 |
Contents:
Commentary: Hamas, the EU, Lieberman and more
According to some sources, Mashaal has softened his demand that the release of Shalit and of prisoners be concurrent. Al-Hayat in London says Israel's answer will come via the Egyptians next week. ~~~~~~~~~~ The other day EU envoy Solana, visiting here, met with Avigdor Lieberman and then made a statement that Lieberman and Olmert did not agree on the issue of handling Iran. That rang bells for me. Lieberman then made a statement about being "more compassionate." Loud bells. Compassion is not what is required now. Today the Post has run a statement by Lieberman on the issue: "We have to wait and see what the European Union, United States, Russia and China do about Iran," Lieberman said. "We don't need to be on the front line on this issue. We just have to sit and wait." Just sit and wait? Until it's too late? The EU, Russia and China will do zilch, for certain, and it is less than clear what the US will do. Olmert's statements of late have indicated that we would not, could not, sit still and allow destruction to head our way. I saluted that. Did he mean it or not? The Post says Leiberman's statement dovetails with Olmert's opinion. Don't know. It is suicidal, if our government is not preparing all options, including a military option. And if Lieberman is more dovish on Iran than Olmert, how dare he allow Lieberman to assume a position in the gov't managing our response to Iran just to strengthen the coalition? Is it politics over everything, all of the time? ~~~~~~~~~~ Returning for a moment to EU envoy Solana, now he has made this statement: "I cannot imagine that the religious imperative, the real religious imperative, can make anybody destroy another country . . . "I don't think the essence of Hamas is the destruction of Israel. The essence of Hamas is the liberation of the Palestinians," he added. "The liberation of their people, not the destruction of Israel." My friends, this is trouble. It represents that same old liberal/left thinking that confuses what should be with the reality of what truly is. He "cannot imagine." Start imagining. He doesn't think. He should look again. Hamas is dedicated to our destruction. Period. This, of course, leads to concessions to Hamas and pressure on us to ease "occupation" and give them a state. Big trouble. ~~~~~~~~~~ Columnist Evelyn Gordon addressed similar fallacies in left-wing thinking this week. She was discussing a statement by Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit, in which he said things like "I believe the other side is also tired of wars," and suggested that it is the prime minister's responsibility to set a timetable for achieving peace. What unmitigated nonsense this is. WHY does he believe the other side is also tired of wars, when all they've been doing of late is gearing up for a big war? There it is again: the substitution of what you would hope for what is. And how can the prime minister set a timetable for peace by himself if the other side isn't on board? In response to Sheetrit's statement that "there is no such thing as a government without a diplomatic agenda," Gordon observed that such diplomatic agendas "are often more dangerous than simply trying to manage the conflict until conditions do become ripe for real peace. Not only do such initiatives encourage the other side to believe that violence works, they also encourage it to believe that the peace-seeker is so desperate to end the war that maintaining the pressure could produce complete capitulation." http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1159193522399&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull In referring to the excellent JP editorial the other day on how we should respond to Iran, I neglected to provide the URL. I here rectify that omission:
POLICE ADMIT MISTAKE BUT JUDGE SENDS JEWISH DISSIDENT TO JAIL
In April, Pinner, a 40-year-old resident of the West Bank Jewish community of Tapuah, was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison for shooting a Palestinian man on the Gaza shore weeks before the Israeli eviction of some 10,000 Jewish residents and their supporters. During the trial, police acknowledged that they did not investigate the shooting because they mistakenly thought Pinner had confessed to the crime. "Maybe we made a mistake," Shimon Amar, the head of police investigations, testified. The judge was not impressed and Pinner was convicted. For attorneys and civil rights group, this was no surprise. Many of them reported a trend by the courts to ignore rules of evidence when dealing with Jewish opponents of the government's withdrawal policy from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "What this trial proved more than anything else that there is frighteningly close collaboration between the police, the prosecution and the courts," Pinner said. "I didn't think I would end up in "shabak" [Israel Security Agency] interrogation cellars and a couple of years in prison." Indeed, over the last year, scores of Jews charged with so-called ideological crimes have been kept in jail for months without charge. In some cases, judges kept Jewish dissidents in jail even after police were found to have fabricated evidence against them. "Unfortunately, this is not something new," Prof. David Kretzmer, professor emeritus of international law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said. "I defended people who were brought to court on the basis of all kinds of statements and unfortunately it seemed to be an endemic problem in the 1970's. It seems to be a recurrent theme among law officials that they either exaggerate or sometimes invent claims that demonstrators were using violence or disturbing the police to justify their own behavior." Pinner, an electrician who sought to oppose the Israeli eviction, was arrested on June 22, 2005 on charges of shooting Nasser Ahmed Wafy in the leg on the Gaza beach during a fracas between Arabs and Jews. Four days earlier, Pinner recalled that he had been walking along a coastal road after helping renovate a Jewish-owned hotel that had been left dilapidated. He was carrying a licensed Uzi submachine gun amid reports of Arab stone-throwing from the neighboring Muwasi neighborhood. Within minutes of leaving the hotel, Pinner saw several Palestinians throwing stones toward Jews along the beach. He recalled seeing Jews being struck by a stone and an Arab injured as well and felt he was in danger as as about 50 Palestinians approached. "I shouted some warnings in Arabic but more Arabs came," Pinner recalled. "Then I shot in the air." The following week, Pinner was arrested at his home in Tapuah, regarded as a hotbed of nationalist opposition to the government of then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. At first, police told Pinner that he had shot Wafy, a resident of the Muwasi, in the chest. Later, police said Wafy was shot in the leg. During the trial, the prosecution based its case on the testimony of Wafy, who failed to identify Pinner as the shooter. Police acknowledged that they failed to conduct ballistic or forensic tests to determine whether the bullet wound claimed by Wafy stemmed from Pinner's Uzi. At one point, police testified that Pinner confessed to shooting an Arab and therefore no investigation was conducted. When the video was shown in court, Pinner was shown telling police interrogators that he fired in the air. At that point, Amar admitted that he might have made a mistake. Later, Judge Rachel Barkai of the Beersheba District Court dismissed Amar's admission and determined that Pinner was guilty and sentenced him to two years. "Pinner's actions were nothing more than a show of force against Palestinians in the area, Barkai said in her decision. To Yitzhak Klein, director of the Jerusalem-based Israel Policy Center, the practice by police to charge Jewish dissidents with crimes that would never be investigated was all too familiar. Klein, who has examined the issue, said judges have exhibited their bias against right-wing opponents of the government by accepting fabricated police evidence. "In many cases that have come to our attention there has been a misuse of video evidence as far as misrepresentation to editing and cutting," Klein said. "We suspect that it is endemic. It's hard to second guess every judge. There are cases where judges are wiser than the police, or judges are not aware of the evidence or whatever . . . that it is actually some kind of political bias." As a resident of Tapuah, Pinner has been a target of Israel's domestic intelligence service for years. As early as 2003, he said, he rejected pressure by the Israel Security Agency to finger suspects in drive-by shootings against Arabs in the West Bank. "They used a lot of flattery, telling me that I have high intelligence and initiative," Pinner recalled. "'Don't be frightened,' they said. 'We only want to help.' Then they threw down the challenge and offered me money -- firstly 300 shekels [$65] to cover petrol costs and they they upped it to 1,000 shekels [$230]." Pinner, who served in the Israeli military, said security agents peppered him with questions on what he thought of Israel and the government. "You come from England," Pinner quoted an officer as saying. "What do you think of our government system?" "I have nothing to hide." Pinner said. "You are with us or against us," the agent, who called himself Yiftah, said. "Decide and decide now." "I am an electrician, not a spy," Pinner said. In 2004, Pinner was again summoned for interrogation. He refused to show up and this time his apartment was raided by police. Officers found books by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, the leader of the far-right Kach movement, Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and 19th Century English poetry. "They suspected me of being a Kahanist, a Communist and a Nazi," Pinner said. Israeli police did not investigate the Pinner shooting at the Gaza beach. But they unquestioningly accepted evidence from the Palestinian Authority, despite a government determination that this was an enemy government. The PA Health Ministry sent Israeli police a report that Wafy -- who said he was shot by a fat short bespectacled man with long earlocks, which widely contrasts with the clean shaven non-bespectacled Pinner -- was treated for a gunshot wound on June 18, 2005. The report, which showed Wafy pointing to a bandaged thigh, said both the entry and exit points in the leg measured one centimeter in diameter. At the trial, Pinner's attorney, Baruch Ben-Yosef, cited expert evidence that the exit point of a bullet was larger than the entry point. Ben-Yosef cited a police memo that requested that Wafy's trousers be sent to forensics for tests. The memo was ignored. In cross-examination, Amar, the police investigator, was indignant. "You're not telling me how to do my job?" Amar asked. "We didn't need all of this. He [Pinner] admitted it. He [Pinner] reenacted it on film." The judge took a recess to see the videotaped reenactment. In the recording, Pinner said "I shot in the air" rather than what the police claimed he said, "I shot the Arab." At that point, Amar admitted that police were mistaken. During his detention, Pinner recalled that he was denied basic rights. He was held in a 2x2.5 meter cell where he was taken for frequent interrogations. His interrogators wanted to know the names of those living in the hotel he was renovating rather than details of the shooting. Later, his arraignment was held in camera and Pinner was not allowed to meet an attorney. The court even issued a gag order on his arrest. In the end, he spent 10 months in prison by the time he was convicted, long after Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank. "The actions of the defendant [Pinner] are dangerous, regardless of the political background," Judge Sarah Dovrat of the Beer Sheba District Court said on July 14, 2005 in rejecting a petition that Pinner be confined to his home. "A person who carries a weapon and uses it attests to the threat he poses and is not a result of political tension. Under these circumstances, the end of the disengagement does not counteract the defendant's threat." Pinner even tried political methods to win his freedom. During the March 2006 elections, he was placed on a list of Knesset candidates for the Herut Party. The party failed to win a seat. In April 2006, Pinner received a break. Supreme Court Judges Edna Arbel, Elyakim Rubinstein and David Cheshin released Pinner from jail pending his appeal. On September 10, the appeal was rejected. Pinner was scheduled to return to prison any day now to serve the remainder of his sentence. His mother died in England and Pinner was expected to be allowed to attend the funeral in Israel. "The police have authority and use it in a flawed way," Miriam Leedor, director of the information department of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, said. "We view this in a very grave way. He [the policeman] is an authority figure and he has the authority to use in it in a possibly deceitful way. This is very serious."
Hamas-Fatah Agree on Avoiding Armed Clashes:
28/10/2006 One of the three Palestinian factions holding captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in the Gaza Strip said on Saturday that it expected a solution to the crisis within days. Shalit was captured in a cross-border raid in June. The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) said in a statement that the three groups had agreed to a proposal by Egyptian mediators, though it said a deal still depended on Israel. Israeli officials made no immediate comment. The PRC did not give details, but said the Egyptian proposal would include the release of Palestinians held by Israel. "The dawn of freedom to the prisoners is about to rise and we expect a solution to our prisoners in few days," said a PRC spokesman, Abu Mujahed. "We confirm to you that there is a definite move in the issue of the captured soldier." The palestinian factions, holding Shalit, have demanded the release of up to 1,400 Palestinians, including minors and women, held by Israel in exchange for the Israeli soldier. Last week, Israel's infrastructure minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, held talks in Cairo and afterwards expressed approval of a framework deal that Egypt had put forward, but he did not give details of the deal. Shalit's capture prompted Israel to send troops back into the Gaza Strip almost one year after withdrawing from the territory it had occupied in the 1967 war. More than 260 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, have been killed in the subsequent Israeli raids. Hamas-Fatah Agree on Avoiding Armed Clashes Meanwhile, officials from the ruling Hamas movement and the rival Fatah party have agreed to work together to avoid armed clashes in the Gaza Strip Saturday. The agreement not to deploy any armed men to avert possible clashes came at a meeting in Gaza City late Friday, sources said. The Interior Minister in the Hamas-led Palestinian government earlier Friday warned the mainstream security services, loyal to the rival Fatah party, not to create trouble as apparently threatened. "Information and reports, some credible, indicate that elements of the security services intend to create trouble," Said Siam told a televised news conference in Gaza City. "We are going to deal with all those who disturb order. Attacks on private property, institutions or ministries will not be tolerated," he warned. Maher Maqdad, a spokesman for the Fatah party, hit back accusing the Islamist movement of planning its own "bloody Saturday" under the cover of sedition within the security ranks. "Preparations made by Hamas to explode the situation on Saturday in mobilising its military structure and executive force are creating auspicious conditions for a new massacre on the pretext that Fatah and the security services are planning something for Saturday," said Maqdad. Eight Palestinians have been killed since October 1st in clashes between Hamas's paramilitary "executive force" controlled by the interior ministry and members of the mainstream security apparatus in the Gaza Strip.
The Israel Resource Review is brought to you by
the Israel Resource, a media firm based at the Bet Agron Press Center in
Jerusalem, and the Gaza Media Center under the juristdiction of the Palestine Authority. |
Printer
friendly version of this article