Terrorising Palestinian Children - This is what Zionism means in practice

This is what the Jewish Labour Movement, Luke Akehurst & Jeremy Newmark support when they cry ‘anti-Semitism’

Israeli security forces taking a child into custody during a protest in Kafr Qaddum, December 2016. Nedal Eshtayah/Anadolu Agency

Below is an article by Jonathan Cook, an ex-Guardian journalist based in Nazareth whom the Guardian dismissed as part of their move rightwards.   Below that is an article by Gideon Levy, one of Ha’aretz two excellent journalists (the other being Amira Hass).  It describes a ‘combat mission’ by the Israeli Defence Forces that involves waking and terrorising Palestinian children in the early morning as a raid is conducted on Kfar Qaddum, a Palestinian village.

Kfar Qaddum has protested against the confiscation of their lands by the neighbouring Jewish settlement of Kedumim.  The army is there, like any colonial army, to protect the settlers and it represses violently any opposition to their open theft of Palestinian land.

You might have heard that the Zionists of the Jewish Labour Movement, Labour Friends of Israel and the Board of Deputies support 2 states.  However this is meaningless because there isn’t even one example of them opposing the military repression that Palestinians suffer from.  2 States is a slogan, about something that will never come to pass, as a means of avoiding taking any position on the daily suffering of the native Palestinian population.

What should also be called out is that the Jewish Labour Movement has been encouraged in its attack on Labour Party members as ‘anti-Semites’ by Jon Lansman, who is currently engaging in a coup in Momentum.  Equally disappointing is the fact that Jeremy Corbyn has been intimidated into silence by the Israeli state driven accusations of anti-Semitism.

Tony Greenstein

Why Palestinian children throw stones

16 January 2017

Israeli security forces taking a child into custody during a protest in Kafr Qaddum, December 2016. Nedal Eshtayah/Anadolu Agency

Forget the empty posturing of world leaders in Paris yesterday. This photo tells us what the Israel-Palestine “conflict” is really about.

Imagine for a second that the little boy – how old is he, eight, nine? – is your son, trying to adjust his keffiyeh because it keeps falling over his eyes and he can’t see anything. Image your small son surrounded by masked Israeli “soldiers”, or what looks more like a Jewish militia than an army. Imagine that the boy is likely soon to be bundled into the back of a military van and taken for interrogation without his parents or a lawyer present, or even knowing where he is. That he could end up beaten and tortured, as human rights groups have regularly documented.

Maybe you can’t imagine any of that because you, a responsible parent living in Europe or the United States, would never let your child out to throw stones.

Then you need to know more about the story behind this picture.

This photo was taken in Kfar Qaddum last month. The boy and his friends aren’t there to bait Israeli soldiers or indulge a bout of anti-semitism. Jews from the violent – and illegal – settlement of Kedumim have taken over their farm lands. Kedumim’s expansion has been further used to justify the army closing the access road in and out of Qaddum. The village is being choked off at the throat. In short, these villagers are being ethnically cleansed.

Parents living in such circumstances do not have the privilege of concealing from their children what is happening. Everyone in the village knows their community and its way of life are being extinguished. Israel is determined that they will leave so that the Jewish settlers next door can grab their land. Israel expects these villagers to join the rest of the aid-dependent Palestinian population in one of the ghettoised towns and cities in the bantustans of the West Bank.

Even little boys understand the stakes. And unlike your child, this one knows that, if he doesn’t resist, he will lose everything he holds dear.

What Israeli Soldiers Never Tell Their Mothers

There is virtually no combat service in the IDF that doesn’t entail soldiers carrying out despicable missions like the one described below.

Gideon Levy Jan 16, 2017 10:45 AM 

  

They gathered in the narrow street, on a cold and dark night. They were tense. The howl of a distant jackal broke the silence. For some, this was their first operational mission. They’d always dreamed of it, and they’d been in training for a long time. The adrenaline was flowing, just the way they liked it. That’s what they enlisted for.

Before they set out, they texted their parents to tell them not to worry. When the dawn broke and they returned safely to their base, they’d text again. Their mothers won’t ask what they did, and they won’t tell them. That’s how it always is. Their parents are proud of them: they’re combat soldiers.

As they formed up before leaving, their commanders checked their gear and ammunition, and gave them their final orders. The intelligence officer told them of the two wanted men; they must be found, at any price. Then the force went out into the night. Thirty soldiers. They went up the hill on foot.

They reached their target sometime after midnight. The village was deep in sleep, the orange security lights of the settlement across the way winking in the distance. And the order was given: Attack!

They leaped at the back door of the house and shook it until it was almost torn from its hinges. A dim light emanated from the second floor and a man came down in pajamas, still half asleep, to open the metal gate. Not one of them asked himself what he was doing there. Maybe that will happen when they grow up a little more. 

The first four entered with their machine guns at the ready. Black masks covered their faces; only their eyes peeped out. They pushed the shocked Palestinian backward. He tried to explain to them that the children were sleeping and he didn’t want them to wake up to the sight of a masked soldier above their bed.

The soldiers wanted Tariq. And also Maliq. They ordered the Palestinian to take them to them. The two wanted men slept in a room that was all blue, including the sheets. The soldiers woke them with shouts. The wanted men woke up in a panic.

The soldiers ordered them to get up. Then they grabbed their arms, pushed them into two separate rooms and locked them in. Other soldiers broke into the house, whose inhabitants had all woken up in the meantime. Six-year-old Mahmoud began to cry: “Daddy, Daddy!”

The soldiers warned the two wanted men not to dare participate in any more demonstrations. “Next time, we’ll shoot you or arrest you,” they told Maliq. He remained locked up for about 40 minutes, until the force left. On their way out, the soldiers threw stun grenades into the yards of the homes they passed – the icing on the cake.

All of this happened about 10 days ago in Kafr Qaddum. All of it happens every night throughout the West Bank.

The two wanted men were aged 11 and 13. Tariq’s voice hasn’t broken yet, and Maliq has a bashful smile. Since that night, they will sleep only in their parents’ bed. Mahmoud has started wetting the bed. The large force of soldiers came in the dead of night just to intimidate them, and perhaps also to maintain their edge.

The Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit wasn’t ashamed to say, “Soldiers spoke with youths who had taken part in the regular demonstrations in Qaddum.” That’s what IDF soldiers do: hold intimidating nighttime talks with children. That’s what they enlisted for. That’s what they’re proud of.

Kafr Qaddum, it’s worth noting, is a place that merits respect. It has been fighting for about five years now, with courage and determination, for the reopening of its access road – which was blocked because of the settlement of Kedumim. The settlement had grown right up to the edge of the road, leading to its closure.

Last Friday, Amos Harel reported in Haaretz about a steep decline in the number of young men from well-off families willing to serve in combat units. The Border Police is now the most sought-after unit, and its gates are mobbed by the weaker sections of society, whom Israel cynically incites against the Palestinians, so that all of them want to be Sgt. Elor Azaria.

Perhaps it’s good that the well-off are abandoning service in the territories. Or perhaps it’s bad, because they’re leaving it to others. Today, there is virtually no combat service in the IDF that doesn’t entail carrying out despicable missions like the operation in Kafr Qaddum.

This Friday, or the following one, Tariq and Maliq will resume demonstrating on the road, and perhaps they’ll also throw stones. They won’t forget the terrors of that night so quickly; those terrors will form their consciousness.

And the soldiers? They’ll continue to be heroes, in their own eyes and those of their people. 

7 Year Old Palestinian Terrorist Caught B4 He Could Do Harm

Don't you just love the most moral army in the world?   The most benign occupation of the worlds most cherished democracy?

Well hats off to the Israeli Occupation Forces (I mean 'defence' forces) for their unparalleled bravery

The torture and imprisonment of Ahmad Manasrah - Zionist vengeance against a child

Israel Waited Until Palestinian child turned 14 in order to impose a 12 year prison sentence

Only in Israel could the legal system wait a year so that a 13 year old child officially can turn 14 and become old enough to receive a long prison sentence.  Indeed it would be unheard of in any other country that calls itself civilised.  It is also unheard of in Israel for it to happen to a Jewish child.

However Ahmad Manasrah is not Jewish but a Palestinian.  The law was changed specifically to allow him to be sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.  He was found guilty of participating in the stabbing of an Israeli.  The reasons for his actions are not hard to find.  He lives under a brutal occupation.  His cousin was shot dead.  He himself is lucky to be alive because he was left bleeding on a sidewalk.  Medical help for him was prevented initially by Israeli police.  He was subject to savage taunts of ‘let him die’ by Israeli passers by, as the above video shows in all its graphic horror.

During what was called the 'knife intifada' Uri Rezken, a Jewish supermarket worker was stabbed by another Jew, Shlomo Pinto, whilst stacking shelves.  He had been mistaken for an Arab. Contrast his treatment by the judicial system.  Although he was charged with attempted murder it is certain that he didn't receive 12 years imprisonment.  He wasn't subject to the ordeal of a 13 year old Palestinian child.

Instead the Guardian reports that 'He was granted anonymity by a magistrates’ court in Haifa since he may now become a target of a vigilante attack. The court also agreed to his lawyer’s request for a psychological examination to see if he was fit to stand trial.'

Palestinians are not seen as human beings so the question of whether they are fit to stand trial does not arise.  Nor was Ahmad given anonymity, again for the same racist reasons.

Palestinian lawyer Jamil Saadeh noted upon Ahmad’s conviction in May that “the occupation deliberately kept the child Ahmad Manasrah imprisoned inside a reform center until he reached the legal age for full sentencing under Israeli law, which is the age of 14 years…The court did not take into account what he suffered from the moment of his detention, being wounded, assaulted and cursed, treated inside the hospital as a threat, and screamed at during interrogation by the officers, all of which is documented on video and condemns the occupation.”

Ahmad, 14, was accused of participating in a stabbing operation against Israeli settlers in the east Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev last year, when he was 13 years old. Ahmad was with his 15-year-old cousin, Hassan Manasrah, at the time, on 12 October 2015. Hassan was shot by settlers and killed on the street, while Ahmad was run over by settlers and seriously injured. Video of settlers screaming and cursing at the bleeding Ahmad and yelling that he should die was widely circulated via social media. Two settlers were injured in the incident, while Ahmad was critically injured and Hassan’s life was taken. Hassan is one of 57 Palestinian children who have been killed by Israeli forces since 5 October 2015.

Manasrah was convicted in Israeli courts in May and sentenced today to 12 years imprisonment. In the Israeli courts in “security” cases, Palestinian youth do not receive reduced sentencing despite their juvenile ages. Instead, for every conviction on any charge that carries a maximum sentence of greater than six months, children 14 and up are sentenced identically to adults over 18. Such charges include throwing stones, membership in a prohibited organization or incitement for social media postings. Palestinian children are also held without charge or trial under administrative detention.
The pursuit of extremely lengthy sentences against Palestinian children is a growing trend in Israeli military and other courts, as illustrated by the cases of Muawiya Alqam, 14, sentenced to six and one-half years and the pending case of Nurhan Awad, 17, against whom a 15-year sentence is sought. Nurhan’s case is strikingly similar to Ahmad’s; she was with her cousin, Hadeel, who was shot and killed by Israeli settlers while Nurhan was severely injured.

Ahmad’s interrogation was also videotaped, where he was pressured and shouted at by multiple interrogators as he stated he did not remember the incident. Ahmad is one of nearly 400 Palestinian children held in Israeli prisons. Palestinian children are routinely subject to torture and abuse under interrogation, solitary confinement during interrogation, beating and kicking by occupation military personnel, threats of sexual assault and other forms of abuse, reports Defence for Children International Palestine.They are also routinely interrogated harshly without access to a parent or a lawyer.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network condemns the sentencing of Ahmad Manasrah and demands the immediate release of Ahmad and all imprisoned Palestinian children. We further call for international action to compel the Israeli state to respect the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and end international military aid and assistance that funds the imprisonment and torture of Palestinian children. The imprisonment, oppression, and killing of Palestinian children like Ahmad and Hassan Manasrah by the Israeli occupation is part and parcel of the Israeli colonial project in Palestine, and the only true freedom for Palestinian children will be achieved through the freedom of the Palestinian people and Palestinian land.

Also see this powerful article in Ha'aretz by Amira Hass, one of the few decent journalists in Israel.

How to Make Revenge Even Sweeter

Why does Israel need to imprison for 12 years a 14-year-old Palestinian boy who did not injure anyone?

Amira Hass Nov 16, 2016 4:51 AM

A., the teen who along with his cousin seriously wounded two in Pisgat Ze'ev, at his remand hearing, November 11, 2016.Emil Salman

 The childish expression on his face, which the sadness has turned adult, is known to every Palestinian. In the Israeli media, only the first letter of his name, A., is allowed to be published. That, and the fact that his trial was held behind closed doors was the sum total of proper treatment of a boy who was 13 years and 9 months old when he allegedly committed the crimes of which he was convicted.

With all the rest – his arrest after the mob attack against him and his injury, the brutal interrogation, the extreme indictment, the verdict and the sentence – the legal system treated him precisely in the spirit the Israeli public demands: vengeance, vengeance, vengeance.

The judges, Yoram Noam, Rivka Friedman-Feldman and Moshe Bar-Am, convicted him of two attempted murders, although he did not stab anyone. From the beginning A. told his interrogators and the judges that he and his cousin, Hassan Manasra, went out about a year ago to Pisgat Ze’ev to scare Jews with knives they were holding (because of how the Israeli regime harms the Palestinians), maybe to injure someone, but not to murder anyone. He was convicted because 15-year-old Manasra (the Border Police team could have arrested him but they executed him, as is the fashion around here) stabbed a young man and a boy.

The judges did not attribute importance to A.’s testimony that from the start he and Manasra had decided not to hurt women, children or old people, they intentionally did not try to hurt an old man whom they came across on their way. The judges discounted A.’s words, that he tried to stop his cousin from hurting the boy. The judges belittled the fact that A. could have immediately confessed to attempted murder so he would be sentenced before he reached 14 (and then would not be sent to prison). He simply did not agree to admit to something that he did not intend to do.

The parole officer service, who praised A.’s rehabilitation process, recommended to the court to make do with parole and keeping him in a closed residential facility until the age of 18. But the judges imposed a sentence of 12 years in prison on the 14-year-old boy who had not injured anyone. Neither did they heed the request to at least place A. in a closed residential facility until the age of 18.

“Today!” Judge Noam decreed on the day of sentencing last week. The boy must be taken immediately to prison (Megiddo). Vengeance is sweet and to sweeten it more the judges ordered the minor to pay compensation of 180,000 shekels ($46,870) to the injured parties. Let the family go completely broke, why not?

The judges could have taken into consideration other verdicts, which state that it is impossible to examine the acts of children by the same criteria as those of adults. They could have drawn inspiration from judges who imposed sentences of 24 months and 54 months, respectively, in a closed residential facility on two minors who murdered an old man who refused to give them a cigarette. But Noam and his colleagues preferred to see the “wave of terror” and “nationalistic background,” not the boy.

If they had seen the boy, they would have ruled thus:

“Before us is another boy, who from the moment of his birth in Jerusalem has lived the intentional, methodical discrimination in favor of Jewish children his age: in housing, schooling, employment opportunities, infrastructure, freedom of movement and choice, the right to a collective identity. Before us is another boy who has, unfortunately, on a daily basis, experienced police brutality, the contempt of the municipality and the evil of the system. Another boy who is confused by the weakness of the adults in the face of all this evil, and the childish tendency to imitate pushed him into a foolish and dangerous act, which his parents opposed, and that he himself regrets today. We will send him to a closed residential facility for a few years, to think, understand and be rehabilitated.

“The change of general circumstances does not depend solely on us, but it has already been proven that executions, house demolitions and disproportionate prison sentences and fines are not deterrents. On the contrary. They convey a message to other Palestinians, that the Jews hate and persecute and oppress and expel them only because they are Palestinians.”

Child Imprisonment – an Israeli Speciality

Below is yet another story of the brutalisation of a Palestinian child.  Muhammad al-Hashlamoun is just 15 years old but he has been put in administrative detention, i.e. detention without trial, beaten up and treated like a member of the untermenschen (the lower races in Nazi Germany). 

If Muhammad was a Jewish boy he would not, of course, be subject to this shameful behaviour.  He would have a lawyer, an adult accompanying him at all interviews, he wouldn’t be in administrative detention in an adult gaol and he wouldn’t, because no Israeli Jewish child ever is, physically abused.

Tony Greenstein

Muhammad al-Hashlamoun, a Palestinian teen, faces indefinite Israeli detention

Ryan Rodrick Beiler 11 February 2016

Muhammad al-Hashlamoun, in an image circulated on social media.

Amnesty International is demanding the release of 17-year-old Palestinian Muhammad al-Hashlamoun who has been sentenced to six months of detention without charge or trial by Israeli occupation forces.

At present al-Hashlamoun is one of two minors in administrative detention by Israel, which rights groups say amounts to arbitrary detention under international human rights law and violates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Four other children were released in January.

Israel began putting Palestinian children in administrative detention last October, resuming a practice that had reportedly not been used since 2011.

Amnesty reports that Israeli forces took Muhammad al-Hashlamoun from his home in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al-Amoud in the early morning hours of 3 December.

Around 40 Israeli Border Police and agents from the Israel Security Agency, also known as Shin Bet, raided the building that houses his family’s apartment.

The Israeli armed men “went into the apartment of Muhammad al-Hashlamoun’s uncle first, and dragged the uncle from his bed into the street without letting him dress,” Amnesty states.

Muhammad was reportedly beaten during his arrest.

During 18 days in the Jerusalem interrogation center known as the Russian Compound Muhammad was questioned about planning attacks, which he denied.

Prior to his detention, occupation authorities had raided his home on an almost daily basis to question him about his activities.

After two hearings in civilian courts, the teenager was sentenced to house arrest for one week and a fine of about $1,260. Instead, Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli defense minister intervened and issued a six-month administrative detention order the following day.

Muhammad’s rights have been further violated by moving him to Megiddo prison in the north of present-day Israel.

As a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, which is part of the occupied West Bank according to international law, the Fourth Geneva Convention requires that Muhammad not be taken out of the occupied territory.

When Muhammad’s mother visited him in Megiddo, Amnesty says, she found him “tired and anxious.”

This is not Muhammad’s first time in prison. In 2014 he served a 101-day sentence after being accused of throwing stones.

At the end of last year, minors made up about one fifth of all Palestinians detained since the escalation of violence that began in October, a significant portion of whom are from East Jerusalem.

Torture

According to testimonies collected by human rights groups, Palestinian minors routinely face physical and emotional abuse while in Israeli custody in order to force confessions or extract information.

Data compiled last year by Defense for Children International–Palestine found that three out of four Palestinian children experienced physical violence after their detention by Israeli forces.

Children have reported beatings, strip searches, painful stress positions, threats, sleep deprivation and solitary confinement – abuses amounting to torture.

After prolonged interrogations without a parent or legal counsel present, Palestinian children have frequently reported being forced to sign confessions in Hebrew, a language they do not understand.

A 2013 study by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem found that Palestinian children detained in the occupied West Bank were systematically subjected to torture and severe physical violence, including threats of rape, in order to force them to confess to Israeli accusations, especially stone throwing.

Child rights

Six months is the maximum sentence for administrative detention, but terms can be renewed indefinitely.

In addition to being held without charge, administrative detainees are unable to see the evidence against them, making it impossible to mount a legal defense.

The practice, first introduced by British colonial authorities and continued by Israel, was ostensibly intended as an emergency measure to arrest those who posed an extreme and imminent threat.

With rare exceptions, it is only used against Palestinians.

As of January, Israel was holding a total of 660 Palestinian administrative detainees, according to prisoners rights group Addameer.

While this form of imprisonment violates international standards of due process for adults, children – defined as individuals under age 18 – have even greater protections against arbitrary detention.

According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, of which Israel is a signatory, “No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily.”

The detention of a child “shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.”

Children moreover, “have the right to challenge the legality of their detention before a court or other competent, independent and impartial authority and have the right to a prompt decision on any challenge.”

These are rights Israel, as in the case of Muhammad al-Hashlamoun, habitually denies to Palestinians.

In a rare step last year year, 19 members of the US Congress, called on the Obama administration to push Israel to end the systematic abuses of Palestinian children in detention.

Calling it “cruel, inhuman and degrading,” the lawmakers described Israel’s military detention of Palestinian children as an “indefensible abuse of human rights.”

Riad Arar – A Child Detained and Beaten by the Most Moral Occupation in the World

I guess there is some sort of perverted logic in arresting the child of the Director of Child Protection & Social Mobilisation at Defence for Children International Palestine.  How better to intimidate someone who is politically active than by taking out on their children.  Such is the way that the Israeli military thinks.

You have to rummage through a list of the some of the most repressive and anti-democratic regimes which arrest children in the middle of the night, beat them up and imprison them.  

P
Palestinian child prisoners in Givon prison

Riad Arar was imprisoned in a military prison and shackled, without the benefit of a lawyer or any other witness when being interrogated.  If he was a Jewish child, living in a settlement adjacent to Hebron, then he would have been afforded all the protections that the Israel gives to Jewish children.  But that is in the nature of an apartheid society.

We have been asked to send Riad Arar an age appropriate card, which costs £1.33 to send. Please do so and let Riad Arar know he is not alone and also let the Israeli military know that he is not forgotten.  Perhaps we can embarrass these bastards into releasing him.

Please share this post

Tony Greenstein

Please join our protest against the abuse of children in Israeli prisons

Below is a message from the Palestine UK Social Work network about the detention of the son of  a Palestinian social work colleague. The action requested is simple and one in which could make such a difference, not only to Amro but to all other children in Israeli military detention.

Please buy your card and let Amro know we are thinking about him.

Offer Prison on the West Bank

February 2016

Dear Colleagues and Friends,                                        

We are writing to ask those of you who live outside Israel/Palestine to send a card, or a postcard, to Amro Arar, a 15 year old boy who is currently detained in an Israeli prison in the Occupied West Bank. The address to send it to is:

Amro Arar, Ofer Prison, c/o The Ministry of Public Security, P.O. Box 18182, Jerusalem 91181  ISRAEL

(£1.33 air mail postage from the UK)

We are requesting that the card you send is age appropriate and without political messages, letting him know that we are aware of what has happened to him and that we are thinking of him; that he's not forgotten.

In this way, we want to show the Israeli authorities that we know not just about Amro, but all the other children incarcerated under Israel's oppressive system of military law; that Amro and the others in his terrible situation have friends who know what is happening. Below we explain why we want you to do this.

The most moral occupation the world has ever known

Amro's father, Riad Arar, is a colleague, trained in social work, psychology and counselling supervision. He is Director of Child Protection & Social Mobilisation at Defence for Children International Palestine, supporting young people faced with the impact of the Israeli Occupation. At the recent conference on Trauma and Resilience, at Kingston University, Riad delivered a paper on his work engaging children as researchers in their own experiences under Occupation, moving them “from passive victims to agents of change”.

On 5th January 2016 Riad emailed to inform us that Israeli soldiers had launched a night-time raid on his home in the beleaguered city of Hebron. They took the 15 year old Amro away with them. Amro was initially held in an illegal settlement near Bethlehem, Ghosh Iteyoun, and then moved to Ofer Prison.  

Riad went to the military court at Ofer on Sunday 10th January. Amro told his father that the Israeli soldiers had "bitten him in his nose and threaten him through the investigation to force him to convince (confess) and they told him if you are not convene (confess) we are planning to arrest you and your father and your brothers". The soldiers also threatened to spread the rumour that he was a collaborator. Under this physical and emotional abuse, and in order to protect his family, Amro 'confessed' to throwing two stones. Amro is still in prison, waiting for a court hearing that has been postponed until 8th February.

Guard in Watchtower Offer Prison

Riad described the scene when Amro was remanded in custody, in the military court at Ofer: "I saw him in the cage with other 4 children ... (he seems too young and small a child) when he saw me in the beginning he smiled but when I tried to leave after 5 minutes, his tears so hard and hot".

Amro's experience is not unique, far from it. Each year around 700 children face similar treatment. Recently, a secretly filmed video showed the IDF's brutal 'interviewing' of a 13 year old boy, Ahmed Manasra. There have been other documentaries exposing the abuse of youngsters by these military courts, such as the Australian film Stone Cold Justice (https://vimeo.com/86575949), and the film 'The Law in These Parts'. Many reports have been published, some listed below this letter. Jewish Israeli children, even those living in the same city, are processed under a completely different legal system, one which - like ours - extends protections to avoid the abuse of minors (see below).

But while the world turns a blind eye, there is no pressure on Israel to end this shameful situation.

So, could you please send a card to let Amro know he's not forgotten, but also to show his captors that Amro and the others in his terrible situation have friends who know what they are doing.

The point of our action is to bring attention, citing Amro's example, to the assaults on and abuse of children taking place in a planned and systematic way in the Occupied Territories (see further information below).

 Best wishes,

Teresa Bailey, Chris van Duuren, Martin Kemp, Eliana Pinto, Cathy Troupp, Adrian Worrall

• At the end of October, 2015, 307 Palestinian children were imprisoned in the Israeli military detention system, an increase of 79.5% from September, according to Israel Prison Service (IPS) data. (1)

This is the largest number of Palestinian child detainees in Israeli military detention since April 2010. Nearly 60% were held in prisons inside Israel in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of prisoners from occupied territory into the territory of an occupying power.

• Palestinian children are subject to the Israeli military courts, while Jewish Israeli children living in the same city are subject to the civilian legal system. To illustrate the difference: The maximum period of detention before being brought before a judge for a Palestinian child is 8 days; for an Israeli child, it is 12-24 hours. The maximum period of detention without access to a lawyer for a Palestinian child is 90 days; for an Israeli child, it is 48 hours. (2) The maximum period of detention without charge for a Palestinian child is 188 days; for an Israeli child it is 40 days. (3) The maximum period of detention between being charged and conclusion of trial for a Palestinian child is 2 years; for an Israeli child it is 6 months.

On November 3, 2015, the Knesset passed a series of amendments to the Israeli penal code and youth law. They imposed 10-year prison sentences for throwing stones or other objects at moving vehicles with the possibility of endangering passengers or causing damage. Those convicted of throwing stones with the purpose of harming others would receive double the sentence. The latest bill, approved by the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation, proposes custodial sentences for children, as young as 12, convicted of “nationalistic-motivated” violent offences under Israel’s civilian legal system. The actual serving of sentences would be deferred until the child reaches the age of 14. (1.)

References

1.December 16th 2015: Defence for Children, International, Palestine, "Child prisoners swell in numbers amid reports of poor jail conditions".

2. For security offences the maximum period is 21 days.

3. To continue detention over 30 days before charge requires the approval of the Attorney

See also

Eyes on Israeli Miltary Court (Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association)

Children in Israeli Military Detention (UNICEF)

Kids Court in Conflict

Children in Military Custody

Israel’s Jim Crow Justice – The Case of Tariq Abu Khdeir

For Beating Up a 15 year old boy – Police Receive 45 Days Community Punishment

Tariq Abu Khdeir after being released

Lest anyone be in any doubt about the ingrained nature of Israeli and Zionist racism, then the case of Tariq Abu Khdeir is a textbook example.

2 of the culprits behind the murder of Mohammed abu Khdeir

His brother Abu Khdeir was murdered by up to 6 Israelis who took him into a forest, poured gasoline down his throat and then set him alight.  The response of the Israeli Police?  To beat to a pulp his 15 year old cousin, Tariq Abu Khdeir.  The cowardly animals who carried out the beating had first tied the child’s hands together and then kicked and beat him mercilessly.  Their actions were captured on video and have been given wide publicity, even in the United States, where certain Congressional staffers have spoken out.

Tariq abu Khdeir after being spending 2 weeks in prison 

What has been the reaction of the authorities in Israel?  Well the culprits have been convicted and sentenced.  If they were Palestinians, bearing in mind that throwing a stone can get you 20 years, you would imagine that the culprits did at least 5-10 years in prison.  If they were Palestinians that would be a dead cert.  But they weren’t Palestinians, they were Jewish and they were Policeman.  They have therefore been sentenced to 25 days community service.  A complete joke and an invitation to the Police concerned to take two lessons to heart:

The racist nature of the Israeli courts is also exposed because these animals wearing Police uniforms went to court and were sentenced by the court.  There can be no doubt, although there is no law to this effect, that in the eyes of the courts, beating Palestinians is not a crime.

Mohammed abu Khdeir - burnt alive by settler trash

And then they say they don’t understand why Palestinian kids go out and stab Israelis!

i.               Police don’t go to prison for beating up Arabs.

ii.             Don’t let them video you again.

Tony Greenstein

No justice for Tariq Abu Khdeir — even US State Dept faults Israeli ‘accountability’

Update: The State Department has sharply criticized the Israeli handling of the Tariq Abu Khdeir case. Spokesperson John Kirby:

'We were disappointed to learn that the Israeli police officer who severely beat American teenager Tariq Abu Khdeir in July of 2014 was spared prison time by an Israeli court yesterday. Given the clear evidence captured on videotape of the excessive use of force, it is difficult to see how this sentence would promote full accountability for the actions of the police officer in this case. We understand there is a possibility for the Israeli state prosecutor to appeal the decision, and we’re going to continue to follow that closely, as you might expect.
I’ll just state again, the safety, security, and protection of American citizens overseas is of paramount importance for this Administration, and we have demonstrated repeatedly – we’ve demonstrated that repeatedly in cases all over the globe.'

Original post:

In a mockery of justice, an Israeli border police officer who assaulted 15-year-old Palestinian-American Tariq Abu Khdeir following the kidnapping and torching-murder of his cousin, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, in Occupied East Jerusalem in July 2014, has been sentenced to a mere 45 days of community service. Zip, that’s it.

Abu Khdeir house after Police had ransacked it

The anonymous officer, whose identity has been protected by the state, stomped on Abu Khdeir’s back and beat him so relentlessly he lost consciousness. The officer was convicted of assault and battery in Jerusalem Magistrates’ Court and granted a “suspended term of four months in prison“. The judge wrote in the verdict that the state prosecution has not presented a case with similar circumstances that resulted in the defendant “behind bars“.

Here is a statement from the family of Tariq Abu Khdeir:

“To hear that the officer responsible for the inhumane beating of our young son, Tariq, was only sentenced to one-and-a-half months of community service is a shameful slap on the wrist and sends the wrong message that Israel tolerates the violent, extrajudicial beating of children. We continue to demand that justice be served, for the officers that participated in his cruel beating to be held accountable in a transparent manner, and for assurances that such treatment of Palestinian minors by Israeli forces will end.”

Statement from Ahmad Tibi, a member of the Israeli Knesset:

There can be no doubt that if PA police had beaten bloody a Jewish child that Israel would have prosecuted them to the full extent of the law — if they weren’t killed on the spot. The fact that the officers who beat Tariq Abu Khdeir so brutally aren’t serving serious prison time highlights the two-tier nature of Israel’s justice system.  This miscarriage of justice is precisely why Palestinians are taking to the streets in yet another wave of anger for freedom and equal human rights.  We are fed up with what was recognized as apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow in the American South but is business as usual for Israel’s many trade partners. We have had enough deaths and injuries in the Abu Khdeir family, the Nawara family, and the Dawabsheh family. We insist on immediate change to protect the lives of Palestinian children.  This flagrant racism must end.

Naturally, after Abu Khdeir’s assault the U.S. State Department expressed “deep concern” on behalf of an American citizen. It strongly condemned the use of excessive force and said it was “profoundly troubled” by the case. And that the U.S. government was “shocked” to learn that 15 year old Abu Khdeir was severely beaten while in police custody. The State Department called for an investigation. At that time, Abu Khdeir’s mother, Suha Abu Khdeir, said if her son wasn’t a US citizen he’d be “just pushed to the side like a dog. .. left to rot in jail.”

It is startling to think that the U.S. government was shocked by the treatment. According to the human rights group Yesh Din in a report, “Criminal Accountability of Israeli Security forces”:

Most cases of violent crimes against Palestinians not only go unpunished – but often are completely ignored by the authorities. This is a blatant violation of the human rights of Palestinian civilians living in the West Bank and of Israel’s duties under International Humanitarian Law.

Even when criminal investigations against soldiers accused of such offences are opened, they almost always fail…..approximately 94 percent of criminal investigations launched by the IDF against soldiers suspected of criminal violent activity against Palestinians and their property are closed without any indictments. In the rare cases that indictments are served, conviction leads to very light sentencing.

Tariq Abu Khdeir’s beating took place at a time when anger spilled out into streets all over Palestine following his cousin Mohammed’s lynching. Israeli forces responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, and some live ammunition. Israeli forces surrounded the neighborhood of Shufat in occupied East Jerusalem from which Mohammed had been abducted. And just hours before the earliest tweets of Tariq Abu Khdeir abduction surfaced, our Ramallah correspondent Allison Deger quoted Mohammed Abu Khdeir’s uncle, Walid Abu Khdeir, as saying the Israel police had virtually accused family members of the killing, when police asked the family to “get the boys for questioning.” The uncle responded: “We refused this. If you want them come and capture them.”

Tariq, one of the last people to see his cousin alive, was abducted shortly thereafter.

Tariq Abu Khdeir said he was just standing there watching the protests of his cousin’s murder when police ambushed and attacked him, beating him unconscious. He was then held in custody for three days, part of that time chained to a hospital bed, part at the Russian Compound being interrogated. And finally after a hearing, at which he was barred from returning to his home in the U.S., his family had to pay an 800 dollar fine for his release. Tariq remained in occupied East Jerusalem sentenced to 9 days of house arrest.

The Abu Khdeir home following vandalism by the Israeli police. (Photo provided by Hassan Shibly)

When Tariq was finally able to return to his home in Florida, the Israeli police exacted a price from his relatives by raiding the family home in Occupied East Jerusalem, arresting Abu Khdeir’s uncle and cousins without charges, and ransacking their property.

Had a video of the assault not emerged and gone viral on social media, his trauma, no different from countless other assaults/tortures/crimes carried out routinely by Israeli forces against Palestinian children, would have gone unnoticed.

Nine months later, all charges against Tariq were dropped; as he said, it was a “make-believe case.” And here we are 16 months later and the assaulting officer can just walk away from this. Brad Parker, Attorney and International Advocacy officer for Defense for Children International – Palestine,  said the conviction “must be understood within the context of an Israeli judicial system where impunity reigns … impunity is the norm for Israeli forces.” Parker said, via Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU):

Israel claims to open investigations into incidents involving injury and violence against Palestinian children, but indictments are incredibly rare and impunity is the norm for Israeli forces. When compared to the brutal use of excessive force employed against an incapacitated fifteen-year-old boy, most should agree that this is an incredibly light sentence. It is troubling that Tariq Abu Khdeir, who was cleared of any wrongdoing, possibly spent more time in detention than the unnamed officer convicted of brutally assaulting him.”

To add insult to the injury and injustice, the New York Times today concluded its account of the case, saying, “The Israeli authorities said that Tariq was masked and holding a wooden slingshot when the officer chased him.” Really? But all charges against him were dropped. There was no case.