(GushShalom] Israel has no right to try Barghouti

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

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

It was just a bit over two years ago - September 12, 2000. The Peace Tent 
was erected in the plaza outside the Tel-Aviv Cinemateque, under the 
slogan  "Israel and Palestine - Two States Now!". In the list of featured 
speakers it was no surprise to see the name of Marwan Barghouti, member 
of the Palestinian Legislative Council, together with such speakers as Dalia 
Rabin, Uri Avnery and Tamar Gozanski...
A speaker of fluent Hebrew - picked up in prison during the first Intifada - 
and the personal friend of many Israelis from all  over the political spectrum, 
Barghouti attended innumerable such events during  the seven years of the 
Oslo process - always emphasizing his firm support for  the two-state 
solution.   
Just two weeks later, Ariel Sharon staged his Temple Mount provocation,  
embroiling the peoples in a cycle of bloodshed which is still far from ended.  
And today Marwan Barghouti had another public appearance in Tel-Aviv, just 
a few streets away from the Cinemateque: a handcuffed prisoner, he was 
brought to the Tel-Aviv District Court, there to be charged by the state of 
Israel with heinous acts of terrorism.

A number of Gush Shalom activists arrived at the court - among them Uri  
and Rachel Avnery - together with representatives of Machsom-Watch, New 
Profile, and Women for Peace. We had come  two hours in advance to be 
sure of a place in the courtroom. 
After a prolonged wait in front of a locked door, a band of security men  
emerged to push us far back and announce that admittance would be 
restricted to  those on a list prepared long in advance. The only journalists 
allowed were  those on a specific "pool" - just when and by whom it was 
defined was not  clear, but quite a few well-known Israeli and foreign 
journalists found  themselves out. As for the general public, it turned out 
that "Families of the  vicitims of terrorism" were to be given precedence - 
such precedence that once  they went in there was no place left for 
anybody else. ("Sorry, the courtroom  is full, no more places inside").  

The suicide bombings of the past two years, indiscriminate as they were, 
have  hit at all parts of the Israeli population (the same could be said for the  
Palestinians killed and wounded in the scarcely less indiscriminate 
bombings and bombardments by Israeli tanks and aircraft). In the sad ranks 
of the bereaved families, all political opinions could be represented.  But the 
families selected for the privilege of being present in the courtroom during  
the Barghouti trial were all of the extreme right. 
Thus was produced the scene which we could see on our TV screens 
tonight:  Barghouti, on his entry to the courtroom, meeting a uniformly 
hostile audience,  which throughout the proceedings continued to shout 
abuse at the accused in the dock and his lawyers. Any hint that some parts 
of the Israeli society had a different attitude was carefully excluded from 
that courtroom, but not - as it turned out - from the media coverage.

We were left outside the locked doors - among the chaotic medley of 
Israelis  and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, right-wingers and left-wingers, 
activists,  police and security men, all mixed up in an increasingly heated 
atmosphere. The stickers which we wore on our clothing, improvised on the 
previous evening for exaactly the case that we wouldn't be allowed in, bore  
the slogan "Barghouti to negotiations - not to trial". It drew considerable 
attention, some of it adverse.  Debates often degenerated into shouting 
matches and bitter recriminations. We were faced with bereaved family 
members with  genuine grief. But does even grief for a daughter killed in a 
suicide bombing - incidentally, one which happened when Barghouti was 
already behind bars -  justify a woman in rudely shouting at any Palestinian 
she could see "You are  aliens here, foreigners! This is our land and ours 
only!")? 

On the TV news the outdoors events got considerable attention, probably to 
th e chagrin of those who wanted it to be a neat show trial.

The biggest surprise however was given by the youngest member of 
Barghouti's legal team, Advocate Shammai Leibowitz  - like his grandfather 
the late Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz an Orthodox Jew adept at giving 
unorthodox interpretations. "The struggle of the Palestinians to be free of 
the occuption is reminiscent of the Exodus of our forfathers from Egypt. 
Moses had killed an Egyptian foreman which he saw beating a Hebrew 
slave, and had to flee from Egypt. The Egyptian aurhorities had no right to 
try Moses like Israel now has no right to try Barghouti."

[Reported by Adam Keller]

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