[News] Israel's attack on Jericho: Palestinians remain without protection

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Israel's attack on Jericho: Palestinians remain without protection
Ali Abunimah and Arjan El Fassed, The Electronic Intifada, 15 March 2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4550.shtml

[]

Palestinians protesting in Hebron against the Israeli attack on 
Jericho aimed to arrest or kill PFLP-leader Ahmed Saadat who has been 
held in jail under British and American supervision ever since March 
14, 2006. (<http://www.maannews.net>MaanImages/Mamoun Wazwaz)

The Israeli attack on Jericho and kidnap of a number of Palestinian 
prisoners, including the leader of the Popular Front for the 
Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) demonstrates once again the fiction 
that there is a functioning Palestinian "government" in the occupied 
territories. The ease and impunity with which the occupation forces 
attack Palestinians everywhere serves to remind us that these 
territories remain today, as they have been since 1967, under full 
Israeli military dictatorship. It is a mistake to keep referring to a 
"Palestinian government," because this gives the false impression 
that Palestinians under occupation are in control of their destiny. 
Palestinian factions may, in the wake of the January elections, be 
negotiating to form a "government," but this does not mean that this 
"government" can exercise any control or protect Palestinians from 
the ravages of the occupying power.

The media coverage we have seen of the events in Jericho, especially 
the BBC, has been appallingly shallow and misleading. Let us remember 
why Ahmad Sa'adat and other prisoners in the Jericho jail were wanted 
by the occupation authorities. Sa'adat is accused of killing Rehavam 
Ze'evi, the founder of the Moledet Party and an Israeli cabinet 
minister. The missing contextual facts are that the PFLP killed 
Ze'evi in retaliation for Israel's murder of its leader Abu Ali 
Mustafa (Mustafa al-Zibri) in August 2001. Al-Zibri was not carrying 
arms or fighting, but sitting at his desk when an Israeli Apache 
helicopter fired a missile at him blowing him to pieces. Ze'evi was 
the leading advocate in Israel for the destruction of the Palestinian 
people, calling for their wholesale expulsion. The party he founded 
is running on the same platform in the current Israeli election 
campaign as anyone can read on its 
<http://www.moledet.org.il/english/moledet.html>website.

In the present atmosphere, we are being told that Hamas, which has 
maintained a truce for more than 12 months, and which has declared 
its willingness to come to terms with an Israel that withdraws to the 
1967 border, is beyond the pale for Europeans and Americans to talk 
to until it "recognizes Israel" and "renounces violence." Why were 
such conditions never imposed on Israel? How is it that a proud, 
boastful ethnic cleanser like Ze'evi could sit in the Israeli cabinet 
with Ariel Sharon and Nobel Prize winner Shimon Peres for years and 
not one of those Western officials who today threaten the 
Palestinians with an end to all aid for electing Hamas uttered not 
one single word? Why is it acceptable for the US Congress to hand 
over billions of dollars to an Israel whose government ministers 
advocate ethnic cleansing? How is it that instead of demanding the 
arrest of the murderers of Abu Ali Mustafa and thousands of other 
Palestinians, Britain and the US collude with Israel to commit new 
crimes under international law?

Ahmad Sa'adat was arrested on 15 January 2002 by the Palestinian 
General Intelligence Service. He was being held at the PA's 
headquarters in Ramallah. In May 2002, Sa'adat and six other 
detainees were transferred to Jericho as part of the U.S.-brokered 
agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that ended a 
34-day Israeli military siege on Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah. A 
force of US and British guards would oversee their captivity. Their 
role was simply to monitor the terms of the Ramallah agreement to 
report any non-compliance. The Ramallah Agreement states that any 
changes in the status of the detainees should be agreed between 
Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Unlawful apprehension of a 
suspect by state agents, including US and British security agents 
acting in the territory of another state is not a bar to the 
excercise of jurisdiction. Such apprehension would, of course, 
constitute a breach of international law and the norm of non-intervention.

Sa'adat was never formally charged with any recognizable criminal 
offence or brought before a judge. The Palestinian High Court of 
Justice in Gaza requested the PA to bring evidence against him, but 
it failed to do so. On June 3, 2002, the High Court ordered the 
immediate release of Sa'adat. The next day, the PA decided that 
Sa'adat should not be released "due to Israeli threats of 
assassinating Sa'adat as there was an overt announcement of that by 
Sharon's spokesman". A few months later, Israeli armed forces killed 
Sa'adat brothers at his family home in Ramallah. Israeli soldiers 
went to Mohammed Sa'adat's home, opened fire and killed him.

While there is silence about the attacks in Jericho, there is also 
silence and inaction as Israel announced that Ariel, a huge colony in 
the heart of the West Bank, is to be annexed, and Israel began 
building a new occupation forces "police station" east of Jerusalem, 
the first step in massively expanding the settlement of Ma'ale 
Adumim. Israel, as we have seen once again, is a rogue state which 
acts not only with impunity but with the active support of western 
powers who promise to starve its victims while quaking in fear at 
uttering a single word of criticism. The only path for those who 
reject violence is to work to comprehensively isolate this wild 
regime as the South African apartheid regime was in its time isolated.

Ali Abunimah and Arjan El Fassed are co-founders of the Electronic Intifada.

Related Links
<http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/426.shtml>BY TOPIC: Israeli 
attack on Jericho prison


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