In this page we publish some of the letters we are receiving about the Palestine issue.

We will not make any comments about these letters and publish without editing.

On 28 April 2004, Adalah submitted a motion to the Supreme Court of Israel in its own name and on behalf of six other Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations requesting the immediate issuance of an injunction and an urgent hearing in the “human shields” case, pending before the Court since May 2002. Specifically, the petitioners seek an order prohibiting the Israeli military from using Palestinian civilians in the 1967 Occupied Territories during and for the purpose of military operations, including as human shields and/or as hostages, and from approaching civilians and asking them in any way to participate in military operations, irrespective of the discretion of any military commander.

Adalah argued in the motion that these illegal practices used by Israeli military are continuing and provided four new affidavits and testimonies collected by Adalah, Rabbis for Human Rights, and B’Tselem from individuals who were used as human shields and/or as hostages during Israeli military operations in December 2003, January 2004, and most recently in April 2004.

Adalah Attorney Marwan Dalal filed the motion on behalf of Adalah, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Qanun (LAW): The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Law and the Environment, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, B’Tselem, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual. The named respondents are the Commander of the Israeli Army in the West Bank; the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army; the Minister of Defense; and the Prime Minister of Israel.

At present, there is an injunction in place banning the Israeli military’s use of Palestinian civilians as human shields and/or as hostages. However, the army claims that it may use Palestinian civilians in military operations, if they agree to “assist” and the military commander in the field determines that there is no danger to the civilians. According to the army, this “Operational Order - Prior Warning” and these practices do not constitute the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields and/or as hostages. The petitioners have consistently argued that these practices are illegal for the following reasons: (i) The purpose of the order is to allow the army to get assistance from Palestinian civilians, while conducting an arrest. This practice is inherently dangerous, even as noted in the text of the order, which anticipates an exchange of fire; (ii) Under international humanitarian law, the army may not approach a civilian to ask for his or her assistance in a military operation pursued by an occupying power; and (iii) In practice, in the field, the Israeli military disregards the safety of Palestinian civilians, as also set forth in the “Operational Order - Prior Warning”, and it is illogical that a Palestinian civilian would consent to assist the Israeli army due to the inherent dangerousness of its operations. Moreover, Palestinian civilians perceive the Israeli military as an occupying force.

In August 2002, after the killing of a 19-year-old Palestinian civilian, Mr. Nidal Abu Mohsen, while being used as a human shield during the course of an Israeli military operation in Tubas, West Bank, at the petitioners’ request, the Supreme Court issued an injunction similar to one that is now being requested. Yet, in January 2003, the Supreme Court limited that injunction to the one currently in place, despite the fact that it did not rule on the legality of the “Operational Order – Prior Warning,” but requested the petitioners and the state to submit written arguments on the status of the Order under law. In July 2003, the Court heard oral arguments on this issue and decided that it will deliver a final judgment on the matter, possibly by an expanded panel of justices. To date, the Supreme Court has still not delivered its decision.

In the new motion for an injunction, Adalah argued that the substantial and irreversible harm to Palestinian civilians is much greater if the military is permitted to continue to approach individuals and use them for military purposes at the field commanders’ discretion, than any potential harm to the Israeli military were they to completely refrain from resorting to these practices. This is particularly true given the serious reservation as to the legality of the “Operational Order- Prior Warning”, which is still a matter of dispute before the Court.

Most recently, on 15 April 2004, the Israeli military used Mohammed Badwan, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy from Biddo, West Bank as a human shield. Mohammed was taking part in a demonstration against the construction of The Wall in Biddo. Following the use of tear gas by the Israeli army to disperse the demonstrators, some youth started throwing stones at the military. Rabbi Arik Asherman of Rabbis for Human Rights, who was also taking part in the demonstration, received word that the Israeli military was holding a boy and beating him. When Rabbi Asherman approached the soldiers, he saw Mohammed sitting on the hood of a military jeep with his arm tied to the metal grating on the windshield. When he tried to intervene with the military for Mohammed’s release, the soldiers shouted at Rabbi Asherman with one of them hitting him in the nose. Rabbi Asherman was subsequently arrested, handcuffed, and put in front of another military jeep near Mohammed, along with an approximately 60-year-old Swedish activist and another Palestinian civilian, while stones continued to be thrown at the Israeli military. Rabbi Asherman told the soldiers not to use them as human shields and they responded by shouting and threatening him. Placing the four civilians in front of the military jeeps put their safety in serious jeopardy.

On 12 January 2004, Mr. Ahmad Assaf, a 33-year-old father of five living in the Tulkarm refugee camp was also used by the Israeli military as a human shield as well as subjected to other physical and verbal abuses for an entire day. Mr. Assaf was forced to enter and search many homes before Israeli soldiers entered. The soldiers also bombed and fired shots into these homes both before and after Mr. Assaf was compelled to enter them. Mr. Ahmad Ganem, 25-years-old, living in the Tulkarm refugee camp, was also used by Israeli soldiers to enter and search homes prior to their entry on 12 January 2004.

On 4 December 2003, Mr. Majd Abu Arab, a 40-year-old journalist from Nablus, was used as human shield by the Israeli military. At about 2:00 a.m., Mr. Abu Arab saw a bright light shining into his living room and stones being thrown at the windows. Israeli soldiers shouted to him to come downstairs. When he went down, three armed soldiers with blackened faces holding guns with red lasers shining from them, asked Abu Arab to knock on his neighbor’s door. He responded that it was not his job, that he is not a policeman, and that he is a reporter. In reply, one of the soldiers shouted, “Shut up, ring the bell, or I’ll shoot you.” Abu Arab complied. When the neighbor opened the door, the three soldiers jumped back into a corner, despite the fact that the neighbor was unarmed. The soldiers ordered the neighbor and his family out of the apartment and to stand outside in the rain. The soldiers asked the family members for their identity cards and subsequently arrested the neighbor’s 24-year-old daughter.

For more information, including a briefing paper detailing all of the case developments, see Adalah’s website: www.adalah.org - Special Reports – “Human Shields.”

A Constitution for Jews Only

There is no chance that in Israel a democratic and liberal constitution will be created similar to the South African constitution

For the past few months, the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee has been holding meetings to discuss the creation of a constitution. The hope of this Committee, as well as that of extra-parliamentary organizations pushing for the creation of a constitution, is to establish a constitution based on the consent of all segments of the public in Israel, despite the many disagreements dividing them. Yet it is doubtful that the social-political conditions and the political power relations in the Knesset will enable the creation of a democratic and liberal constitution that protects basic constitutional rights. It is obvious that the potential content of the constitution will be very far from the values of the new Constitution of South Africa, for example, which is considered the most progressive in the world.

Drawing on the experience of a dark regime of discrimination, South Africa created a constitution that could provide an excellent source of inspiration. The constitution opens by presenting four principles upon which the Republic of South Africa is based: (a) human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms; (b) non-racialism and non-sexism; (c) the supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law; and (d) a multi-party system of democratic government. The constitution also recognizes 11 languages as official languages and sets forth the duty of the authorities to use at least two languages at all times in its interactions with citizens.

The composition of the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee as well as that of the Knesset does not elicit hope of creating a constitution that respects basic constitutional rights. The Right has a clear majority in the Committee. Most members of the opposition in this Committee, similar to the Right, share the belief in basic principles, that are not necessarily liberal, that will be included in the constitution. The Knesset adopts, very easily and by a large majority, laws that violate the principle of equality: infringing the right to child allowances for Arab citizens and banning the naturalization and family unification of Palestinian spouses from the Occupied Territories. Bills proposed by Arab elected representatives to include the principle of equality in the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty are rejected by a large majority in the Knesset. The government advances actions, on a daily basis, the purpose of which are a gross violation of human rights: hom! e demolitions of Arab Bedouin citizens in the Naqab; racist statements by senior ministers including the Prime Minister that address the Arab population as a "demographic problem"; and the adoption of an economic plan that aims to harm disadvantaged communities and more.

The probability that there will not be a democratic constitution in Israel is also derived from the positions of those who advocate a clear and sharp separation of powers. Those who hold these views direct their criticism toward the Supreme Court, despite the fact that the latter rules according to the national Jewish consensus when discussing cases stemming from the national conflict. This Court, for example, continues to legitimize the military's activities in the Occupied Territories.

The argument of those who criticize the Supreme Court is that the Court intervenes more than it should in the decisions of the executive and the legislature, and by doing so it thus harms the public trust as well as the social fabric, which is based on the separation of powers. Those who argue this do not confront the source of the need for the separation of powers: balancing and restraining the immense power of the executive. According to them, the separation takes precedence over rights. But what meaning is there for powers, even if they are separated, if their actual policy is none other than infringing basic rights?

It is worth emphasizing that the existence of a constitution does not guarantee the realization of a democratic and liberal regime.

The US Constitution did not prevent the annihilation of the native population in the country. The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which mandates that the government should apply the rule of law equally to all citizens, was adopted only in 1868, and women were guaranteed the right to vote only in 1920. African-Americans started to achieve recognition and some of their rights only after years of struggle, which included, among other things, civil disobedience. On the other hand, in other places such as England, the lack of a constitution did not prevent the development of a democratic regime. In Israel, there are two powers - the executive and the legislature (the latter is supposed to confirm the constitution) - that do not relinquish any measure, which infringes basic human and civil rights. It is obvious, therefore, that one thing is guaranteed in the constitution-in-the-making - the state of Israel as a Jewish state or as the state of the Jewish people. The Constitution of South Africa, it seems, will not provide an inspiration.

By Tal Hassin

Mohammed Halihal, who lives in Akbara, Safed's Muslim neighborhood, woke up to a new reality last Sunday. Wherever he looked were red and white posters warning the girls of Safed and their families against him. "Warning!" screamed the poster, "Ten Jewish girls are being held captive by the Arabs of Akbara." Further on, the poster explains what happened to them: "Beatings and violence, hard drugs, prostitution and crime."

"I have gotten used to the cries of `Arabs go home,' I am familiar with the `Death to the Arabs' graffiti, but this time I feel personally offended," he says. Someone in Safed worked hard Saturday night. Dozens of posters of various sizes were scattered throughout the city. They were stuck to fences of homes, hung on the walls of the shopping mall, attached to bulletin boards and electrical fuse boxes. Some were even glued to signs at the two entrances to the city. City workers hurried to remove ! them, but a week later, posters forgotten in less central locations or parts of posters partially torn town that left a word here and a sentence fragment there could still be seen: "Beatings," "drugs," "Akbara," "Jewish girls held captive by Arabs."

Superintendent Amir Aharon, the commander of the Safed, Hatzor and Rosh Pina police station, when asked if are there any women being held captive in Akbara, says, "Nonsense, there is no such thing."

There are about 500 people living in Akbara, a neighborhood on Safed's southwestern outskirts. Over 60 percent of them belong to the Halihal clan. Many of them have university degrees, are lawyers and doctors; almost all work in Safed. They did not participate in the demonstrations by Galilee Arabs in October 2000, many voted in the last elections for the Likud, and a few volunteer to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Their neighborhood, which has not yet been hooked up to the sewage system despite promises, and which has onl! y one bus a day, is called Safed the Village.

The relations between the residents of the village and the city are good. Someone is trying to undermine those relations, says Mohammed Halihal, 28, a lawyer with many Jewish clients. On the morning the posters were hung, his mobile phone rang incessantly. "Did you see it? Did you hear? What should we do?" he was repeatedly asked. Four days went by, and while still trying to digest the developments, Safed was inundated with a new poster, this time by the ultra-Orthodox organization Yad La'ahim. It held a moving appeal to "Cherished girls of Israel," warning them against "the Arabs that hang around among you and try to seduce you ... to take you to the Arab villages and abuse you and release all their hatred on you."

Trying to light a fire

Halihal decided he had had enough and he filed a complaint for incitement with the local police. He has no doubt that the two posters are connected. Someone is trying to disturb th! e relations between Arabs and Jews and light a fire, he says. "So first it was an anonymous poster, and then this organization took the trouble to put up this additional poster, and each poster and the time that goes by has meaning. The incitement is starting to filter down."

Two of those that feel the effect of the posters are Yael Ben Kanar, 20, and Sa'il Halihal, 25. They have been seeing each other for five years, sleeping at each other's house, walking with their arms around one another in the street. Safed is a small town, only about 30,000 people, and many of the residents know them. Until now, they hardly encountered hostile responses. Since the first poster was put up, says Sa'il Halihal, their relationship has triggered responses galore. Suddenly, he has been greeted by cries of "Arab out! You are stealing our girls. What business do you have to be here?"

He is a handyman and in the context of his work, he enters many homes. The more moderate Jews, he sa! ys, try to persuade him: That relationship won't work, they say, forget about it. "The less moderate, especially from the ultra-Orthodox sector, look at me with hostility and say there will be a big mess if I don't leave Yael." His girlfriend also says that since the posters were hung, she has become the target of attacks. "People come up to me in the street and tell me while he is standing there: `Watch out, he will convert you to Islam, he'll beat you.' It is very offensive. I have friends in Akbara; they are not turning me into a prostitute or a criminal. This business with the posters is a new thing, but I don't know what will happen if it continues. I am afraid that people will start throwing stones at us, that they'll beat Sa'il. It's scary."

The phenomenon of mixed couples is not new in Safed. Two residents of Akbara are married to Jewish women. Arab and Jewish men and women meet and grow close in Safed College, an extension of Bar-Ilan University, of which 60 percent o! f the students are Arabs. However, it appears that what kindled the spark this time was a love story between a girl from an ultra-Orthodox home and a young man from Akbara. According to Reuven Sadeh, the deputy mayor for the Likud, "She is 17 years old and he is 18. I understand that a Jewish girl with Arabs is a desecration and against religion, but the phenomenon exists. We must not take matters to the extreme and apply it to all of Akbara. We are lucky to have them and the relations with them are excellent. It would appear that her parents are working with the city's rabbis, whose views toward the Arabs are known. Regretfully, someone here took the law into his own hands and decided to stir things up. To light a fire is easy."

All-out war

One of those whose "views toward the Arabs are known" is the chief rabbi of the city, Shmuel Eliyahu, the son of the former Sepharadi chief rabbi of Israel, Mordechai Eliyahu. In the past, he waged an all-out war against the Arab students of Safed and called to stop their studies there. He issued a halakhic ruling forbidding the sale of Jewish property in the land of Israel to non-Jews. On Friday, he discussed the posters in an interview with the local newspaper of the north, Kol Ha'emek Vehagalil, where he is quoted saying, "It is another form of war that the Palestinians are waging against us and we must know how to defend ourselves against it. It involves Jewish girls aged 15-25 that are seduced by young Arab men ... and we must save them." Further on he said, "I know that in most cases, it involves Arab men that are married to Arab women, and the Jewish girls are taken in as maids and they are unable to run away." Rabbi Eliyahu refused to speak with Haaretz, but confirmed that he did indeed make these remarks to the local paper.

Until two years ago, Safed had two chief rabbis: Eliyahu, the Sepharadi, and an Ashkenazi rabbi, Levi Bistritzki. Bistritzki, say people in town, was a much beloved! and moderate figure. He maintained unity, spoke with everyone and cared for the needs of Jews and Arabs alike. His death left the entire scene to Rabbi Eliyahu, a graduate of the Merkaz Harav Kook yeshiva in Jerusalem, which is associated with the rabbis of Yesha (Judea, Samaria and Gaza).

In the past, Eliyahu supported marking out a specific site for a synagogue on the Temple Mount. Since his election as chief rabbi of Safed in 1989, a lifetime appointment, he often speaks out against Arabs. "Instead of preaching brotherhood, he foments unrest," says Sa'id Halihal, 62, the son of the former mukhtar of Akbara, an educator of many years. "Each time he has the opportunity, he lashes out, for example in the fabricated story of the abduction."

A few weeks ago, two American ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students found themselves stuck in the middle of the night in the center of Safed with two flat tires. Some men from Akbara offered to take them to the neighborhood tire shop to! fix the flats; they took them in their car, a commercial vehicle with a place to sit in the back. Akbara is about two kilometers away from the center of town, and to get there, a main road and a grove have to be crossed. Not all the roads in the village are paved. At a certain point, the yeshiva students became frightened and they opened the back of the pickup and jumped off the vehicle. They told the ultra-Orthodox weekly Besha'ah Tovah, an extreme right-wing publication, that a group of drunk Arabs convinced them to go with them, that they drove like mad and that they fought with them to keep them from escaping.

Supervisor Aharon says no complaint was filed with the police, but that did not prevent Rabbi Eliyahu from telling the weekly: "Now it has been proved that the danger is greater than we thought." He attributed the alleged abduction to "that same group in Akbara that is trying to seduce Jewish girls," summing up by saying: "The problem is serious and it is on a na! tional scale." The story spread through Safed like wildfire. "That is a shame," says Sa'id Halihal. "The rabbi could play a major role in educating people to live together in peace, but he is exploiting his public position to polarize the conflict. The greatest fear is that comments like his and the plague of posters will enrage hot-tempered and reckless people, on both sides. It could cause serious violence."

A living example is Evyatar Eliezer, a 20-year-old resident of Safed. "Jewish women captive in Akbara? Of course there are," he says. "I know three of them. They bribe them, seduce them with a ride in a car, threaten them, beat them and then sleep with them. Sometimes they get them pregnant and their whole lives are ruined. Now, there is talk now of a raid, to raid their village in the middle of the night and break their bones. To teach them a lesson."