Moral Injury and Nonviolent Resistance by Lynd Alice

Author:Lynd, Alice
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PM Press
Published: 2017-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

Arbitrary Arrest or Detention

Israeli military law applies to Palestinians in the West Bank, but Israeli civil law applies to settlers in the West Bank. According to the U.S. State Department, Israeli military courts have had a conviction rate of more than 99 percent for Palestinians.33

Israeli law provides safeguards against arbitrary arrest and detention, but key safeguards do not apply to Palestinian security detainees. Palestinian security detainees are subject to the jurisdiction of Israeli military law, which permits eight days’ detention before appearing before a military court. There is no requirement that a detainee have access to a lawyer until after interrogation, a process that may last weeks. The maximum period for such a detention order, according to military law, is 90 days; however, detention can be renewed if deemed necessary. Denial of visits by family, outside medical professionals, or others outside the ISA [Israel Security Agency], the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], or the prison service occurred. NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] reported persons undergoing interrogations often were held incommunicado for several weeks….34

In military trials, prosecutors often present secret evidence that is not available to the defendant or counsel. The military courts use Hebrew. Various human rights organizations claimed the availability and quality of Arabic interpretation was insufficient, especially since most interpreters were bilingual Israelis performing mandatory military service.35

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, most Palestinian children under the age of eighteen who are arrested in the occupied territories are held in prisons within Israel and are prosecuted under military law.36 Signed confessions, often coerced during interrogations and written in Hebrew, were used as evidence against Palestinian minors in Israeli military courts.37 Palestinian children sixteen and seventeen years old are detained as long as adults, twice as long as Israeli children living in the West Bank. UNICEF reported that “mistreatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic, and institutionalized.”38

These practices are forbidden under internationally recognized human rights law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that everyone is entitled to equal protection of the law, and no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention.39 The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights says that anyone who is arrested shall be told at the time of arrest the reasons for the arrest and the charges against him.40 The Fourth Geneva Convention says that persons who are detained or convicted in an occupied territory must serve their sentences within the occupied territory.41 Such violations are part of a consistent pattern of human rights violations that has been going on for decades.42

All of the above violations—torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, and collective punishment—are aspects of the occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel. “Occupation is bad,” says Salah Tamari in his oral history, “I don’t care who the occupier is, be it Muslim, be it Christian, or be it Jewish….”

Even if the Jews came to our country as saints—they thought it was empty, they thought it was theirs—then they were confronted with a situation where they found a population.

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