beaten up two 
handcuffed Palestinian children of whom one died later. Some of them got 
three months and some two months, plus demotion.
--Four soldiers of the elite Duvdevan unit shot carelessly at a Palestinian 
car, killing its driver. They got a fine of one Agora [less than a US Cent]. 
On appeal this was changed to short terms of suspended imprisonment.

"I could go on and give more examples. I can also mention that these 
represent the few cases of which the perpetrators were at all apprehended 
and punished. But it is enough to show the standards which the military 
judicial system applies with regard to offences committed out of moral 
callousness.  I think it is self-evident that moral callousness is a worse 
phenomenon than moral sensitivity, which was the motivation recognized 
by this court for the act of which my clients are convicted. It would be 
only right and proper that their punishment be lesser."

It was already long into the evening when the Presiding Judge Colonel 
Avi Levy made his dry announcement: "You understand of course that a 
judgment cannot be expected tonight. We need quite a bit of time to take 
all this into consideration." And so, we have still another act before the 
curtain falls, and the Five must wait several tense days more before they 
know their fate.

[A phonecall to somebody's mobile told of a solidarity vigil, held for the 
second consecutive week outside the Israeli Embassy in Rome.] 
						***

# 13 elite refusers - and it spreads...

Also this day, the papers carried headlines about the letter of the 13 elite 
commandos of Sayeret Matkal - the same unit which conducted the 
legendary hostage-freeing operation  of Entebbe 1976 - who now declared 
their refusal to serve in the Occupied Territories. It was reported that the 
discontent has spread also to the equally elite Naval & Air Force 
Commandos, and includes no less than seven Israeli Navy Gunship 
Captains [Itay Asher, Ma'ariv p. 18 and 19].  

See also: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/374364.html
					***

# Akiva Eldar in Ha'aretz Dec.23, 2003:
     Gush Shalom finds: 52 factories exited the Occupied Territories 

Factories exit

Soldiers who are not responsible for one of the dozens of roadblocks 
stand guard, among other things, over the industrial zones scattered 
throughout the territories. The compromise reached recently with the 
European Union , which requires Israel to include the place of origin of 
every product on its label, outraged the settlers and their patrons.
Based on the amount of noise they have made, one might have thought 
that the West Bank compete s with Silicon Valley. But an operation 
mounted by the Gush Shalom ("Peace Bloc") organization raises the 
suspicion that at some of the industrial parks in the territories,
only non production personnel - from CEOs to cleaning ladies - remain. 
The factories that operated there have left.

To update its boycott list, Gush Shalom's Boycott Committee sent letters 
at the end of November to the managers of 120 industrial plants whose 
products it is urging the Israeli public not to buy. The letter noted that 
man y factories have apparently left the settlements and returned to Israel, 
and that the number of departures can be expected to grow in the wake of 
the agreement with the EU regarding the labeling of Israeli exports.
Manage rs whose plants had returned to Israel were therefore requested to 
give Gush Shalom their new addresses so that they could be removed from 
the boycott list.

Gush Shalom's mailbox was too small to hold the flood of returned mail. 
The post office sent back no fewer than 52 letters stamped "moved" or 
"address unknown." Most came from the industrial parks in Mishor 
Adumim (18 let ters), Barkan (11), Atarot (5) and Ariel
(3). A few letters were also returned from industrial parks in Karnei 
Shomron, Ma'aleh Efraim and Kiryat Arba. Telephone calls to some 
companies were answered by security guards. G ush Shalom discovered 
that some businesses maintain two addresses. One enables
them to obtain customs breaks in Europe, and the other allows them to 
obtain tax breaks in Israel.

"The fact that more than one-third of the factories in the territories have 
quietly packed their bags and returned to Israel gives us great 
satisfaction," says Gush Shalom's Uri Avnery. "Israeli governments - both 
Likud a nd Labor - invested enormous efforts in enticing factories to the 
settlements, and their efforts have failed." Avnery sees the
failure of the occupation industry as proof that it is impossible to conduct 
serious economic activity in a region of violent conflict. The veteran peace 
warrior believes that this failure, like the closure of the European market to 
products from the settlements, will hasten the inevitable evacuation of the 
settle ments.

//Full article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/374866.html
					***
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