Today, an Israeli military court approved (with some limitations) the euphemistically named "administrative detention" of nonviolent Palestinian activist Mohammad Othman. In plain words: his imprisonment without trial - without even an indictment - continues.
Othman is from Jayyus, a village in the hapless Kalkilia region of the West Bank - a region sliced and butchered by the "Separation Barrier" which indeed separates locals from their lands, in order to maximize the area available to surrounding settlements and their expansion plans.
After organizing activities against the Barrier with limited success, Othman started organizing for the global BDS movement. He was arrested 2 months ago upon returning to the West Bank from a BDS meeting in Norway. More on Othman can be found in the link above. Here I will elaborate on issues related to admin-detention.
First, original DKos h/t on Othman is due to the tireless Tom J (diary from 3 weeks ago). This past week was full of new developments for Othman. But first a brief recap.
Mohammad Othman was arrested by the Israeli military September 22 upon his return from Europe. He was first placed in a camp inside the West Bank, where the poor sanitary conditions made him sick. Then he was taken to a prison in northern Israel, then to the desert south where (as I understand) he is held now. This prison is notorious for having "collaborators cells", where collaborators are intermixed with new prisoners to get information out of them, and possibly also assault them. Othman has been interrogated on a pretty much daily basis. At first the interrogators said "they had material on him" - but this "material" has never materialized. Instead, they resorted at one point to threats that they will hurt his sister. He was given only intermittent access to his lawyers.
Throughout the imprisonment, Othman has been periodically brought to court which gave the military (or more precisely, the Shin Bet secret police) 12 additional days each time to get stuff out of him - in spite of failing to produce any evidence of wrongdoing. Meanwhile, the case's profile kept rising with foreign emissaries beginning to show up for court sessions.
This Monday, the game was up... or was it? The military judge gave the prosecution a harsh rebuke for holding on to Othman for no apparent reason. He ordered.... Othman free?
Well, that would certainly be the case if Othman lived in a world of due process and defendant rights. Unfortunately, he lives under the military dictatorship a.k.a. "Israeli Occupation" (the existence of which is still denied by many in Israel and the West). So the military judge, instead of sending Othman home as he should, gave the prosecution 24 hours to set up "administrative detention".
I don't know about you, but for me the term "administrative detention" esp. in Hebrew "מעצר מנהלי", evokes images of convicts mercifully receiving a detention in some air-conditioned office, doing administrative chores. Then perhaps even going home every night. Sort of like the grown-up version of doing school detention.
That is probably the intention of this Orwellian term. But no, that's not what admin-deten is. In reality, it's just a prison term without trial or indictment.
Administrative detention orders have been issued based on British Mandate Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945. In 1970, Israeli occupying powers issued Military Order (MO) 378, authorizing the military commander of the region to issue administrative detention orders. Additionally, in 1988, as an amendment to MO 378, MO 1229 was issued in the West Bank and MO 941 for the Gaza Strip (military orders are issued separately for the West Bank and Gaza Strip) to apply the policy of administrative detention. These orders authorized the issuing of administrative detention orders without designating a maximum period of time for the detention. The first paragraph of MO 1229 states that
"If a Military Commander deems the detention of a person necessary for security reasons he may do so for a period not in excess of 6 months, after which he has the right to extend the detention period for a further six months according to the original order. The detention order can be passed without the presence of the detainee..."
The authority of the military commander was not only limited to this. Authorization was also given to the military commander through military orders to hold an administrative detainee for an unlimited period of time if the commander has reason to believe, based on reports submitted by the General Security Services, that the release of the administrative detainee poses a danger to the security of the state. As such, the military commander may extend the period of administrative detention indefinitely.
According to Addameer’s experience with administrative detention, detainees have been held under administrative detention orders from periods ranging from 6 months to 6 years. The issuing of administrative detention orders appears to be directly linked to the political situation, with its use increasing when there is an increase in protest against occupation in the Palestinian territories that were occupied by Israel in 1967. Administrative detention is used as a form of punishment and a political act representing the policy of the Israeli government, conducted without sufficient legal monitoring and in contravention of international and human rights law, in particular the Fourth Geneva Convention.
(h/t Addameer - the Palestinian center for prisoner rights)
Oh, the irony. The tools created by the British to combat Jewish terrorism in 1945, are still the choice weapons in the Israeli Occupation's legalistic arsenal, some 65 years later.
Over the years, Israel used admin-deten against such dangerous people as the late Faisal Husseini and Professor Sari Nusseibeh.
To return to Othman for a moment: the Shin Bet asked for 3 months. The judge, doubtlessly aware of the case's high profile, agreed but decided to deduct the 2 months already served. So expect Othman to be brought for an admin-deten renewal in 3-4 weeks. My jaw won't drop if it is approved. On the other hand, I won't be shocked if it isn't; this case is already a bleeding PR nightmare for the Israeli govt (here's a Jewish Voice for Peace action page; not updated with today's news yet - but any sort of headache US and Israeli authorities get about Othman can help set him free)
For me as a progressive Israeli there are 2 interesting questions here.
- How can middle-of-the-road Israelis who want democracy, see this kind of tool be used routinely (hundreds of Palestinians are currently under admin-deten) and not raise questions about the nature of the regime they tacitly support?
- Why Othman, why now? And why the insistence in face of growing international interest in him?
My answers (feel free to come up with your own):
- It's all an issue of cognitive dissonance. We are raised to know that we are the good side, the Arabs the bad side. It's a self-proven axiom. Therefore any fact hurting it is brushed aside or explained away. For example, when Nusseibeh was admin-detened in the early 90's my middle-of-the-road, ex-lieutentant-colonel dad said that the authorities are actually protecting Nusseibeh: he is so accommodating to the Israeli side in his solution plans, that he might be murdered. Therefore the prison time might give him some "street cred". Well, Nusseibeh is long out of jail. Palestine has gone into far worse times than the early 90's, and he came out with the bold Nusseibeh-Ayalon plan that forgoes any Palestinian return to inside Israel. And yet, he is the respected head of Al-Quds University, and (afaik) not at any more risk than any other Palestinian politician.
No, middle-of-the-road Israelis got it all wrong. The problem in I-P is not about "who's good and who's bad" but about what kind of reality we have created in the land. Is this reality good or bad, is it something we want to continue and maintain. Therefore, all the psychological efforts to maintain that "we are the good side" image are touching, but totally off topic. But it is extremely hard to disentangle the issues of the reality itself, from self-image.
- First, Israel views BDS as a real threat. Perhaps the biggest threat to the status-quo. In particular, cutting off BDS from its Palestinian organizers is seen as a crucial goal. In a similar manner, the 1988 assassination of Arafat's heir-apparent Abu Jihad, the main liaison between Occupied Palestinians and the exiled PLO leadership, played a key role in alienating between the two groups. Five years later, a poorly informed and disconnected PLO leadership signed an agreement with the Israeli government, that in retrospect is universally agreed to have been inferior (and local Palestinian leaders such as Husseini and Al-Shafi were warning about it in real time).
Beyond that shrewd maneuvering, there is also the simple fact that dictatorship is as dictatorship does. The Occupation is a dictatorship, whether you like to admit its existence or not, whether you explain it away or not. And dictatorships have a typical approach to problem-solving, which is not, to put it mildly, the democracy way. They see an up-and-coming charismatic leader who might threat the regime, they will try to quash him one way or the other. In a dictatorship, "the law" is a sham that can be twisted this way and that, to accommodate the rulers' needs.
As was demonstrated once again today at the military court in Israel.
(btw, if you wonder where Bush et al. got their inspiration for the Guantanamo-Bagram-"black sites"-"military tribunal" system, look no further)
Please don't forget to pester that dictatorship about Mohammad Othman.
---- UPDATE: -----
Following some gradually-heating debate below, I posted a comment which is reproduced here in full. Please heed it before proceeding to comment. Thanks.
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As Israelis, it is not really up to us regardless of whether we are "pro" or "con" BDS.
The world community must do something to end the Occupation.
Israel will not end it of its free will.
Palestinians do not have the power to end it on their own.
The world diplomatic system... is totally hopeless when it comes to this topic.
So it is up to global civil society to do something. Hopefully, something nonviolent and well-targeted.
It is not up to me, as a member of "the defendant family", to decide what YOU should do. I can only provide you more information to better understand what the problem is, what the context is, etc. And to generally ask for help.
Again, the diary topic is not BDS, but the imprisonment without trial or indictment of a nonviolent Palestinian activist. Whether he deals with BDS or with anything else, is immaterial. It is his full right to engage in nonviolent action to end the regime that oppresses and robs him.