Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 10:46 AM
Subject: "Go back and die in Gaza"
Very troubling article from the English Al Jazeera site:
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/crisisingaza/2009/05/20095732233520800.html
Go back and die in Gaza'
By Stephanie Doetzer
Al Jazeera: May 8, 2009
Since Israel's closure of the Gaza Strip in 2007, only severely sick
Palestinians have been allowed to seek medical attention elsewhere provided
they receive authorisation and security clearances from the Israeli
authorities.
However, getting the special permit that allows patients to leave Gaza for
medical treatment is a bureaucratic hassle and, many Gazans say,
comes with strings attached.
According to the Israeli organisation Physicians for Human Rights (PHR),
Palestinian patients are increasingly being asked to make an impossible
choice: Either to become collaborators with the Israeli intelligence
apparatus - or to remain in Gaza without medical treatment.
Al Jazeera spoke with Hadas Ziv, the director of PHR.
Al Jazeera: Your organisation has collected dozens of testimonies of
patients who were pressured to collaborate with the Israeli General Security
Services. How did you find out about this? A Palestinian will not easily
admit he or she has been asked to become an informant.
Ziv: True; it is not a subject people talk about easily and it happened
gradually. Our organisation tries to support Gazan patients who were
prevented by the Israeli authorities from treatment in Israel, or from
crossing Israel on their way to hospitals in the West Bank.
Instead of clear rejection or admittance, the Israelis started saying:
"permit pending interrogation". The permit became conditional - not so much
on individual health conditions, but on the outcome of the interrogation at
the Erez Crossing.
Then, many of the patients we were in touch with came back from
interrogation and told us they did not get the permit: "They tried to extort
me to collaborate and I wasn't willing to give them information, so they
sent me back to Gaza."
When more and more people told us the same story, we understood that this
was a new policy.
How do you know the testimonies are true?
The testimonies come from very different people, of different ages,
different political opinions and from different towns in the Gaza strip. To
believe that there is such a high degree of co-ordination among all the
patients is pretty far-fetched. But more importantly, it needs a lot of
courage to speak to us about this.
Some of the patients have a lot to lose if they talk.
You started collecting testimonies in the summer of 2007. But when do you
think this practice started?
Very soon after the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. Since then Israel sees
Gaza as an enemy entity, as something that has to be closely monitored and
controlled.
And since then, it has become more difficult for the General Security
Services (GSS) to gather intelligence from Gaza. They have little direct
contact with Palestinians.
The only ones who are still allowed to cross Erez, even if they also have a
lot of difficulties, are the patients. They are an easy prey for the GSS.
They are very vulnerable - for some, getting out of Gaza can be a question
of life and death.
The GSS is using this situation to exert pressure.
Is there a standard procedure for these interrogations?
It varies. The newest development is that you have a specific appointment
for interrogation and it's not on the day of your treatment. But there are
also cases where people think they have a permit and can go out, but then
they are suddenly being taken to interrogation. Sometimes the patient has to
wait in a room for several hours, without his family.
Then, they take him to another room for interrogation. They may ask just a
couple of questions to find out if you know any Hamas members or they may
suggest a deal for long term co-operation: "If you help us, we will help
you. You need a treatment, we need information. We will give you a number,
you call us once a week and give us information about your neighbours."
If you refuse, they become more blunt: "Okay, go back and die in Gaza."
What happens back in Gaza?
The patients are in a lose-lose situation. If they refuse to co-operate with
the Israelis and are sent back, they may die because they can't get
appropriate treatment in Gaza.
If they do manage to get the permit, they will be branded as potential
collaborators.
Whether you really did it or not is not so important. If people think you
collaborated, your life may be at risk. In the end, everyone suspects
everyone else. It's like Orwell's 1984.
And this is the objective - humiliation and fragmentation.
Isn't the objective in the first place a more immediate one - simply
gathering intelligence?
That's just the surface.
I think the main goal is to break the cohesiveness and solidarity among
Palestinians. This way, it's much more difficult for them to unify and to
struggle for a common cause.
What already happens between Fatah and Hamas then also happens between
neighbours, between families ... and this is good for the one who tries to
control you.
But the Israeli government says it wants a partner for negotiations and thus
a united Palestinian position.
What troubles me most as an Israeli citizen is that we suffer from a kind of
collective psychosis.
We are governed by fear and manipulated by fear. Security is everything.
But what we are being offered is a very narrow definition of security. No
one has the courage to say that long-term security is security for everyone,
not just for us but also for Palestinians. But we are obstructed from seeing
this, because we let fear govern our lives.
We constantly have something to fear. If one fear stops, another comes up.
When Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, it was very convenient for the Israeli
government to use this. Hamas is being presented to the Israeli public as an
entity that you cannot talk to. But 20 years ago, we claimed Fatah could not
be talked to. Every time, a situation is being created in which you claim
you have no one to talk to.
How are your views received by other Israelis?
When I argue with people they tell me I should be grateful to the people who
defend me. That the GSS may be saving my life through these interrogations.
They say I'm naive, that I am not patriotic and things like that.
But I think my point of view has the same legitimacy as others.
In Israel, if you mention the word "security", no further arguments are
needed. They say patients may come to Israel to organise terror attacks. In
this case, Israeli society does not demand further explanation.
The result is that even things that we wouldn't think about doing with
convicted criminals, these things are suddenly permissible when it comes to
Palestinians. It is as if we had two different sets of values. And this is
only possible because we constantly dehumanise the Palestinians. If we would
consider them as normal human beings, it would not be possible.
Everything is conditioned according to us. To our needs and our security. I
think this is not justifiable. Not just because the victims suffer. Of
course, the victims' suffering is unimaginable.
It is beyond what I can express. Imagine you are the mother of a 17-year-old
girl who has cancer, needs urgent treatment and is being extorted by the
GSS. You, as a mother, are in a different room and you don't know what your
daughter is going through. This is unimaginable to me.
But it is also unimaginable to me what future my society has if it continues
to act like this. I'm afraid for my society as well. I think we are at a
crossroads. We have to choose. If we want to remain human, we cannot
continue like this.
In a written statement given to Al Jazeera, the Israeli defence ministry has
denied all the allegations made by Ziv.
"These charges are false. The only considerations Israel has are
humanitarian and security-related ones," the statement says.
"There is no truth to the contention that other factors are involved. The
reason why clarifications are conducted by our security personnel is to
ensure that those granted medical entry permits are indeed in need of such
permits, and to ensure that those planning on abusing these permits to
foment terror in Israel cannot gain entry into Israel."
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