Strategy Of Conquest: Part 15 (Palestian in 2019 "Haaretz's Views")

Under the current circumsatance of the attrocities and land theft committed on almost daily basis by the Zionists states of Israel, of snatching of Palestinian organs and of organ snatching in the USA by Zionists Rabbis who are the carriers of the tiwisted Talmud, I am stricken by disgust and feelings of throwing up.

Synicism can be a great tool for expressing one's view.

Here is Haaretz's veiw of Palestian from the year 2019, which is closer to reality in absance of a viable solution to the Paletinians' cause, solution of which, under the current negosiations, stincks like a nasty dead rat.

Begin...

"Back to the [Palestinian] future: A view from 2019 By Roi Ben-Yehuda

Without a viable solution to the Middle East conflict, this is what a speech by a Palestinian leader might look like in the year 2019.

Dear party members, honored guests, and fellow Palestinians (in the homeland and Diaspora). Thank you for gathering at this historic congress. Your presence here is proof against all those who believe that our divisions keep us from peacefully gathering, sharing ideas, disagreeing and uniting. Ten years ago, standing here, we announced our commitment to the two-state solution. We stated loud and clear that we are dedicated to a peace process whose end goal was a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza strip, with a capital in Jerusalem, and a just resolution to the refugee problem. This was a great compromise of our historic rights, yet we understood that there was no realistic alternative to end the occupation without this concession. Our position was backed by a determined American administration, a unified Arab League, a resolute European Union, and in general, a supportive international community. For the first time in history a comprehensive solution was possible. Everybody involved understood the urgency of the matter, and was willing to invest time, manpower, and money into ending our tragedy. Everybody, save one country: Israel.

The Israeli government remained intransigent in its attachment to our land. In the peace summit of 2011, former president Abbas offered Israel the most far-reaching compromise to date, yet Prime Minister Netanyahu would not hear of it. "Jerusalem," he said, "will forever remain the undivided capital of the Jewish people." "The major settlement blocs," he said, "will remain in Israel's control." "And the refugees," he said, "will have a right of return into Palestine proper. Never to Israel." Hence at the peace summit of 2011, Israel articulated its own infamous three "no"s: no to Jerusalem, no to settlements, and no to refugees. And now another "no" is to be added to this ignominious list: No to the two-state solution. Let us face reality: The time has run out on this alternative. The presence of the settlements and the stifling infrastructure of the occupation, what Israelis call facts on the ground, have rendered the two-state solution meaningless. As things stand now, even the most courageous Israeli government [far from what we have had in the last decade] cannot fulfill our basic and fundamental needs. The best Israel can offer us is a pale imitation of a state, and no self-respecting Palestinian will acquiesce to such an injustice. Ladies and gentleman, it is time to articulate a new vision for Palestine, a new vision of what the Palestinian people want and deserve. The hour has come for us to endorse a bi-national state - one person, one vote - to demand full equality as citizens of historic Palestine. Our dream is to be part of a state in which all people, be they Jews or Arabs, have equal political, civil and religious rights. A state where the right of refugees can be honored; where Jerusalem (East and West) is our capital; and where settlements, from Tel Aviv to Ariel, can be called home. It is true that the one-state option has been endorsed by our leaders in the past. Therefore some of you may rightly ask, "are we not replacing one failed dream with another?" I urge you to consider that these are different times. Today, as part of the Palestinian Unification accords, we are collectively committed to a non-violent struggle. In the past some of us believed that violence would compel the world (including Israel) to see our pain and fulfill our aspirations. This was wrong - both strategically and morally. History teaches us that the non-violent path penetrates the heart of the oppressor in a way a bullet never could. It works by rendering visible both the plight and humanity of the oppressed. The non-violent path has brought former empires to their knees - it is a force the Israeli government will not be able to ignore or defeat. Also, unlike the past, today, we have the unanimous support of the international community. I have spoken to the leaders of the great powers around the world, including the United States, and they have assured me that as long as we remain on the path of non-violent resistance they strongly support our cause. This is also a force that the Israeli government cannot ignore or defeat. Of course it is not only the Israeli government that needs to be persuaded. I want to now turn and speak with the Israeli people. Not the government, but the people. I know this is not easy for you to hear. Let me assure you that it is not easy for us either. For years both of our people have been nurtured on a narrative of exclusivity and division. There is a great deal of acrimony and mistrust between us. I have no illusions here - this will neither be quick nor painless. Yes, a bi-national state means an end to the Zionist dream. But what is the value of your dream, if it has become our nightmare? What kind of future can it hold for you? For years you have said that Israel is a Jewish and democratic state, but I ask you, what kind of Jewish democracy occupies and deprives a people of their political and civil rights? As we see it, there is no legitimate reason why this country, in its entirety, cannot be a cultural, spiritual and material safe-haven for all. But for this revolution to take place, a change from within is necessary. We must transform our way of thinking about each other and about what is possible. Your venerable leader, Shimon Peres, once told me that the real problem in the Middle East was that we teach our children to exercise their memory but not their imagination. I agree with this statement. Let's begin exercising our imagination - together. Brothers and sisters, it is clear for all today that there cannot be peace without security, or security without justice. But for real peace, security and justice to flourish, there needs to be respect for our universal human rights. Enfranchisement is the only path out of this human tragedy. Honor this and nothing will be impossible. May Allah bless all of you. Thank you."

End...

Strategy Of Conquest: Part 14 (Security "Kutler Report")

An extensive inquiry into the physical conditions inside prisons located within pre-1967 Israel was published in Ha'aretz in 1978 by Israeli journalist, Yair Kutler.

Yair Kutler called prison life in Israel “hell on earth” and proceeded to describe each prison in detail. His account is harrowing.

Kfar Yonah

Senior officials name the prison of Kfar Yonah as “Kevar Yonah” (the grave of Yonah). It is the detention center that terrifies all who pass through its gates. Detainees have named it “Meurat Petanim” or “The Lair of Cobras”.

“The reception awaiting those remanded there until trial is frightening”

Cells are extremely cold and damp. The shabby, torn and filthy mattresses are crowded. Most detainees have nowhere to lie but the floor. The overwhelming stench of human excretion, sweat and filth never fades from the locked and bolted cells. In ‘D’ wing there are three rooms into which twelve, eighteen and twenty detainees are crammed.

Central Prison of Ramle

Ramle is one of the harshest prisons in Israel. It is a former British police station that was once used as a stable for horses. It is overcrowded and stinking, packed with seven hundred inmates. Many prisoners do not have a bed, a small corner or even a few square meters for themselves. Frequently one hundred men must lie on the floor. There are twenty-one isolation cells (‘X’s) in Ramle. Sunlight never penetrates into the isolation cells, which are completely sealed off. A dangling bulb gives off light the whole day long.

In addition to the isolation cells, Ramle has a series of dungeons. They are 6 feet long, 3 feet wide and 6 feet high. They are dark, filthy and give off a terrible stench. There are no windows or light bulbs; a small opening in the door lets in a little of the light from the corridor.

Before a prisoner is placed in the dungeon cell he is stripped naked and given a torn, thin overall. Once a day he may be let out to use the toilet; otherwise he must contain himself for the entire day and night. He can urinate through a wire mesh in the door. The prisoner is allowed neither a daily walk nor a shower.

Frequently there are beatings. The favored mode is the “blanket method”. A few guards cover the prisoner’s head and beat him until he falls unconscious. In order to avoid solitary confinement a prisoner must know how to lead a life of total submission and self-abasement.

Damun

Life in Damun is “hell on earth”. “The living conditions are disgraceful and cause revulsion in every visitor who comes to this God forsaken place.” The buildings absorb the damp and cold. Five blankets would not be sufficient to keep warm. “Many are sick and most are despairing.” The youth wing of Damun has even worse conditions. Overcrowding is so terrible that youths can only stretch their limbs for two hours every fortnight and this interval is often missed.

Shattah

Overcrowding is terrible in Shattah. The stench is felt at a far distance ... The cells are dark, damp and chilly. The air is suffocating. In summer during the period of great heat in the Beit Shean valley, the prison is a blazing hell.

Sarafand

The “Palace of the End” is set behind a high wire fence seen by all tourists as they drive on the last section of road from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, but five miles from Ben Gurion airport. This is the perimeter of Sarafand which is ten miles square and Israel’s largest army ordinance and supply depot. It is also the repository of the Jewish National Fund, which uses Sarafand to store equipment for construction of new settlements in pre-1967 Israel and the post-1967 Occupied Territories.

The inexorable relationship between occupation, settlement, colonization and the system of torture visited upon Palestinians becomes evident. Sarafand – the torture center – has historical significance.

It was built prior to World War II and served as the principal ordinance depot for Britain. It was one of the most notorious camps for detainees during the Palestinian uprising in 1936 against British rule and Zionist colonization of the land. The old British Mandate buildings were simply taken over by Israeli authorities, their function unaltered, and used for a new generation of Palestinian detainees. The center, known by Palestinian and Jew alike during the British era as the “concentration camp”, has been maintained in character and use.

Nafha; a Political Prison

Palestinian political prisoners have not received the status of Prisoners of War but prisoner camps are constructed for them. Nafha is called “the political prison “ by its inhabitants.

It is in the desert, eight kilometers from Mitzoe Ramon and half way between Beersheba and Eilat. It is in a barren area with terrible sandstorms. Sand penetrates everything. Nights are extremely cold and the daytime heat is unbearable. Snakes and scorpions roam the cells.

A typical cell is 18 feet by 9 feet [6m. by 3m.]. There are ten mattresses on the floor and no other space. A primitive lavatory occupies one corner. Above the lavatory is a shower. While one prisoner uses the toilet, others must wash themselves or their dishes. In a room such as this, ten prisoners spend twenty-three hours a day. One half hour a day all the prisoners must walk in a small concrete yard 15 feet by 45 feet [5m. by 15m.] Many prisoners are ill, suffering from the effects of repeated torture and brutal prison living conditions

Daily Practice in Israeli Prisons

Political prisoners have frequently declared that the conditions in the detention centers and prisons both in pre-1967 Israel and the post-1967 Occupied Territories are designed to destroy them both physically and psychically.
Beatings: In all prisons in pre-1967 Israel and the Occupied Territories prisoners are beaten. In Ramle, this is performed in the dungeons or “isolation cells”: A number of warders attack the prisoner and beat him with their fists, boots and clubs made from wooden hoe handles which are kept in a closet adjacent to the dungeon cells.

In Damun prison, beating is done more primitively. It is performed in public in the courtyard. The most brutal guards are in charge of the “Post”. This is the prisoner transport vehicle which makes three trips weekly from the detention center in Abu Kabir to Shattah prison. It stops at all prisons inside Israel except Ashkelon and Beersheba. Every trip of the “Post” results in savage beatings. Given the slightest pretext, Post guards take the victim off the vehicle at the next Post stations and “beat him beyond recognition”.

Isolation

Isolation is not regarded as punishment under the law. In reality, few people can survive many months in cells 3 feet [1 m.] by 8 feet [2.5m.] for twenty-three hours a day. Yet no prisoner who has made any verbal attempt to preserve self-respect has avoided periods in the isolation cells.

Labour

Prison labour is forced labour. It is organized as “a means to harass the lives of prisoners”. Political prisoners are deliberately assigned production of boots for the Israeli army, camouflage nets, etc.. Those who refuse are denied such “privileges” as cash for the canteen, time out of cells, books or newspapers and writing materials. Some are punished with isolation.

The average wage for this labor is $.05 per hour. Forced labour is deployed to maximize physical and emotional stress. It is also a means of exploitation.

Food: Nutrition in prisons is deficient and food budgets are minimal. Allocated meat, vegetables and fruits are often sequestered by the staff. Eggs, milk and a fresh tomato are categorized as prisoner luxuries.

Medical Treatment: In 1975, a prisoner in Damun prison cut his wrists and legs. Fellow inmates called the guard. A delegation of three guards arrived. The medical orderly opened the cell and grabbed the prisoner and without uttering a word clubbed the man’s face repeatedly. The prisoner fell to the floor; the medical worker kicked him incessantly.

Prisoners are jailed in unsuitable buildings. They suffer in summer from exhausting heat. In winter the damp penetrates “to the bone”. In Ramle prison during winter, one-third of the prison population suffers from swelling of the hands and feet due to severe chill. The only medication available is vaseline, but even it is rarely allowed.

Detainees who serve sentences of more than a few months leave prison with permanent disabilities. Lighting conditions are so poor that prisoners suffer from deterioration of eyesight. Kidney ailments and ulcers have an incidence among inmates five times that of the general population.

Asafir

Since 1977, prisoners have reported that torture is also administered by a small group of collaborators in each prison, some of whom are not actual prisoners but informers posing as such. Whether prisoners who collaborate or informers insinuated into the prison, the procedure has been institutionalized. In each prison and detention center, special rooms are set aside for the collaborators, who are known as “asafir” or “song birds”. Common among the “asafir” are violent criminals selected for their fierceness. Others are selected from those held on political charges, even though they lack a political past. The latter are allowed privileges in accordance with the services they perform.

Not Isolated Cases

While much is made of the democratic and humanist pretensions of Israel, the evidence presented here, as does the evidence accumulated in all studies of Zionist colonization and rule in Palestine, strips away this facade.

The individual cases examined here are not isolated nor are they the result of extraordinary circumstances. The cases cited do not differ fundamentally from others. The torturers are not aberrant individual cops who get out of hand. They are members of all sections of Israeli police and security divisions operating in the line of duty.

Violence is the norm for dealing with Palestinians, whether they are farmers taking their produce to market or youths throwing stones, Palestinian citizens of pre-1967 Israel or Palestinian residents of the territories occupied in 1967 and afterward. Torture is a fundamental part of the legal system, coercion is the route to confession and confession is fundamental to conviction.

The treatment of prisoners does not change with the particular party in power. If Prime Minister Menachem Begin categorized Palestinians as “two legged beasts”, the systematic brutality imposed upon the Palestinian detainee is just as severe under the Labor Alignment governments. As former Prime Minister David Ben Gurion said, “The Military regime exists to defend the right of Jewish settlement everywhere”

Now they initiated other methods – alternating between beatings and soft talk in the hope that I would crack and “confess.” They accused me of being a member of the P.F.L.P., Fatah and the Communist Party. They would change their accusation, but one thing remained constant: after each accusation-they would beat me savagely.

They brought two Majors to see me who lectured me for six hours – about the Soviet Union’s crimes against the Jews and China’s oppression of its national minorities. They accused me of being a communist because they found books on Marxism in my house. I told them there couldn’t be peace here without self-determination for the Palestinian people. They asked me to write this down and sign it and I did.

After forty-six days of interrogation and detention they sent me to a military court in Ramallah. I was accused of having carried out actions against the authorities. My lawyer, Ghozi Kfir, asked for specifics. The court responded: “This is a revolutionary and a deceiver.”
Before the hearing my lawyer and the prosecutor had worked out a deal. I was to be released without charge if I did not speak in court about how I was tortured. But the judge ignored the agreement and sentenced me to five years. I served three years and was placed on probation for two.

"Security" has been the catch-phrase deployed to screen widespread massacre of civilian populations throughout Palestine and Lebanon, for the confiscation of Palestinian and Arab land, for the expansion into surrounding territory and the establishment of new settlements, for deportation and for sustained torture of political prisoners. The publication of the Personal Diary of Moshe Sharett (Yoman ishi, Maariv, Tel Aviv, 1979) demolished the myth of security as the motor force of Israeli policy. Moshe Sharett was a former Prime Minister of Israel (1954-55), director of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department and Foreign Minister (1948-56).

Sharett’s diary reveals in explicit language that the Israeli political and military leadership never believed in any Arab danger to Israel. They sought to maneuver and force the Arab states into military confrontations which the Zionist leadership were certain of winning so Israel could carry out the destabilization of Arab regimes and the planned occupation of additional territory.

Sharett described the governing motive of Israeli military provocation: "To bring about the liquidation of all ... Palestinian claims to Palestine through the dispersion of the Palestinian refugees to distant corners of the world".

The Sharett diaries document a longstanding program of Israel’s leaders from both Labor and Likud: to "dismember the Arab world, defeat the Arab national movement and create puppet regimes under regional Israeli power."

Sharett cites cabinet meetings, position papers and policy memoranda which prepared wars "to modify the balance of power in the region radically, transforming Israel into the major power in the Middle East."

Sharett reveals that far from Israel "reacting" to Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal for its war of October 1956, the Israeli leadership had prepared this war and had it on their agenda from autumn 1953, one year before Nasser came to power. Sharett recounts how the Israeli cabinet had agreed that international conditions for this war would mature within three years. The explicit intent was "the absorption of the Gaza territory and of the Sinai".
A timetable for conquest was decided at the highest military and political level. The occupation of Gaza and the West Bank was prepared in the early 1950s.

In 1954, David Ben Gurion and Moshe Dayan developed a detailed plan to instigate internal Lebanese conflict in order to fragment Lebanon. This was sixteen years before an organized Palestinian political presence occurred there in the aftermath of the expulsions from Jordan in 1970, when King Hussein slaughtered Palestinians in what came to be known as "Black September".

Sharett described "the use of terror and aggression to provoke" in order to facilitate conquest: "I have been meditating on the long chain of false incidents and hostilities we have invented and on the many clashes we have provoked which cost so much blood, and on the violations of law by our men all of which have brought grave disaster and determined the whole course of events".
Sharett recounts how on October 11, 1953, Israeli President Ben Zvi "raised as usual some inspired questions such as [our] chance to occupy the Sinai and how wonderful it would be if the Egyptians started an offensive so we could follow with an invasion of the desert."

On October 26, 1953, Sharett writes: 1. The Army considers the present border with Jordan as absolutely unacceptable, and 2. The Army is planning war in order to occupy the rest of Eretz Israel.

By January 31, 1954, Dayan outlined war plans, disclosed by Sharett : "We should advance militarily into Syria and realize a series of faits accomplis. The interesting conclusion from all this regards the direction in which the Chief of Staff is thinking".

So in May 1954, Ben Gurion and Dayan formulated a war plan for the absorption of Lebanon: "According to Dayan, the only thing that’s necessary is to find an officer, even just a Major. We should ... buy him ... to make him agree to declare himself the savior of the Maronite population...Then the Israeli army will enter Lebanon, will occupy the necessary territory and will create a Christian regime which will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel and everything will be all right...If we were to accept the advice of the Chief of Staff we would do it tomorrow, without awaiting a signal [sic] from Baghdad".

But twelve days later, Dayan had moved into high gear for the planned invasion, occupation and dismemberment of Lebanon: The Chief of Staff supports a plan to hire a Lebanese officer who will agree to serve as a puppet so that the Israeli army may appear as responding to his appeal “to liberate Lebanon from its Muslim oppressors”. The entire scenario, therefore, for the 1982 war in Lebanon was in place twenty-eight years earlier, before the P.L.O. existed.

Sharett, who opposed the original action, recounts how the invasion of Lebanon was postponed:
The C.I.A. gave Israel the ’green light’ to attack Egypt. The energies of Israel’s security establishment became wholly absorbed by the preparations for the war which would take place exactly one year later. The real relationship of Israel to the Arab national movement is placed by Sharett in the clear context of service to U.S. global dominion, of which Zionist expansion is an essential component: "... We have a free hand and God bless us if we act audaciously ... Now ... the U.S. is interested in toppling Nasser’s regime ... but it does not dare at the moment to use the methods it adopted to topple the leftist government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala (1954) and of Mossadegh in Iran (1953)... It prefers its work to be done by Israel…Isser (General) proposes seriously and pressingly that we carry out our plan for the occupation of the Gaza Strip now ... The situation is changed and there are other reasons which determine that it is “time to act”. First the discovery of oil near the Strip ... its defense requires dominating the Strip - this alone is worth dealing with the troublesome question of the refugees".

Moshe Sharett anticipated another wave of slaughter, which did, in fact, occur.

On February 17, 1955, he wrote: "... We cry out over our isolation and the dangers to our security, we initiate aggression and reveal ourselves as being bloodthirsty and aspiring to perpetrate mass massacres".

Ben Gurion and Dayan proposed that Israel create a pretext to seize the Gaza Strip. Sharett’s own evaluation on March 27, 1955, was prophetic: "Let us assume that there are 200,000 Arabs in the Gaza Strip. Let us assume that half of them will run or will be made to run to the Hebron Hills. Obviously, they will run away without anything and shortly after they establish themselves in some stable environment, they will become again riotous and homeless. It is easy to imagine the outrage and hate and bitterness…And we shall have 100,000 of them in the Strip, and it is easy to imagine what means we shall resort to in order to suppress them and what kind of headlines we shall receive in the international press".

The first round would be: Israel aggressively invades the Gaza Strip. The second: Israel causes again the terrified flight of masses of Arab refugees. Their hate will be rekindled by the atrocities that we shall cause them to suffer during the occupation. One year later, Dayan’s troops occupied the Gaza Strip, Sinai, the Straits of Tiran and were deployed along the Suez Canal.
In fact, The plans exposed by Moshe Sharett did not originate with David Ben Gurion or Moshe Dayan.

In 1904, Theodor Herzl described the territory over which the Zionist movement laid claim as inclusive of all the land "from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates". The territory embraced all of Lebanon and Jordan, two thirds of Syria, one-half of Iraq, a strip of Turkey, one-half of Kuwait, one third of Saudi Arabia, the Sinai and Egypt, including Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo.
In his testimony before the United Nations Special Committee of Enquiry which was preparing the Partition of Palestine (July 9, 1947), Rabbi Fischmann, the official representative of the Jewish agency for Palestine, reiterated Herzl’s claims: "The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates. It includes parts of Syria and Lebanon".

Under the Emergency Regulations, a military commander (currently the Military Governor) can, at his discretion and without judicial review: 1. imprison people indefinitely, 2. prohibit travel within or outside pre-1967 Israel and the territories occupied since 1967, 3. expel an individual permanently, 4. restrict any person to his or her home, locality, village or town, 5. forbid anyone to make use of his or her own property, 6. order the demolition of homes, 7. impose police surveillance on any individual and order him or her to report to a police station several times a day, 8. declare any area closed as a security zone, whether it be a farm owned by a family, an inhabited village, refugee camp or tribal lands, 9. censor all media, requiring all articles, leaflets and books to be approved, and banning their distribution, 10. raid people’s homes and confiscate entire libraries, 11. forbid the gathering of ten or more people for the purpose of discussing politics, 12. forbid membership in an organization, and 13. Military edicts appended to the Defense Emergency Regulations have proliferated to the point where they impinge upon the minutiae of Palestinian existence.

Military Orders affecting the West Bank: 1. forbid the planting of tomatoes or eggplant without written permission, 2. forbid the planting of any fruit tree without written permission, 2. forbid any repairs to a house or structure without written permission, and 3. forbid the sinking of wells for drinking water or irrigation.

The Defense Emergency Regulations, first adopted by the British to control the Palestinian population within the Mandate, were revised in 1945 and used by the British to control armed attacks on British soldiers by the Irgun and Haganah and to restrict Zionist acquisition of land.

The Regulations were condemned in 1946 by the Hebrew Lawyers Union in the following terms: The powers given to the ruling authority in the Emergency Regulations deny the inhabitants of Palestine their basic human rights. These regulations undermine the foundation of law and justice; they constitute a serious danger to individual freedom, and they institute a regime of arbitrariness without any judicial supervision.

Yaakov Shimpshon Shapira, who was later to become a Minister of Justice for the state of Israel and one of its leading legal authorities, proclaimed: The regime built in Palestine on the Defense Emergency Regulations has no parallel in any civilized nation. Even in Nazi Germany there were no such laws and the Nazi deeds of Mayadink and other similar things were against the code of laws. Only in an occupied country do you find a system resembling ours ...

Notwithstanding these assessments by leading Zionist authorities in jurisprudence, the Defense Emergency Regulations were incorporated into the legal system of the state of Israel. Since the founding of the state in 1948, the basic regulations have remained unchanged.

The irony is evident. The very regulations characterized by the man who would become Israel’s Minister of Justice as "unparalleled in any civilized country" and condemned by Zionist lawyers for denying "basic human rights" were adopted as the law of the land. As Yaakov Shimshon Shapira stressed: "Only in an occupied country do you find a system resembling ours ..." The Palestinian people, whether in pre-1967 Israel, East Jerusalem, the West Bank or the Gaza Strip live in an occupied country.

The use of torture in Israeli prisons has been the subject of extensive inquiry.
In 1977, the London Sunday Times conducted a five-month investigation. Corroboration was obtained for the evidence adduced. The torture documented occurred “through the ten years of Israeli occupation since 1967. The Sunday Times study presented the cases of forty-four Palestinians who were tortured. It documented practices in seven centers: prisons within the four principal cities of Nablus, Ramallah, Hebron and Gaza; the interrogation and detention center in Jerusalem known as the Russian Compound or Moscobiya; and special military centers located in Gaza and Sarafand.

The investigation resulted in concrete conclusions: Israeli interrogators routinely ill-treat and torture Arab prisoners. Prisoners are hooded or blindfolded and are hung by their wrists for long periods. Most are struck in the genitals or in other ways sexually abused. Many are sexually assaulted. Others are administered electric shock.

Prisoners are placed in specially constructed “cupboards” two feet square and five feet high with concrete spikes set in the floor. And maltreatment, including “prolonged beatings,” is universal in Israeli prisons and detention centers. Torture is so widespread and systematic, concludes the Sunday Times, that it cannot be dismissed as the work of “rogue cops” exceeding orders. It is sanctioned as deliberate policy and all Israeli security and intelligence services are involved: 1. Shin Bet, equivalent to the F.B.I. and Secret Service in the United States, reports directly to the office of the Prime Minister, 2. Military Intelligence reports to the Minister of Defense, 3. Border Police administer all checkpoints. There are checkpoints throughout the territories occupied since 1967, as there are at the borders, 4. Latam is part of the Department of Special Missions, and 5. A para-military squad is assigned to police units, and 5. Patterns of Torture in Post-’67 Occupied Territories.

Each detention center features interrogators with “apparent predilections.” The Russian Compound [Moscobiya] interrogators in Jerusalem “favor assaults on the genitals, besides endurance tests such as holding a chair with outstretched arms or standing on one leg.”
The specialty of the military center at Sarafand is to blindfold prisoners for long periods, assault them with dogs and hang them by their wrists. The specialty at Ramallah is “anal assault.” Electric shock torture is used almost universally.

Fazi Abdel Wahed Nijim was arrested in July 1970. He was tortured at Sarafand and set upon by dogs. Arrested again in July 1973, he was beaten in Gaza prison. Zudhir al-Dibi was arrested in February 1970 and interrogated in Nablus where he was whipped and beaten on the soles of his feet. His testicles were squeezed and he was hosed with ice water.

Shehadeh Shalaldeh was arrested in August 1969 and interrogated at Moscobiya. A ballpoint refill was pushed into his penis. Abed al-Shalloudi was held without trial for sixteen months. Blindfolded and handcuffed while at Moscobiya, he was beaten by Naim Shabo, an Iraqi Jew, Director of the Minorities Department.

Jamil Abu Ghabiyr was arrested in February 1976 and held in Moscobiya. He was beaten on the head, body and genitals and made to lie in ice water. Issam Atif al Hamoury was arrested in October 1976. In Hebron prison the authorities arranged his rape by a prisoner trustee.
In February 1969, Rasmiya Odeh was arrested and brought to Moscobiya. Her father, Joseph, and two sisters were detained for interrogation. Joseph Odeh was kept in one room while Rasmiya was beaten nearby. When they brought him to her she was lying on the floor in blood-stained clothes. Her face was blue, her eye black. In his presence, they held her down and shoved a stick into her vagina. One of the interrogators ordered Joseph Odeh “to fuck” his daughter. When he refused they began beating both him and Rasmiya. They again spread her legs and shoved the stick into her. She was bleeding from the mouth, face and vagina when Joseph Odeh fell unconscious.

The patterns of torture reported by the Sunday Times are similar to those found in hundreds of testimonies published by Israeli lawyers, Felicia Langer and Lea Tsemel, by Palestinian lawyers Walid Fahoum and Raja Shehadeh, by Amnesty International and the National Lawyers Guild and the series of accounts this author documented from former prisoners.

This record is established in the West Bank as early as 1968, one year after the occupation began. Although the International Committee of the Red Cross does not, as a rule, make public declarations, it had prepared in 1968 a finding of torture. Its Report on Nablus Prison concluded: A number of detainees have undergone torture during interrogation by the military police. According to the evidence, the torture took the following forms, 1. Suspension of the detainee by the hands and the simultaneous traction of his other members for hours at a time until he loses consciousness, 2. Burns with cigarette stubs, 3. Blows by rods on the genitals, 4. Tying up and blindfolding for days, 5. Bites by dogs, and 6. Electric shocks at the temples, the mouth, the chest and testicles.

Strategy Of Conquest: Part 13 ("Torturing palistenian Youth)

Torture is routinely administered to Palestinian youths, whether they are Israeli citizens or residents of the Occupied Territories. Himsam Safieh and Ziad Sbeh Ziad, from the Galilee, were arrested on a charge of raising the Palestinian flag on the first anniversary of the massacre of Sabra and Shatila. Six months later they were released, having been acquitted when no evidence against them could be produced and a confession could not be extracted. In court, the youths spoke of the torture to which they had been subjected while in detention.

They were sprayed with cold water and left naked in a cold room. They were beaten over their entire bodies, including their genitals. Electric torture was used. Ziad, his hands tied behind his back, was thrown back and forth from one interrogator to the next. He was beaten on the face and neck. He refused to sign a confession.

Mu’awyah Fah’d Qawasmi, son of the assassinated mayor of Hebron, and his cousin, Usameh Fayez Qawasmi, were among the 17,000 Palestinian youths detained by the Israelis during the recent uprising in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli interrogators poured water on them, hooked clips attached to electric wires to their feet and then turned on the current. Mu’awyah lost consciousness three times during half an hour of electric shock torture. Lawyers who regularly defend those accused of “security” offenses declare unanimously that the Military Courts in Israel and the post-1967 Occupied Territories “collude in and knowingly conceal the use of torture by Israel’s intelligence services”

Should defense counsel challenge the validity of the confession or present evidence of torture, a “little trial” or “Zuta” (Hebrew) occurs. The prosecution produces the army or police officer who took down the confession. But, as the Israeli lawyer, Lea Tsemel, observes: “The officer takes the statement, indeed often composes it for the prisoner. But this officer does not conduct the interrogation or perform the torture. Hence he can state that the confession was freely accepted”

Interrogators and warders can rarely be identified and brought to court because they use assumed Arab names such as Abu Sami and Abu Jamil or nicknames such as Jacky, Dany, Edi, Orli, etc. Even when a prisoner succeeds in bringing his torturer to court, there is no result. Lea Tsemel described how, after enormous effort, in which countless obstacles were overcome, the interrogator who had tortured her client was brought into the courtroom. “He just looked at the defendant and said he had never seen him before in his life. That ended the matter”

Wasfi O. Masri succeeded in having five confessions ruled inadmissible – for which he is much admired among lawyers in Israel and the post-1967 Occupied Territories. This, however, does not assure acquittal. The five were from “a total of thousands.”

House Arrests and Town Restrictions

Under Regulation 109 of the Defense Emergency Regulations, a Military Governor may force any person to live in any place he designates. He may confine people to their homes or towns. Travel and association may also be restricted. Such penalties are issued for six months, but they can be renewed repeatedly. In some cases, people have been restricted “until further notice”

Those placed under house arrest, town or travel restrictions are neither formally charged nor brought before a court of law. The Military Governor issuing the order is under no obligation to specify the nature of the offense. Although the restricted person has the right to bring his or her case before both a Military Appeals Committee and the Israeli Supreme Court, it is rare for the Court to challenge any decision based upon grounds of “security” and difficult for the victims and their attorneys to prepare a case. The Military Governor will not specify the details of the charge or the evidence supporting it.

Regulation 109 has been used against Palestinians in Israel as well as the territory occupied since 1967. It has been used against intellectuals, journalists, teachers, artists, lawyers, trade unionists, students and political figures, many, but by no means all of whom were outspoken in their criticism of Israeli policies and in their support of self-determination for the Palestinian people. Between January 1980 and May 1982, Amnesty International noted that 136 restriction orders were issued, affecting 77 people; 100 restriction orders were issued in September 1983 after events commemorating the first anniversary of the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, and the policy has continued to date.

The Prisons

Israeli prisons are essentially political prisons. They contain mainly Palestinians suspected, accused and occasionally – on the basis of coerced confessions – “convicted” of carrying out, abetting or planning acts of resistance, whether peaceful or armed. While statistics for the total prison population are not available, the number of prisoners in maximum-security prisons who are serving long-term sentences consistently hovers around 3,000; thirty Palestinian women are imprisoned in Neve Tertza, not including those women brought from Lebanon. Lawyers estimate that prior to the recent uprising 20,000 Palestinians were imprisoned each year.

Within the pre-1967 borders there are ten prisons, including Kfar Yonah, Ramle Central Prison, Shattah, Damun, Mahaneh Ma'siyahu, Beersheba, Tel Mond (for juveniles), Nafha, Ashkelon and Neve Tertza. Nine prisons are located in the post-1967 Occupied Territories: Gaza, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Fara'a, Jericho, Tulkarm, Hebron and Jerusalem.

There are regional detention centers at Yagur (Jalameh) and Atlit near Haifa, Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv and the Moscobiya (Russian Compound) in Jerusalem. In addition, police headquarters in Haifa, Acre, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the eighteen police stations throughout the state and the forty police outposts in the occupied territories are used to detain suspects for interrogation and torture. Military installations throughout the country also serve as interrogation and torture centers. Prisoners agree that the most savage of these is Armon ha-Avadon known as the “Palace of Hell” and “Palace of the End”. It is located at Mahaneh Tzerffin near Sarafand.

Finally, detention camps with only tents for shelter were erected to maintain the large numbers of Palestinian prisoners brought from Lebanon during the 1982 invasion as well as the youths rounded up during the current resistance. Meggido, Ansar II (in Gaza) and Dhariyah have become detention centers notorious for their inhumane conditions and daily routine of torture.

Distinctions in Treatment

The differences between prisons for Palestinians within the post-1967 Occupied Territories and those within pre-1967 Israel, i.e., within the “Green Line”, are not great. Ashkelon prison, Nafha prison, the main wing of Beersheba prison and the special wing of Ramle prison, while located within pre-1967 Israel, are major detention centers for Palestinians from the post-1967 Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Damun and Tel Mond are used for Palestinian youth.

The physical location of prisons has little bearing on conditions. Israeli prison authorities maintain rigorous segregation between persons held on criminal charges and those convicted of “security offences”, who are political prisoners.

As only a small number of Jews qualify as political prisoners and only a small number of Palestinians, particularly from the Occupied Territories, are criminal offenders, this separation entails de-facto segregation between Jewish prisoners and Palestinian detainees. Neither contact nor communication is allowed. They are either in separate prisons or different wings of the same institution.

Distinctions are also made between Palestinian prisoners from the territory occupied after 1967 and “Israeli Arab” inmates, who are Palestinian and Druze residing in pre-1967 Israel and holding Israeli citizenship. Conditions of imprisonment for prisoners from the West Bank and Gaza are many times worse than those of pre-1967 “Israeli” inmates.

Some, but not all, prisoners from pre-1967 Israel are allowed a bed or mattress. Approximately 70% of these Israeli prisoners enjoy this “privilege”. They also may receive one visit every two weeks and send two letters a month. They are allowed three blankets in summer and five in winter. Prisoners from the post-1967 Occupied Territories sleep on the floor during summer and winter. They are allowed a rubber mat one quarter of an inch thick, one visit and one post card a month. Whereas the average living space per prisoner in European and American prisons is 112.5 square feet, in prisons for Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, it is one tenth this area or l6 square feet per prisoner.

The prison bureaucracy is a law unto itself. Upon entering this domain the citizen loses all rights. He or she becomes subject to wholly arbitrary authority wielded by people selected for their harshness. The Prison Ordinance (revised 1971) has 114 clauses. There is no clause or sub-clause defining prisoner rights. The ordinance provides a legally binding set of rules for the Minister of the Interior, but the Minister himself formulates these rules by administrative decree. There is no provision stipulating obligations incumbent upon the authorities nor is there any clause guaranteeing prisoners a minimum standard of life.

In Israel, it is legally permissible to intern twenty inmates in a cell no more than 15 feet long, 12 feet wide and 9 feet high. This space includes an open lavatory. Prisoners may be confined indefinitely to such cells for twenty-three hours a day.

Strategy Of Conquest: Part 12 (The Butchery Begins VII "Confessions P/II")

The Case of Nader Afouri

He was a strong, vital man, the weight-lifting champion of Jordan. When he was released in 1980 after his fifth imprisonment, he could neither see, hear, speak, walk nor control his bodily functions. Between 1967 and 1980, Nader Afouri was held ten and a half years as an administrative detainee. Despite the brutal treatment and torture inflicted upon Nader during five imprisonments, the Israeli authorities could neither extract a confession nor produce any evidence with which to bring Nader Afouri to trial.

His First Imprisonment-1967-1971

“I was arrested initially in 1967, the first year of the occupation. They took me from my home in Nablus, blindfolded me and hanged me from a helicopter. All the people of Beit Furik and Salem villages near Nablus witnessed this. They brought me to Sarafand, the most harsh prison, a military prison. I was the first man from the West Bank or Gaza to be brought there. When they set the helicopter down, they pushed me out and ordered me to run. I heard gunfire and ran as they were shooting at me. They took me to a large room full of red, yellow and green lights…I could hear screams and the sounds of beatings. I heard a man yell: ‘You’ll have to confess’…Then I heard a man confessing... Soon, I discovered this was a recording meant to intimidate me…

"...Then they took me to the interrogator…They tied me with chains to green doors...Each door had a pulley…They opened the doom, spreading my hands and legs, then wound the pulleys till I fell unconscious…They made me get up on a chair, tied my hands to chains hanging from a window and slowly removed the chair…My muscles tore as the weight of my body pulled on my hands…The pain was terrible…There were five or six men…They all beat me. They hit me with blows on the head…They chained me to a chair…One would beat me and some of the other men in the room would say ‘Stop'…Then they would change from one to the other, each hitting me in turn…"

""...I was kept chained in that chair and never allowed to stand up…They kept torturing me…An interrogator sucked on a cigarette. When it was red, he placed it on my face, chest and genitals…all over…One shoved a pen refill up my penis while the others watched. As they did this they asked me to confess…I started to bleed from my penis and was taken to Ramle Prison Hospital but was soon brought back again to Sarafand for further interrogation…"

"...I was in Sarafand twelve-and-a-half months and was interrogated continuously…No one can endure twelve-and-a-half months…On four occasions my friends in the other prisons were informed officially that I had died…"

"...The first month in Sarafand, I was always blindfolded and had chains on my hands and legs…After one month they removed the hand chains and blindfold. But I wore leg chains for twelve-and-a-half months. Day and night I had chains on my legs. The marks are still on my ankles…This was the routine…They would beat me, interrogate me, then throw me in the cell…I would rest awhile; then they would take me again…"

"...The cell was 3 feet by 4 feet by 4 feet high…My height is 5 feet 6 inches…I slept crouched with my legs up against my stomach…There were no windows in the cell and no furnishings, only a pot for shitting…I had two blankets…The stones on the floor were very sharp…They punctured my feet when I walked…They began to bring other prisoners…They gave us army clothes with numbers on the back. I was number one. They would only call me by my number, never by my name…They were always insulting me, yelling ‘Maniuk (Faggot), I will fuck you’…"

"...When we were chained outside they brought savage dogs…The dogs jumped at us, grabbed our clothing and bit us…Over thirty people were arrested after my own detention and all underwent the same torture…All, however, broke down under torture and wrote confessions and are in prison for life…I didn’t confess…The torture destroyed my penis and I could only urinate drop by drop. I could not walk for three-and-a-half months when I finished the interrogation…But I did not confess. I never spoke a word in twelve-and-a-half months

Nader Afouri

was sent to Nablus Prison where he began a hunger strike demanding his freedom. He took only water and a little salt. After ten days he was promised his release. Ten days later when Nader Afouri had not been released, he renewed the hunger strike for yet another week. Again the Administrative Vice-President of Nablus Prison promised to release him. When there was still no action after twenty-five days, Nader Afouri announced another hunger strike.

"...I was sent to the cells of Ramle prison after twenty-two days of this hunger strike. Dr. Silvan, the director there, brought several soldiers with him. They beat me on the head. I passed between life and death. They chained my hands and forced a tube in my nose. It was like an electrical shock. I began to shake. I became hysterical when the food reached my throat and began to scream constantly. They gave me an injection in the hip and I relaxed..."

"...When this torture failed to make me talk I was placed in the Prison Hospital at Ramle and then sent back to Nablus Prison"

Each time a confession was extracted from another prisoner incriminating him, Nader Afouri would be called for interrogation. Often he did not even know the people who spoke against him. But still he did not confess, nor was he brought to trial. Nader Afouri was well respected in Nablus and became a leader of the prisoners. When Abu Ard, an informer, accused him of leading the other prisoners, Nader Afouri was sent to Tulkarm prison.

On his arrival at Tulkarm, he was beaten on the face by Major Sofer and thrown into a cell with thirty-five other prisoners. Nader Afouri had had enough. When Major Sofer later approached him to hit him again, Nader Afouri punched Sofer through the bars of the cell door. When the Prison Director later struck him, Nader Afouri grabbed an ashtray and hit the Director on the head. The army was called. Nader Afouri described the consequences.

“Fifteen soldiers came in and beat me on the head with a chair. I fell unconscious. They put my shirt in my mouth and beat me more. I became hysterical as I was gagging. They gave me an injection and I fell unconscious. I awoke alone in the corridor. I couldn’t see"

All Tulkarm Prison went on strike and the prisoners met with the Director to speak about me. He promised he would release me the next day if they stopped their strike. The Director came the next day and shook hands with me and said: “I swear by my life that you are a man”

"They brought me socks and a jacket and promised me a private visit with my family"

Nader Afouri was not freed. Instead he was sent to Bet Il prison from which he was eventually released in 1971. His four years of imprisonment were without trial and labelled administrative detention. Only a few months lapsed before Nader Afouri was detained again. His second imprisonment lasted from 1971 until 1972 and a third from November 1972 until 1973.

His Fourth Imprisonment: Nov. 1973 – Nov. 1976 - “Hebron, Moscobiya, Ramallah and Nablus

"I stayed three months in a cell in each of these four prisons and the interrogation and torture continued...It was snowing during the interrogation in Hebron. They stripped me and put me outside in the cold. They tied me with chains to a pole and poured ice water over me. They let me down and brought me to a fire to warm up only to bring me outside again for the ice water treatment...Iron balls were put into my scrotum and squeezed against the testicles. Pain just enveloped me...One of the investigators, Abu Haroun, said he would turn my face into a bulldog’s... He was scientific...He hit me with rapid punches for two hours...Then he brought a minor and said: ‘Look at your face’ I did indeed look like a bulldog..."

"In Nablus they burned me with cigarettes and again pressed the metal balls against my testicles-squeezing the egg against the iron. They used pliers to pull out four of my teeth...I was detained three years administratively. During that time as an act of revenge, they also dynamited my house”

The Fifth Imprisonment: November 1978 – 1980

“They arrested me again in November 1978 and sent me directly to Hebron. They greeted me, sneeringly, declaring: ‘We will make you confess from your asshole’ I told them I speak from my mouth, not my asshole...At first they spoke nicely to me because they knew torture wouldn’t work... Then they brought the men in charge of interrogation: Uri, Abu Haroun, Joni, the Psychiatrist, Abu Nimer who has a finger missing, Abu Ali Mikha and Dr. Jims...They chained me to a pole and concentrated their beatings on my chest. They lay me down on the floor and jumped high in the air landing on my chest. Uri did this seven or eight times. It was savage, unending torture for seven days..."

"...They smashed their boot heels on my fingernails, breaking my fingers...It was snowing so they poured ice water on me...They handed me a paper and gave me two hours to confess...I said I knew nothing... They chained me to a chair. All of them began to beat me with their hands and feet...I fell down...My head was on the floor...I saw Uri fly through the air and I felt his karate chop on my head...This was the last memory I had for two years..."

“...I have been told that I was dragged back to the cell. The other prisoners had to feed me, clean me and turn me over... I was incontinent and shat on myself...I could not move my hands or walk. I could not hear...I could not recognize anyone. Only my lips could move and I would swallow whatever was put in my mouth...People had to move my head. They had to move my limbs from under my body. My weight fell to 103 pounds (47 kilos)...Two years later, I woke up in a mental hospital. I had five fractures in my hips and I couldn’t walk”

His friends were able to arouse public concern throughout Israel and the Occupied Territories. Israeli officials and journalists wrote that Nader Afouni was

“feigning” and that he was an excellent “actor”

But the prisoners who had taken care of him and the journalists and sympathizers who visited him when he was finally transferred from prison to a hospital, as well as the hospital staff that eventually treated him, bore witness to his condition. Nader Afouni became a cause celebre for the Palestinian people, a symbol of the torment inflicted upon them and of the heroic dimension of their resistance.

The Case of Dr. Azmi Shuaiby

He was a dentist and an active member of the El Bireh City Council in the West Bank and an elected representative to the National Guidance Committee. Since 1973, Dr. Shuaiby has been arrested, brutally tortured and imprisoned seven times. Between 1980 and 1986 he was forbidden to leave the limits of El Bireh and was confined to his house after 6 p.m. In 1986, he was again imprisoned and then deported from the West Bank. He has never been accused of armed actions or of promoting violence. But Dr. Shuaiby refuses Israeli demands that he collaborate. He has written articles against the occupation and settlements and in favor of an independent Palestinian state.

In 1973, when first arrested at the age of twenty, Azmi was told: “We have been watching you. You were first in your class at the University. We can make you a very rich and powerful man in the West Bank. You must cooperate with us and join the Village Leagues” Upon his refusal, the series of arrests and savage torture began. Dr. Shuaiby described the methods of torture, both physical and psychological to which he was subjected.

"They used heavy batons. They put my legs between chair legs so I couldn’t move. Then they beat the soles of my feet. My feet swelled. After one minute I could no longer feel my legs. The pain was excruciating. I was unable to stand...They would stand behind me. I couldn’t tell if anyone were there. Suddenly, the interrogator clapped his hands over my ears with great force. It caused sudden, terrible pressure in my nose, mouth, and ears – a loud ringing which went on for five minutes. I lost my balance and hearing..."

"...They used a giant guard to punch me constantly. He said: “You are a dentist? Which hand do you use? If we break your hand you will no longer be a dentist...Then he beat my hand until I felt it break...They tied my hands behind my back and suspended me on a hook. They spread my legs and beat me on the testicles with sticks. Then they squeezed my testicles. I cannot describe the agony produced by squeezing the testicles. You feel stabbing pain in your stomach, in all your nerves. You want to faint..."

"...They put me outside in the winter, naked and fully exposed, with my cuffed hands suspended from hooks. I was hung this way from 11 p.m. at night until just before sunrise. Then I was returned to my cell. They had put water on the cell floor so that I couldn’t sleep..."

"...They told me I must collaborate with them and that when I did I must tell neither the Red Cross nor anyone else that I was working for them. I replied: “OK, I will tell them that you said I must not tell anyone you want me to work for you.” I refused to collaborate. They beat me endlessly...”

In 1980, the Israelis introduced new techniques. Dr. Shuaiby designates these methods “psychological torture”; he found them harder to endure than the physical torment. “Your brain is affected

Dr. Azmi Shuaiby

was subjected to the following ordeal; isolation.

“No one was allowed to speak to me, not even the soldiers. The cell was 4.5 feet by 5.5 feet and 9 feet high. In one corner was a stinking hole used as a toilet. There was only a tiny window near the floor. I could never see the sky. The bare light was on day and night. I had nothing to read. I heard no voices. Food was put in the corner and the door opened very slightly. I had to strain to reach for it piece by piece...The bedding consisted of a plastic cover less than one half inch thick. It was always wet. Once a week I was allowed to go out for a few minutes to air the bedding. No soldier was permitted to speak to me...To maintain my sanity I collected small pieces of orange peel and made shapes with them. I would ask myself questions and then answer them. I also pulled threads from the blanket and knit them together...”

The Cupboard

“I was entombed for four days and nights, squeezed into a bent but standing position in a cupboard 20 inches by 20 inches. It was very dark. A filthy sack had been tied over my head. My hands were handcuffed behind my back with special cuffs. If I moved my hands in any way the cuffs automatically tightened. I was unable to move in the cupboard. I had to sleep while standing. I slept a minute at a time, awakening abruptly, convinced that I was suffocating”

The Interrogators

“The interrogation and torture were carried out by a team. All were officers and captains, their names Gadi, Edi, Saini, Yacob and Dany. The interrogation room is their kingdom; no one can enter...During the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the interrogation team was sent to Lebanon and a new staff brought to the West Bank prisons. The ‘new staff’ consisted of former torturers. One man had been an interrogator ten years before; now he was a businessman..."

"...Captain Dany returned from Lebanon during my imprisonment. Captain Dany is a very tall, handsome man of thirty-five years. He is very crude, constantly yelling ‘Fuck your sister, fuck your mother’ He would force my mouth open and spit in it. In 1973, he tried to force a bottle into my anus. When he saw me on his return from Lebanon, he said: ‘Oh, Azmi is here’ and proceeded to tell me about the young children in Ansar. ‘I interrogate children 10, 11 and 12,’ he began, giving me accounts of their beatings”

Dr. Azmi Shuaiby was imprisoned three times in 1982. Between December 7, 1981, and January 16, 1982, he was kept in isolation during the General Strike in the West Bank and the closure of Bir Zeit University. From April 1 to May 3, when the Israelis disbanded the West Bank City Councils, Azmi was placed in the “cupboard” and then again in isolation. He was kept in isolation throughout the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

"Recently they told me, “We will destroy your clinic by jailing you every alternate month. Our computer will determine when you are scheduled to be imprisoned again”. In 1986, Dr. Azmi Shuaiby was deported.

The Case of Mohammed Manasrah

He was a trade union activist, secretary of the Bethlehem University Student Senate and is currently a writer and journalist. He was imprisoned three times for a total of four-and-a-half years and then placed on additional probation for two years. His torture during interrogation was unrelenting, resulting in sexual dysfunction and hearing loss. He also endured numerous additional briefer detentions as well as house arrest and town restrictions.

His First Imprisonment

“I was nineteen years old in 1969 when I was arrested for the first time. I was taken with a group of people and held in the Moscobyia(the Russian Compound in Jerusalem) for six months, where I was interrogated about demonstrations, publications and organizations..."

Moscobiya was barbaric. They took our clothes and covered our eyes. They cuffed our hands and chained ten of us in a row. We were stripped naked. They threw water on us. Then they beat us in turn, using sticks on our heads and on our sexual organs. They would alternate throwing water on us and beating us on our sexual organs. We would hear them filling the buckets and brace ourselves, but no matter how we tried, we could never prepare ourselves for the beatings, “My friend, Bashir al Kharya, a lawyer, has been in prison since 1969. They beat his head with heavy sticks for three days. His head became green from mold and was infected with bacteria for five years. He is still held in Tulkarm Prison.

His Second Imprisonment

“In 1971, the authorities accused me of membership in both the P.F.L.P. (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and Fatah (Yasir Arafat’s group in the P.L.O.) even though one couldn’t be a member of both organizations, “The security services lacked any evidence but they gave me the choice of being charged with membership in an illegal organization and being sentenced to prison or voluntarily moving to Amman [Jordan]. I told them I would rather be imprisoned for a lifetime than be exiled. I confessed to membership in the United Student Council, the council of all student organizations which had been declared illegal. I was then imprisoned for one year in Ramallah and Nablus prisons.”

His Third Imprisonment

“In 1975, they raided my house in Dheisheh camp and confiscated all my books. They brought me to Bassa Police Station where they beat me for two days. They asked no questions. One interrogator stood in front of me and another behind me. Suddenly the one behind would clap his hands with great force on both my ears. Blood flowed from my ears and mouth. I suffered brain damage. One prisoner, whom they were trying to terrify, fainted when they brought him to where I was being tortured, “They imprisoned me for three years. I was held in Hebron, Ramallah, again in Hebron, Farguna, Beersheba, again in Hebron and then again in Beersheba. They would transfer me for ‘security reasons’ as punishment after hunger strikes”

HisTorture in Hebron Prison

“They tied me upside down and beat me endlessly on the feet with a piece of wood. You can’t imagine how much they hit me. My feet swelled to a huge size and turned blue. I bled under the skin…They stripped me of my clothes and hung me by chains with my hands above my head and my feet barely touching the ground. They beat me constantly on the feet, always concentrating on my feet. Sometimes they would let me down and put my feet into a basin of filthy, stinking cold water. This would relieve the pain. Then they would hang me up again..."

"...I had to sleep chained up, with my hands above my head. This went on for fourteen day…Maisara Abul Hamdia was with me. For every blow I received, he got two. Maisara would be hanging when I entered the torture room…Then Maisara would find me hanging when he was brought to the torture room..."

"...After fourteen days, I would lose consciousness constantly. I was put in Cell #5. It was 5 feet 3 inches by 2 feet and 5 feet 6 inches high. It was as high as I am tall and its length was such that I had to put my legs on the wall when I lay down… The only sound I ever heard was that of the keys. I became terrified whenever I heard that sound. I don’t know exactly how long I was there. It was somewhere between five days and one week. I was beaten all night when they transferred me from Cell #5 to Cell #4..."

"...They used wide sticks and beat me on the head and sexual organs. They pulled my hair and hit my head on the wall. I have a permanent problem with my sexual organs and have had many X-Rays taken of my head and sexual organs… I was brought to the military courtroom early in the morning and made to wait all day. But there was no session. Instead, Abu Ghazal, the famous interrogator, came. He grabbed my hair and swung me around the room, smashing me against the wall. My hair was pulled out. He threatened to send me to Sarafand or Akka (a secret prison used in 1974 and 1975) if I didn’t confess within two days…"

"...I was put in a cell and slept the entire time. I didn’t know if it were day or night, two days or ten. I still feel cold when I recall this period. I get chills in my legs…After two days, ten soldiers rushed into my cell and started to beat me. They dragged me along the floor to the torture room. They told me that my friends and comrades had confessed. I said, 'Bring them to me'... I knew these were lies. They brought two types of people to me in order to make me confess; kind, weak people who couldn’t bear to see how I was being tortured and “asafir…"

"...Now they initiated other methods – alternating between beatings and soft talk in the hope that I would crack and confess. They accused me of being a member of the P.F.L.P., Fatah and the Communist Party. They would change their accusation, but one thing remained constant. After each accusation, they would beat me savagely…They brought two Majors to see me who lectured me for six hours – about the Soviet Union’s crimes against the Jews and China’s oppression of its national minorities. They accused me of being a communist because they found books on Marxism in my house..."

"...I told them there couldn’t be peace here without self-determination for the Palestinian people. They asked me to write this down and sign it and I did…After forty-six days of interrogation and detention they sent me to a military court in Ramallah. I was accused of having carried out actions against the authorities. My lawyer, Ghozi Kfir, asked for specifics. The court responded, 'This is a revolutionary and a deceiver'…Before the hearing my lawyer and the prosecutor had worked out a deal. I was to be released without charge if I did not speak in court about how I was tortured. But the judge ignored the agreement and sentenced me to five years. I served three years and was placed on probation for two.

House Arrest and Municipal Restriction

The Shin Bet harassed Mohammed Manasrah after he was released from prison. They approached every employer for whom he worked and told them to fire him. Mohammed Manasrah lost four jobs before becoming a full-time trade union organizer.

On January 7, 1982, Mohammed Manasrah was ordered to return from Bethlehem to Wadi Fukin, the small village of his birth located inside the pre-1967 border. He was placed under house arrest in Wadi Fukin for six months. He had no income and had to depend upon his neighbors’ help.

The authorities and the Village League (collaborators) threatened Mohammed Manasrah, his family and all with whom he came in contact. His house was raided many times; books and papers were taken. His family was prevented from travelling to the West Bank. His brother’s work permit was removed. His sister-in-law was attacked by the Village League when they mistook her for Mohammed’s wife. The Military Governor threatened every family whose sons visited him. The young men were investigated. Three teachers from the elementary school were interrogated after such visits.

“They installed a siege around me: economic, social and psychic”. Mohammed Manasrah, in defiance of the municipal restriction, returned to Bethlehem where at least his wife was able to work. “My brother and his child were arrested in order to pressure me to return to Wadi Fukin, but I remained in Bethlehem”

His house arrest was eventually transferred to Bethlehem. “I couldn’t stay home long. I went here and there. The soldiers grabbed me and took me to prison”

On December 1, 1982, a new military order permitted him to move within the municipal borders, but he was not allowed to work. He was obliged to report to the Military Governor each day and remain there until noon. After a year, the restrictions ended. Less than one month later, the Military Governor ordered a further six-month municipal restriction.

Imprisonment Again

He entered Bethlehem University in 1983 to study sociology. He was soon elected Secretary of the Student Senate. In November 1983, he and other members of the student organization were imprisoned after sponsoring a Palestinian cultural exhibit.

Strategy Of Conquest: Part 11 (The Butchery Begins V "Confessions P/I")

Coerced confession is central to proceedings against Palestinian prisoners. Until 1981 a prisoner could be tried only on the basis of his or her personal confession - a sufficient inducement for prison authorities to produce one for the court. Wasfi O. Masri, who had been a senior judge under Jordanian rule and who defends many Palestinian prisoners has stated: "In 90% of the cases I have, the prisoner ... was beaten and tortured"

Because many prisoners withstood torture and refused to confess, an amendment to the military statute was adopted, permitting courts to use as the central and, indeed, sole evidence against a defendant the fact that his or her name was mentioned in someone else’s confession.

While "evidence" is considered inculpating if a defendant’s name is cited in another prisoner’s confession, the prosecution’s case is treated as definitive if a defendant’s confession is produced. If a detainee fails to admit to an offense, officers of the Intelligence Services are brought into court to testify that the prisoner made an "oral" confession. Palestinian attorney Mohammed Na’amneh, in describing two such cases, observed that when prisoners deny having confessed orally, the court accepts an Intelligence Officer’s testimony as probative.

All confessions are written in Hebrew, a language virtually none of the Palestinians from the territories occupied since 1967 is able to read. When prisoners refuse to sign on the ground that they cannot read Hebrew, they are abused. In the case of Shehadeh Shalaldeh of Ramallah, “the officer left the room and two men in civilian clothes came in. I told them I wanted to know what I was signing ... They started beating me, so I said Okay, 'okay, I’ll sign’”

There are many cases wherein the statement which a prisoner has signed in Hebrew bears no relation to the Arabic text originally shown him. Such confessions invariably begin: “I was a member of a terrorist organization" These words would never be used by a member of the P.L.O. (Palestine Liberation Organisation) or its component organizations. Notwithstanding the fact that such "confessions" are in a language which cannot be read by those signing them, the courts have ruled that confessions are "irreversible" and wholly probative of the offense in question.

Exact data on the percentage of those arrested, interrogated and eventually brought to trial are difficult to establish with precision. No published statistics exist. But the cumulative information of lawyer and Palestinian community records make evident that the number of Palestinians subjected to interrogation and torture is enormous.

Israeli lawyers state without hesitation that most males over the age of sixteen have been interrogated and held at one or another time in their lives for periods of varying duration. By 1980, reports printed in the Israeli press estimated the number of Palestinians imprisoned at one or another time after 1967 to have reached 200,000. Lawyers recently updated this figure to 300,000.

Trials

Those who reach trial are charged most commonly with "political" offenses which include: 1. Breaking public order (a vague category embracing any action including insufficient subservience toward Israeli officials), 2. Demonstrating, 3. Distributing leaflets or daubing slogans, and 4. Membership in an "illegal" organization. Specifically targeted are groups which attempt to form any Palestinian political party in pre-1967 Israel such as El Ard (The Land), which does not support explicitly a Jewish state, or representative Palestinian bodies, such as the National Guidance Committee (Lijni Komite al Watani) in the West Bank. Organizations which are part of the P.L.O. are also among those declared illegal.

Many youngsters in the Occupied Territories who strike, march, demonstrate or meet, are charged with "producing or throwing Molotov cocktails". A significant number of people are tried for possession of arms, armed assault and forms of military operation and sabotage. Many of these cases involve, in fact, violation of the "contact with the enemy" provision, which covers any organization designated by Israeli security forces as sympathetic to Palestinian national aspirations.

Within ten years of the occupation, over 60% of all prisoners in pre-l967 Israel and the territories occupied since 1967 were Palestinians found guilty of political offenses. All political offenses violate the Defense Emergency Regulations of 1945 and the State Security, Foreign Relations and Official Secrets Act of 1967, thus making them "security offenses". People charged with such political offenses are brought to trial in military courts. This is true inside pre-1967 Israel as well as the territories occupied subsequently. Palestinians are rarely tried in civil court.

The Case of Ghassan Harb

Ghassan Harb, a 37-year-old Palestinian intellectual and journalist for Al Fajr, a prominent Arabic daily, was arrested in 1973. He was taken by Israeli soldiers and two plain-clothes agents from his home to Ramallah prison where he was held fifty days. During this time he was neither interrogated nor accused. He was denied any contact with his family or a lawyer.

On the fiftieth day, Ghassan Harb was taken with a sack over his head to an undisclosed place. Here he was subjected to sustained beating: “Fifteen minutes, twenty minutes beating with his hand across my face”. Stripped naked and a bag placed over his head, he was forced into a confined space. He began to suffocate. He managed by moving his head against the “wall” to remove the bag and found himself in a cupboard-like compartment some 2 feet square and 5 feet high respectively. He could neither sit down nor stand up. The floor was concrete with a set of stone spikes set at irregular intervals. They were “sharp with acute edges,” 1.5 centimeters high. Ghassan Harb could not stand on them without pain. He had to stand on one leg and then replace it continuously with the other. He was kept in the box for four hours during the first session. He was then made to crawl on his knees on sharp stones while being beaten for an hour by four soldiers. After being interrogated, Ghassan Harb was returned to his cell and the routine was repeated: beatings, stripping, forced to crawl into a dog kennel two feet square and then the “cupboard”. While in the cupboard at night he heard prisoners pleading, “Oh my stomach. You are killing me”

Ghassan Harb’s ordeal has been corroborated independently by four people. Mohammed Abu-Ghabiyr, a shoemaker from Jerusalem, described the identical courtyard with its sharp stones and dog kennel. Jamal Freitah, a laborer from Nablus, described the “cupboard” as a “refrigerator” with the same dimensions. It had “a concrete floor with small hills ... with very sharp edges, every one like a nail.”

Ghassan Harb was released two-and-a-half years later, never having been charged with a crime or brought to trial. His lawyer, Felicia Langer, succeeded in taking the matter of his maltreatment to the Israeli Supreme Court. No full statements were taken or admitted into the court hearing; no witnesses were called. The court dismissed out of hand all charges of torture.

The Case of Kaldoun Abdul Haq

A construction company owner from Nablus, also described the courtyard and the “cupboard” with its floor “covered with very sharp stones set in cement” Abdul Haq was hung by his arms from a hook in a wall on the edge of the courtyard.

The Case of Husni Haddad

A factory owner from Bethlehem, was made to crawl in the courtyard, the sharp gravel underfoot, and was kicked as he crawled. His box too had “a floor which had spikes like people’s thumbs but with sharp edges.”