http://www.nypost.com/commentary/15008.htm
FENCE-ING MATCH AS SECURITY
WALL BECOMES NEW TARGET
By URI DAN
The first day of the new year was marked by a rock-throwing riot near the
Four protesters were arrested and, the Palestinians said, 15
demonstrators were injured, mainly from rubber bullets fired by Israeli police.
The fence protests are the new trend - "a hot hit," said Doron
Ben Hamo, Israeli police spokesman for the region.
"The Palestinians and Israeli and foreign leftists are on daily
attack against the fence," he told The Post. Four of the foreign protesters
who clashed with police Wednesday - two American women and two Swedes, one of
them a member of the Swedish parliament - will be deported, he said.
The protests have grown since last week, when a group of people, some
with faces covered, approached the fence from the Palestinian
When they refused orders to stop, an Israeli soldier fired, wounding a
protester who turned out to be an Israeli kibbutznik - and that launched a new
controversy over what steps
While the Israeli leftists organize what's being called their "Foreign
Legion," the Palestinian Authority is launching a legal war against the
fence in the
These battles come as
The irony here is that two years ago, the Israeli left wanted the fence -
because it would force the government to build it along the
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon resisted, thinking a fence wasn't necessary
if there were peace - and, besides, borders should be determined by negotiation
with the Palestinians.
But after more than 900 Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks, many
of them at the hands of homicide bombers from the
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jan2004/isra-j08.shtml
The response of the army,
judiciary and the government of Ariel Sharon to Jewish opponents of
Israeli protester Gil
Na’amati was shot in the legs by Israeli Defence Forces troops during a
demonstration against the
The IDF regularly use live
ammunition to disperse Palestinians, but this was the first time troops have
opened fire on Jewish protesters.
A military investigation
later found the soldiers were following the rules of engagement. The IDF said in
a statement, “Given all the factors involved, including the fact that the
soldiers felt they were under a real threat, the lack of accessible riot control
gear and the rules of engagement the force was operating under, there was no
deviation from the normal rules of engagement.”
IDF Chief of Staff Moshe
Ya’alon told reporters he had “full confidence in the testimony of the
soldiers, who said they felt threatened” by the demonstrators and “did not
believe they were dealing with Israelis.”
Earlier Anarchists Against
the Wall and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel had organised a press
conference during which Na’amati’s father, Uri, said, “One must be drunk
to believe the IDF’s version” of the circumstances of the shooting.
Uri Na’amati said the IDF
soldiers “not only shot Gil, but also failed to evacuate him, lied, and did
not learn their lesson. The IDF version has only one true element—the
shooter’s name.”
According to reports, the
material presented at the press conference and an independent probe by Haaretz
newspaper disproves many of the army’s claims.
Video footage taken using
three cameras at the site of the shooting shows that contrary to the IDF
statements, the soldiers could not have believed their lives were in danger. The
soldiers were also aware that the protesters were Israelis, because the distance
between the troops and the demonstrators was just 26 meters rather than the 100
meters claimed by Ya’alon when speaking to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and
Defence Committee. Protesters were shouting at the soldiers in Hebrew.
The footage proves that the
soldiers had not warned the demonstrators before shooting at them. It shows that
soldiers were in shooting posture even when demonstrators were only shaking the
fence. They could not have felt threatened because there was no chance the
demonstrators could get through to the settlement behind the soldiers. Zionist
settlers felt safe enough to cheer and dance beside the soldiers in the back of
a pickup truck and were not prevented from doing so by the IDF.
The IDF also maintained
that Na’amati was “the chief instigator” of violence, but the video shows
he arrived late on the scene and was not masked as the army claimed.
On New Year’s Day around
15 people were wounded as they took part in another protest against the
construction of the security fence. Two of those injured were foreign peace
activists who were taking part in the third such protest in the
Some 30 protesters and one
border policeman were injured.
The security fence runs
along the western edge of Bodrus, cutting off some farmers from their land.
After a hundred-strong protest march, some youths began throwing stones at
soldiers who responded with a volley of tear gas and plastic bullets. The IDF
imposed a curfew on the village and carried out house-to-house searches. Five
Palestinians were arrested.
Four Israelis and four
foreigners were also arrested, including Swedish Green Party MP Gustav Fridolin,
who was later freed and escorted onto a flight to
Many of those arrested are
activists with the International Solidarity Movement, which has been targeted
for particularly vicious treatment by the Israeli state.
In March 2003,
Since the start of the
Palestinian intifada, the Israeli military police have opened only 72
inquiries, and only 13 prosecutions have resulted from these.
In another expression of
the hard-line stance being taken against internal opponents of the occupation of
the
Haggai Matar, Matan Kaminer,
Shimri Zameret, Adam Maor and Noam Bahat are high school students who signed a
letter almost two years ago refusing to enlist in the IDF as long as it
continued to function as an occupying army.
They were put in trial for
nine months before being convicted of gross insubordination for refusing to obey
an order. The three judges denounced the five conscientious objectors as draft
dodgers who were giving
The court ruled that the
objectors’ freedom to follow their conscience must be balanced against its
impact on national security. The court also insisted that as the five acted as a
group with the explicit goal of bringing about a change in Israeli policy, their
action was not conscientious objection but civil disobedience.
Most significantly the
judges ruled that the sentences were meant to serve as a warning to others,
especially in light of the recent spate of elite reservists refusing to serve in
the territories. The military prosecutor added that the sentence was
“significant for the State of Israel” and would force the five to
“understand the error of their delinquent ways.”
Hundreds of soldiers have
refused to serve in the
The five young men refused
to be intimidated. Shimri Tzameret predicted, “Ethical people will follow in
our footsteps. The coming months will see other conscientious objectors like us
undergoing this process.”
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