[News] Israel's arrest campaign aims to destroy a new Palestinian movement

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-arrest-campaign-aims-destroy-new-movement
Israel's
arrest campaign aims to destroy a new Palestinian movement
Majd Kayyal - February 10, 2021
------------------------------

Since late 2019, Israeli forces have been waging a campaign of mass arrests
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/torture-palestinian-prisoners-time-end-israels-impunity>,
targeting hundreds of young women and men in Palestine. They have been
brutally arrested, their homes stormed at dawn, their belongings searched
and confiscated.

Detainees have been interrogated for weeks on end and prevented from
meeting with lawyers, with their files and charges concealed. Families have
been intimidated with pressure and threats, while detainees have undergone
horrific physical and psychological torture, as documented
<https://www.addameer.org/news/addameer-collects-hard-evidence-torture-and-ill-treatment-committed-against-palestinian>
by human rights groups. Many of these ordeals have ended in the release of
the detainees, without charge or trial, after months of arbitrary
imprisonment.

Elements of today's mass arrest campaign point to the importance that
Israel gives the issue of Palestinian geographical divisions

As for those who have gone to trial, most were charged with ridiculous
offences. Birzeit University student Layan Kayed
<http://www.addameer.org/prisoner/layan-nizar-ahmad-kayed>, 22, was accused
of “terrorist activity”
<http://www.addameer.org/news/lphr-and-addameer-submit-joint-complaint-un-wgad-ongoing-israeli-military-detention-three>
after making and selling falafel sandwiches as part of an activity for a
student movement affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP).

Meanwhile, student Mays Abu Ghosh
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/1/palestinian-student-released-from-israeli-jail-after-15-months>
was arrested over her membership in the university’s student union and her
journalistic activities. Others have been imprisoned
<https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2020-07-17-birzeit-university----the-israeli-occupation-besieges-its-activities-and-students.ByzSMDJlP.html>
over selling books or coffee as part of student activities.

This campaign of arrests carries an extreme sociopolitical risk. Israel is
attempting to eliminate a left-wing social and political youth network
under military pretexts. It is waging a war against a group whose social,
cultural and academic work is tied to anti-Zionist values and struggles.

Among the most important political transformations that Palestinians have
witnessed over the last decade is the total collapse of organised armed
resistance, and the crumbling of popular political activity. Israel managed
to ensure this throughout occupied Palestine as part of a deep, systemic
response to the events of the Second Intifada.

The new reality began to appear after 2015, with the emergence of
“individual attacks” carried out by people not linked to any political
group. Israel viewed these attacks
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israelis-are-calling-attacks-a-new-kind-of-palestinian-terror/2015/12/24/e162e088-0953-4de5-992e-adb2126f1dcc_story.html>
with concern due to the difficulties in anticipating and thwarting them -
but also as a reassuring signal of its victory in crushing political
organising and the struggle against occupation.
Cracks in Israel's victory

But even within this reality, recent years have exposed the cracks in
Israel’s victory. One key event was Israel’s assassination of Palestinian
activist Basil al-Araj
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/3/18/basil-al-araj-palestine-activist-buried-in-west-bank>
in March 2017. It turned him into a national revolutionary symbol among
wide youth segments, shedding light on two central social factors that are
key to understanding the recent campaign of arrests.

Firstly, Araj’s story transcended the colonial geographic divisions among
the Palestinian diaspora, the occupied West Bank and 1948 territories. Araj
was present on social media and had solid relationships with Palestinian
youth globally. His transformation into a Palestinian symbol showed Israel
the possibility of a revolutionary discourse extending across the
geographic and social divisions
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-joint-list-breakup-netanyahu>
it has created to fragment Palestinians.

[image: Basil al-Araj was assassinated by Israeli forces in 2017, but
became a symbol of resistance (Twitter)]
Basil al-Araj was assassinated by Israeli forces in 2017, but became a
symbol of resistance (Twitter)

Secondly, Araj’s assassination showed the importance of transcending these
divisions. Israel has, in effect, tried to cleanse various aspects of
Palestinian social life from an awareness that resists occupation. Araj’s
martyrdom resurrected Palestinian attempts to build cultural and social
activities intrinsically linked to anti-Zionism, from broadcasting, to
education, to research projects and feminist movements.

Then, in August 2019, an explosive device detonated
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/world/middleeast/israeli-teen-killed-west-bank.html>
at a water spring in the Ramallah district - a spring over which settlers
have repeatedly attempted to take control. Israeli forces alleged
<https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israel-reportedly-arrests-another-palestinian-behind-the-deadly-dolev-spring-attack-603573>
that a cell affiliated with the PFLP carried out the operation.

The investigation culminated in December 2019 when Israeli authorities rounded
up
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-arrests-50-pflp-members-in-crackdown-following-deadly-august-bombing/>
those it alleged were involved - but this was only the beginning. Israel’s
intelligence services used the attack as a pretext to launch a fierce
campaign of repression, aiming to subjugate, intimidate and “purify”
left-wing youth circles, destroying social networks and thwarting any new
organisational structures. Raids and arrests were carried out across the
occupied territories.
Geographical divisions

Elements of today’s mass arrest campaign point to the importance that
Israel gives the issue of Palestinian geographical divisions. This is
evident from the charges of “visiting an enemy state” and “communicating
with a foreign agent”
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/1/palestinian-student-released-from-israeli-jail-after-15-months>levied
against some of the detainees. Such obscure provisions could refer to
anyone outside of Palestine.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/palestinians-have-only-one-option-left-stay-and-fight>

Palestinians have only one option left: Stay and fight

Read More »
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/palestinians-have-only-one-option-left-stay-and-fight>

Consequently, any relationship of any nature with any person - in
particular those from countries that Israel has designated as Arab
“enemies” - can be viewed as a criminal offence. Through such laws, Israel
wants to maintain ultimate power in controlling relationships between
Palestinians and others.

The strategy of tying together the political and social spheres has been
implemented through Israel’s widespread use of an “anti-terrorism
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/knesset-passes-sweeping-anti-terrorism-law-1.5396526>”
law enacted in 2016, through which it can interpret any humanitarian,
social or cultural activity as “support for terrorism”.

The Adalah legal centre said the law
<https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/8630> “defines political activities
that are often undertaken by Palestinian citizens of Israel - even
humanitarian and cultural activities - as terrorist acts, simply because
they oppose the occupation and support its victims”. This is evident in the
charges levied against many detainees.
Brutal torture

This arrest campaign is targeting a wide social segment with the aim of
terrorising and suppressing it. What confirms this is the willingness of
Israeli forces to interrogate and torture detainees.

This arrest campaign seeks to burn down a fertile social fabric that
refuses to submit to the colonial reality

What is new is not the torture itself, but rather the insistence of
intelligence services that the torture be widely reported on. Among the
infamous cases are Samer al-Arbeed
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/torture-palestinian-prisoners-time-end-israels-impunity>,
who had his bones broken and fell into a coma; 23-year-old university
student Mays Abu Ghosh, who was subjected
<https://www.addameer.org/prisoner/mais-mohammad-abu-ghosh> to severe
slapping and stress positions for long periods; and Walid Hanatshe
<https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/shin-bet-cleared-of-torture-of-palestinian-accused-in-rina-shnerb-murder-656509>,
whose photos after his torture were circulated widely.

Israeli intelligence forces are also resuming rudimentary psychological
tactics, such as sending threats to other young men via detainees who are
released in an effort to spread fear and stoke internal conflicts.

This arrest campaign seeks to burn down a fertile social fabric that
refuses to submit to the colonial reality - one that cannot reconcile the
continuous rupture of Palestinian society since the Nakba, and one that
believes Palestinian unity is the only cure.

*This article first appeared in Assafirarabi website and this is a
translated and condensed version of it.*

*The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.*
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