• LAW Israeli interrogators torture Palestinian detainees at Asqalan prison
• LAW Two Israeli verdicts unveil discrimination against Palestinians
• PLO Negotiations Affairs Department AN ASSESSMENT OF US INVOLVEMENT in the Palestinian- Israeli Peace Process Over the Last Seven Years

LAW

Israeli Shabak (the Israeli General Security Apparatus) interrogators used torture against two Palestinian detainees at Asqalan prison. The detainees were subjected to shabih (bound and blindfolded), sleep deprivation, being drenched in cold water, death threats and abusive language.

Ayman Al Ajluni a 28 year-old father of three from Hebron currently detained at the Russian Compound, told LAW Society’s lawyer Labib Habib that he had been arrested from his home in the area of Hebron still under Israeli control on 20 December 2000. He was taken to Hebron’s Al Majnuna detention center before being transferred to Asqalan for 17 days. Then he was taken to Al Jalami prison, where he spent seven days before being taken to the Russian Compound detention center.

El Ajluni stated that the Asqalan prison interrogators used torturous methods for the first five days. During interrogation, he was forced to sit blindfolded on a tiny chair with his hands bound behind his back. He was prevented from sleeping, threatened with death and subjected to abusive language.

Yunis Al Atrash, a 41 year-old father of 12 also from Hebron, told LAW’s lawyer that special Israeli forces broke into his house in Israeli-controlled Hebron on 8 January 2001, carried out a thorough search and took him to Asqalan prison.

Al Atrash stated that Shabak interrogators at Asqalan prison used torturous methods during the first five days of his detention. Al Atrash was forced to sit blindfolded on a tiny chair with his hands bound behind his back. He was drenched in icy water and subjected to abusive language.

On15 January 2001, LAW learnt from the office of the Israeli Attorney General that an investigation into allegations of torture brought forward by Rami Iz'oul, an 18-year-old Palestinian detainee, would not be carried out, under the pretext that it was not a matter of "public interest". The Israeli Attorney’s letter came in response to a complaint filed by LAW, through attorney Labib Habib, with the Department for Investigation of Police Misconduct on 3 December 2000. LAW had demanded an investigation into Iz'oul ’s interrogation.

Rami Iz'oul was arrested by Israeli soldiers from his home in the West Bank village of Husan near Bethlehem on 30 October 2000 and has been in detention since. Iz'oul claims that he was beaten and had ice cold water poured over his head during interrogation. Due to the torture, Iz'oul was hospitalized for one night in Jerusalem’s Hadassa hospital. The 18-year-old reported that after being discharged from the hospital he was beaten again and threatened into signing a false confession.

On 6 September 1999, the Israeli High Court issued a judgment outlawing specific interrogation methods amounting to torture. The High Court further stated that a reasonable interrogation was necessarily one free of torture, cruel and inhuman treatment. The Court highlighted that "brutal and inhuman means" were prohibited during interrogation and that human dignity includes the dignity of the suspect being interrogated.

LAW believes that the practices used during the interrogation of Rami Iz'oul amount to "brutal and inhuman means" and are therefore in contradiction of the High Court ruling of 6 September 1999.

For this reason, LAW maintains that an investigation into the allegations of torture brought forward by Rami Iz'oul is of the utmost importance and will further pursue the issue with the Israeli State Prosecutor's Office. LAW is concerned that if a proper investigation into the case is not carried out, Israeli interrogators will see it as a signal that acts of torture and ill treatment will go unpunished.

LAW

On 21 January 2001, two Israeli courts pronounced two different verdicts, one sentencing a Jewish settler to 6 months’ community service and a 70,000 Shekel (approx US $17,500) fine for the beating to death of a Palestinian child, and the other sentencing a Palestinian girl who tried to stab a Jewish settler (resulting in light wounds) to 6 and a half years’ imprisonment.

The Jerusalem Criminal Court pronounced the first verdict against 36 year-old settler Nahum Kurman, former head of security in the Bitar Elit settlement for beating to death 11 year-old Hilmi Shusheh from Husan village near Bethlehem.

On the same day, an Israeli Court sentenced 17 year-old Palestinian Su’ad Ghazal from Sibastia village near Nablus, to six and a half years’ imprisonment for trying to stab a Jewish settler from the Shfi Shamron settlement.

According to information gathered by LAW, at around 14:30 on Sunday 27 October 1996, Hilmi was playing with friends near his house adjacent to bypass road no. 60. A blue jeep stopped, and Nahum Kurman got out of the jeep and chased the children until he caught Hilmi. He kicked and beat the child all over his body, using his arms and a weapon. Afterwards Hilmi was taken to a nearby Israeli military camp, and then to the Hadasa Ein Karem Hospital, where he died.

Tahreer Muhammad Hilmi, who was with Hilmi Shusheh, said, “while we were walking down the road with Hilmi and other boys, we saw a jeep driving very quickly towards us. We stepped aside, and a man jumped from the jeep and chased us. He caught Hilmi and beat him till he fell to the ground. Then he kicked Hilmi in the face and head before putting his boot on Hilmi’s neck and hitting Hilmi’s forehead with his gun. I panicked and started screaming until two or three women arrived. One of them carried Hilmi to the settler’s car, shouting at him to take him to hospital or a doctor for treatment. The settler took him to the entrance of the Bitar Elit settlement.”

The child’s uncle, Muhammad Yousef, said, “ I got to where Hilmi was lying on the ground with Israeli security officers trying to help him. I heard them saying he was dead, so they brought an unequipped ambulance. At that time, Hilmi was in a coma, with severe bruising on his face.”

Israeli soldiers arrested Suad Ghazal on 13 December 1998, near the Shfi Shamron settlement close to her village. According to a female settler, Suad had tried to stab her. Suad was taken to the Qadomim settlement police station where she was interrogated. Ghazal was later transferred to Ramle prison where she was held in solitary confinement for 17 days before being moved to a cell with four Palestinian detainees. Suad was only 15 years old when she was arrested.

In light of the above, LAW confirms the following: 1.The above verdicts reflect discrimination in the sentencing handed down by Israeli courts. 2.The verdict against the settler may encourage other settlers to commit similar crimes against Palestinian citizens.

PLO Negotiations Affairs Department

Prepared by the Legal Unit of the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department, 20 January 2001

No third party has been as involved and influential in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process over the last seven years as the United States and, in particular, its Special Middle East Coordinator, Dennis Ross. In view of the United States' inability to facilitate the realization by Palestinians and Israelis of a just and lasting peace in accordance with Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and other sources of international law, it seems prudent, at the close of the Clinton Administration, to assess US involvement and to identify some of the reasons the United States' involvement has not yielded better results.

PROCESS OVER SUBSTANCE

Under US supervision, the Palestinian-Israeli "peace process" has become a goal in and of itself. A false sense of normalcy has been created because of the on-going process of negotiations. The lack of visible resistance to Israeli occupation from the Palestinian side, except for temporary flare-ups, and Israel's ability to continue negotiations while continuing to build settlements in occupied Palestinian Territory has created the false impression that the "process" of achieving peace could substitute for peace itself. Thus, the difficult substantial issues at the core of the conflict, including acceptance that Israel's occupation of Arab territory it conquered in the 1967 Israeli-Arab War is illegal, have been constantly deflected in order to maintain talks without requiring Israel to face up to its obligations.

In fact, the United States advocacy of "constructive ambiguity" has had disastrous consequences for the peace process. Both parties to the conflict have mistakenly assumed at different times that either the Israelis had accepted to end the occupation or that the Palestinians had agreed to forego some of their fundamental rights as a result of vaguely worded agreements. Whereas such ambiguity made it possible for both sides to sign agreements that they could interpret in diametrically opposed manners to their domestic constituencies, the facts on the ground of implementing opposing interpretations have led to very little implementation at all.

This lack of implementation, combined with the ever-increasing number of Palestinian-Israeli agreements brokered by the United States, has caused Palestinians to become increasingly wary of US involvement in a process that has brought some normalcy to Israel but none to Palestinians. The resulting lack of faith in the peace process and the consequent distrust of US promotion of process over substance has made securing a just peace all that more difficult.

NORMALIZATION BEFORE AN END TO THE OCCUPATION OF ARAB LANDS

US policy over the last seven years appears predicated on the need to help Israel normalize its relations with the Arab and Muslim world at large, as well as with many other nations around the world sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians dispossessed by Israeli conquest. The peace process was used as an excuse to encourage states that had foregone normal relations with Israel to begin the process of normalization, with the argument that peace was just around the corner.

Had the United States promoted the implementation of already signed agreements between Israelis and Palestinians with the same zeal with which it promoted new Israeli arrangements with Arab and other states, it may have succeeded in actually promoting normalization.

Unfortunately, the US emphasis on process over substance has led the domestic constituencies of many governments in the region to conclude that the peace process was only a mirage designed to trick their governments into prematurely establishing economic ties that would help Israel break out of its regional isolation. This has had the added repercussion of promoting not only anti-Israeli sentiment in countries that have established economic ties with Israel, but has also promoted anti-American sentiment in all countries of the region, as demonstrated by the grass-roots popular boycott of American products in many states.

US negotiators in recent years never appeared to recognize that normalcy was a state that existed between two free and equal peoples. As long as the occupation of Arab lands, including the Palestinian Territories, continues, there can never be true normalization between Israel and its neighbors.

ADOPTION OF ISRAELI PERSPECTIVE v. ACTING AS AN HONEST BROKER

The two bases for US involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process have been 1) the physical fact that the United States is the primary power in the Middle East and 2) that the United States has promoted itself to the parties in the region as an honest broker wishing to promote Israel's security as well as Palestinian national aspirations.

Unfortunately, over the last seven years in particular, the US has become increasingly identified with Israeli ideological assumptions. Dennis Ross, for example, and some other members of his negotiating team, have acknowledged having an emotional commitment to Israel and have said they cannot distinguish between their personal and professional involvement with it. This has had a number of legal ramifications that have affected the peace process negatively:

1. The United States began the peace process based on the goal of implementing UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. These Resolutions, as repeatedly interpreted by the international community, simply mean that Israel must withdraw from the Arab territories it occupied in 1967 if it wants to have peaceful relations with its neighbors. After seven years of negotiations, the US negotiating team now effectively advocates the position that the West Bank and Gaza are Israeli territories, or at best disputed territories, for which the Palestinians must bargain. Settlements, for example, opposed by Presidents Carter, Reagan, and Bush, have been tacitly endorsed by recent US policy in the region.

2. Palestinian concessions to Israel have been made up front, as demanded by Israel and the United States, for talks to take place between the two sides. However, those concessions were always viewed by Israel as the starting point for negotiating further concessions. This view appears to have been adopted by the United States of late. US negotiators have implicitly blamed the Palestinians for not making the same extent of "concessions" that Israel was offering. Thus, whereas Palestinians gave up their rights to all but 22% of historic Palestine as early as 1988, they are chastised by the US negotiators for wanting all of the Occupied Territories whereas Israelis have been lauded for offering to dismantle only 20% of illegal settlements. Israel's desire to continue occupying significant areas of Palestinian territory is seen as a reasonable need by the US negotiating position - morally and legally equating the illegal settlement of Palestinian territory with the Palestinian right to reclaim that same territory.

3. US negotiators have accepted the Israeli world-view concerning the primacy of Israel's security needs while ignoring the long-term development of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the improvement of the Palestinian quality of life. The result has been that while Israel's security, including the security of its occupation forces, have been the focus of each agreement, the quality of life of Palestinians has continued to decline. The dichotomy between the comfort of Israelis, including those occupying Palestinian land in settlements with green lawns and swimming pools, and the poverty and misery of Palestinians, has only further inflamed an already volatile situation.

Public support for one side over the other can also have negative unintended consequences. US negotiators' public criticism of the Palestinian side at last summer's Camp David talks were intended to provide domestic political support for the Israeli prime minister. Instead, it allowed right wing extremists in Israel opposed to peace all together to challenge the Israeli prime minister for having offered "too many" concessions. US inability to see past Israel's own narrow perceptions of the conflict have further delayed concluding a just and lasting peace.

US/ISRAELI DOMESTIC POLITICAL CONCERNS OVERRODE THE GOAL OF A LASTING PEACE

Palestinians obviously have every interest in concluding a comprehensive, just and lasting peace with Israelis as soon as possible. The original Oslo Accords had mandated that the peace talks be concluded three years ago with a Palestinian state and an Israeli state living in freedom, security, and equality side by side. Yet, as Israel attempted to colonize as much of the West Bank and Gaza as possible before beginning final status talks, the Palestinians were compelled to focus on Interim issues in negotiations, rather than addressing the key permanent status issues.

Once mandated by domestic political considerations in Israel and the United States, Palestinians have been placed under tremendous, and sometimes unconscionable, pressure to sign weak and vague agreements that could be used by political leaders to show progress to their constituencies. Rather than place a matter of such great existential importance to both Palestinians and Israelis above the fray of domestic politics, the timetable for reaching agreements has been based on immediate domestic concerns even when the necessary background work on substantive issues has not been done.

A comprehensive peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis must not only be considered a valuable photo opportunity, but a matter of great strategic importance for all the states of the region as well as for those states that believe they have interests in the Middle East. It has been obvious, especially over the course of the last year, that the importance of a just and lasting peace has been overshadowed by the need for yet another temporary or interim agreement that would provide only short-term political gain to some of those involved - at the risk of creating tremendous problems for the long-term stability of the area.

CONCLUSION

US policy has not been static over the last decades. It was the United States that helped force Israeli, British, and French occupation troops from Egypt in 1956. President Jimmy Carter has strongly advocated Palestinian rights, even during the Camp David talks between Egypt and Israel, and repeatedly emphasized the illegality of Israel's settlement policy. President George Bush used the position of the United States as a global leader to force Israel to sit with Palestinians in negotiations for the first time and also expended tremendous political capital to keep US aid to Israel from being used to promote settlement building. There is much the United States can contribute to encouraging justice, peace, and stability in the Middle East, but only if it can learn from the mistakes and failures of the last seven years. There remains much at stake, and for every day that the Israeli occupation continues and settlements continue to expand, peace becomes that much harder to achieve.