The Attack on Israel’s Human Rights Organisations by the State

When Israeli Jewish Opponents of the 

Occupation are Targeted for attack the 

Israeli Labour Party Offers its Support

Ezra Nawi - arrested Human Rights Worker

The article below in Israel’s 972 Magazine illustrates graphically the attack on Israeli human rights organisations and groups which oppose the Occupation and highlight its casual brutality.

Ezra Nawi has been detained, without access to a lawyer, on a trumped up charge as a result of the ‘revelations’ of the far-right Ad Kan group that he had threatened to report what was a bogus land deal to the Palestinian police.

Another Israeli far-right NGO Im Tirzu makes it clear that it is unconcerned if its campaign against left-wing NGOs and civil liberties groups results in physical attacks on those running those organisations.

Having attacked Palestinians in Israel and run an Occupation for nearly 50 years, it is clear that the next target is Israeli Jews who speak out against Zionist violence and injustice. 

B’Tselem field worker Nasser Nawajah was as I previously described, arrested and produced in the Jerusalem criminal courts and when the courts ordered him to be freed, immediately transferred to the Military courts on the West Bank, which are courts in name only.

Ezra Nawi - Ta'ayush and gay activist in South Hebron Hills

The Israeli anti-occupation Left and human rights NGO’s are under severe attack by the Israeli state.  Breaking the Silence, an organisation of soldiers with a conscience, is a particular target.  BtS documents and publicises the war crimes of the Israeli military by documenting the stories of Israeli soldiers themselves concerning the brutality and the mass murder, in Gaza in particular.  BtS is a target of those who, instead of preventing Israel’s war crimes prefer to attack an organisation which publicises them.  It is a classic case of shooting the messenger rather than dealing with the message. 

In this attack we see that the virulent nationalism of Zionism now targets the democratic rights even of Israeli Jews.

Tony Greenstein

It's open season on anyone opposing the occupation

By Noam Sheizaf

Published January 23, 2016

There is a campaign being carried out against anyone actively opposing the occupation in Israel, and it doesn’t matter if you’re an activist in the field, a human rights attorney or a former soldier talking about what you were ordered to do.

Ta’ayush member Ezra Nawi is brought to a Jerusalem court on January 20, 2016. Nawi, an Israeli Jew active opposing the occupation, was arrested after a right-wing organization put him in the crosshairs of a hidden-camera ‘sting operation.’ (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

“Activists from the shady organization, “Ta’ayush,” who we tracked from within and outside, behind closed doors and during clashes on Saturdays, are going to fall one by one. Don’t worry friends. We will finish off Ezra Nawi and move on to Guy Butavia… and many others.”

That message was published and quickly spread on Facebook following the arrest of Ezra Nawi, and before the arrest of Guy Butavia, another activist in Ta’ayush, and B’Tselem field worker Nasser Nawajah. The three were arrested after a right-wing group, “Ad Kan,” gave allegedly incriminating materials to the police and primetime investigative news show, “Uvda.”

A month earlier, far-right group Im Tirzu marked other anti-occupation activists as targets: B’Tselem Executive-Director Haggai El-Ad; executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Yishai Menuchin; a prominent member of Breaking the Silence; and an attorney who protects Palestinians in Israeli courts on behalf of Hamoked — Center for the Defense of the Individual. This week it was revealed that right-wing group “Regavim” hired a private investigator to track human rights attorney Michael Sfard and Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din. There is a connection between each of these, of course.

By Haggai Matar | January 22, 2016

The past few days have seen politicians and pundits comparing the “extreme left” to the “extreme right,” between the Ta’yush activists to the suspects in the Duma murders. Alon Dian wrote brilliantly about the mainstream’s tendency to create this kind of symmetry — replacing principled, moral judgment with statistics. But there is a different, more fundamental point that does not get the attention it deserves. In the case of Duma, the police went and looked for the perpetrators only after the crime was committed. The same goes for all the recent hate crimes by right-wing extremists, which were investigated by the state (the vast majority of so-called “price tag attacks” end with no indictment).

A group of Ta’ayush activists walk toward a Palestinian hamlet in the South Hebron Hills on Saturday, January 17, 2016. The activists’ presence is often enough to prevent settlers from targeting Palestinians and to deter the army from kicking them off their land. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

But in the case of the Ta’ayush activists, the process was reversed: “Ad Kan” did not go to the South Hebron Hills to investigate the harassment of land sellers. They went in search of ways to bring down Ta’ayush. To infiltrate the organization and get dirt on as many activists as possible. Like in the case of Michael Sfard and Breaking the Silence: first the Right found its target, and only then did it start looking for crimes. To the chagrin of Regavim, the materials it found and published about Sfard did not lead to the same storm that the Uvda report or recent articles on Breaking the Silence did. But the principle is identical.

The criminals from the South Hebron Hills

A member of Ta’ayush speaks to Israeli army officers during a direct action in solidarity with Palestinian residents of the South Hebron Hills, January 17, 2016. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

This is the fundamental issue. This is the reason left-wing activists feel it is open season on them. Because the targeting of activists has become personal, using their names and images. Because the goal is to find something — anything — to eliminate them, at all costs. If not through police investigations, then by tarnishing their public images, like in the case of former Ambassador to South Africa Alon Libel. Perhaps a recent article on him in Yedioth Ahronoth, in which he was secretly filmed giving a lecture to Breaking the Silence activists, will bring about a change in the law and Libel will find himself in prison. If not, then maybe someone will decide to wait outside his home and beat him up. When the head of Im Tirzu was asked about the possibility that his contemptible campaign could actually bring physical harm to the heads of these organizations, he shrugged and said that it “would be their responsibility.” Things have never been clearer.

A prominent right-wing journalist with whom I used to work often said, in an entirely different context, that “once you enter the system’s pipeline, someone will find something about you.” That is why in a state governed by law, the police investigates crimes rather than people. At this moment, the logic in Israel is the exact opposite — the Right is investigating people. The media, the police, and the pathetic politicians of the Israeli center are following in its wake. Before the land seller case, the Samaria and Judea Police Division tried to pin on Nawi a series of traffic violations. Only the fact that were able to make an even better case stick saved us from reading op-eds about how “the Left is protecting a traffic violator.”

The reason these people were targeted is crystal clear. There is not much in common between Ta’ayush and Michael Sfard, or between Breaking the Silence and Ezra Nawi, aside from the fact that they all struggle against the occupation.

They say Breaking the Silence is hated in Israel because they speak about the occupation abroad, and that B’Tselem is hated because they receive donations from foreign countries. Nonsense. Ta’ayush does not speak abroad. In fact, they aren’t even an NGO, but rather an informal organization made up of people who every Friday and Saturday head to the South Hebron Hills — in the hottest days of summer and in the freezing winter — to stand up to settlers from illegal outposts and the army that backs them. This is a boring, difficult task, which often includes accompanying Palestinian shepherds and farmers — so that they are not attacked by settlers — planting trees, or cleaning out water wells that have been either sealed shut or destroyed.

A decade and a half ago, when I served as a soldier in South Hebron Hills, the army still accompanied Palestinian children in order to prevent settler harassment. But the truth is that even back then, this was the wildest, ugliest place in the country. One of the settlers, who immigrated from apartheid South Africa, advised us to treat the Palestinians the way they used to treat blacks in his native land. Another settler, who lived in a cave in the West Bank, used to march his small herd of sheep directly into Palestinian fields, and when they tried to keep the animals away from their crops, the man would call the army because, well, the Palestinians were harassing Jews.

The reality of the Israeli Wild West did not interest the either the public or the media back then. It doesn’t interest them today. Uvda never bothered to go to the occupied territories to talk about the difficult reality farmers face there on a daily basis. The only people who cared were the activists in Ta’ayush, who do everything they can to stand up to much larger, far more organized forces. And now they are paying the price for it. Just like Michael Sfard, who argued before the High Court of Justice — and won — that the land belonging to the villagers of Bil’in was stolen for the sake of building a new neighborhood for Jews, all using deceptive claims of “security needs.” Just like B’Tselem’s field worker Nasser Nawaj’ah, who sat in jail following Uvda’s report while bulldozers demolished a protest tent against land expropriation in his home village of Susya. First they ignore the story, then they target those who speak about it, then they look for dirt, and then they demand the rest of the Left condemn the wrongdoers, lest everyone be considered a criminal.

The fact that Ta’ayush’s activities focus on Israel/Palestine, rather than abroad, hasn’t helped them much. Michael Sfard’s appeals to Israeli courts, rather than The Hague, were what led the Right to persecute him. The fact that Breaking the Silence does not reveal the names of the soldiers who give testimony, so that they do not face prosecution around the world or even in Israel, did not help. They are all fighting the occupation — that is their real crime. Instead of going to speak on television panels about the need for a “political horizon,” they tried to do something about the reality here. The occupation is the ruler, and it eliminates its opponents. Not because they are strong or threaten it, but because there really is no other way. Because the project of control in the occupied territories is in crisis, and we need to place the blame on someone.

The Right’s vision

It is no coincidence, of course, that Ad Kan’s campaign is backed by the publicly funded Samaria Settler Council, and that Regavim — which spends huge sums on tracking human rights organizations — is also backed by state-funded local councils in the West Bank. Ta’ayush, on the other hand, is run entirely by volunteers. Now it seems that the only people who actually received money for their trips to South Hebron Hills were Ad Kan’s moles, possibly funded by Israeli taxpayers.

The state and the Right are joining hands because the occupation is the state. Guy Butavia discovered in his interrogation that the questions he was asked by the police were passed on by Ad Kan. Israeli police in the West Bank, a division of the Israel National Police that is totally incompetent when it comes to solving recurring attacks against Palestinians — and which closes investigations into people who attack left-wing activists in broad daylight and in front of the cameras — suddenly acted with maximum efficiency in response to the Uvda investigation. Ezra Nawi was arrested at the airport despite the fact that there was no order preventing him from leaving the country. Why? How? Who cares. The arrestees were prevented from meeting with their attorneys, as if we were dealing with a “ticking bomb.” Not only were these blatantly political arrests, the most basic rights of the detainees were suspended.

Something dawned on human rights organizations and anti-occupation activists this week. It seems clear to all that a new campaign has begun. Much of the public is apathetic toward the Ta’ayush arrests, as goes for all political persecution. In history classes we used to ask ourselves how the “silent majority” and the “good people” allowed for such horrible things to happen. Now the answer is clear: if someone is being persecuted, there was probably a good reason, and the majority of people continue living their lives, because that is what people do. The weakness of Israel’s left-wing parties is far less clear to me. They are still playing the old game of trying to wedge themselves into the mainstream while the reality has changed completely.

It must be repeated: the Right has no solution for the current situation. The Palestinians will continue to resist the occupation, even if all the human rights organizations are shut down. Even if Israel manages to silence the Palestinians for a month, a year, or five. Those who view Arab citizens of Israel as enemies will turn them into enemies. Those who view Israelis who oppose the occupation as traitors won’t stop there. The only vision the Right is presenting is a civil war between Jews and Arabs, and between Jews and Jews. The only thing preventing that from happening is Israel’s sheer military strength. But desperation will also find a way to break through even that. With every day that passes, the price of changing direction only rises, and those who are able to step on the brakes prefer to sit on the fence.

This article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here. 

How the BBC Erased All Trace of Saudi Support for Al Qaeda in Syria

An interesting example of how the BBC does its best to promote the foreign policy interests of British capitalism and the current government by doctoring its news stories.  In this case it is subscribing to the line that the ‘moderates’ that Saudi Arabia are supplying are not in fact the Al Qaeda group, al-Nusra.  In this case they tripped over their own lies in their efforts to cover up what the Saudi regime was doing.

Cameron fighting for human rights

 Unlike Jon Snow’s demolition job on David Cameron regarding US support for Saudi membership of the UN Human Rights Council, the BBC does its best to cover up the government’s support of this obnoxious regime.

Tony Greenstein 

BBC Protects U.K.’s Close Ally Saudi Arabia With Incredibly Dishonest and Biased Editing

By Glenn Greenwald

October 26, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "The Intercept" - The BBC loves to boast about how “objective” and “neutral” it is. But a recent article, which it was forced to change, illustrates the lengths to which the British state-funded media outlet will go to protect one of the U.K. government’s closest allies, Saudi Arabia, which also happens to be one of the country’s largest arms purchasers (just this morning, the Saudi ambassador to the U.K. threatened in an op-ed that any further criticism of the Riyadh regime by Jeremy Corbyn could jeopardize the multi-layered U.K./Saudi alliance).

How the Chair of the UN Human Rights Council Defends Human Rights

Earlier this month, the BBC published an article describing the increase in weapons and money sent by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf regimes to anti-Assad fighters in Syria. All of that “reporting” was based on the claims of what the BBC called “a Saudi government official,” who — because he works for a government closely allied with the U.K. — was granted anonymity by the BBC and then had his claims mindlessly and uncritically presented as fact (it is the rare exception when the BBC reports adversarially on the Saudis). This anonymous “Saudi official” wasn’t whistleblowing or presenting information contrary to the interests of the regime; to the contrary, he was disseminating official information the regime wanted publicized. This was the key claim of the anonymous Saudi official (emphasis added):

The Zionist and Saudi flags

The well-placed official, who asked not to be named, said supplies of modern, high-powered weaponry including guided anti-tank weapons would be increased to the Arab- and western-backed rebel groups fighting the forces of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian, Iranian and Lebanese allies.

One of the quainter practices of this esteemed member of the UN Human Rights Council

He said those groups being supplied did not include either Islamic State (IS) or al-Nusra Front, both of which are proscribed terrorist organizations. Instead, he said the weapons would go to three rebel alliances — Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest), the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Southern Front.

So the Saudis, says the anonymous official, are only arming groups such as the “Army of Conquest,” but not the al Qaeda affiliate the Nusra Front. What’s the problem with this claim? It’s obvious, though the BBC would not be so impolite as to point it out: The Army of Conquest includes the Nusra Front as one of its most potent components. This is not even in remote dispute; the New York  Times’ elementary explainer on the Army of Conquest from three weeks ago states:

Who are its members?

Reagan & Saudi Ambassador

The alliance consists of a number of mostly Islamist factions, including the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate; Ahrar al-Sham, another large group; and more moderate rebel factions that have received covert arms support from the intelligence services of the United States and its allies.

Israeli & Saudi Spy Chiefs

The Telegraph, in an early October article complaining that Russia was bombing “non-ISIL rebels,” similarly noted that the Army of Conquest (bombed by Russia) “includes a number of Islamist groups, most powerful among them Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra. Jabhat al-Nusra is the local affiliate of al-Qaeda.” Even the Voice of America noted that “Russia’s main target has been the Army of Conquest, an alliance of insurgent groups that includes the al-Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, and the hard-line Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham, as well as some less extreme Islamist groups.”

In other words, the claim from the anonymous Saudi official that the BBC uncritically regurgitated — that the Saudis are only arming the Army of Conquest but no groups that “include” the Nusra Front — is self-negating. A BBC reader, Ricardo Vaz, brought this contradiction to the BBC’s attention. As he told The Intercept: “The problem is that the Nusra Front is the most important faction inside the Army of Conquest. So either the Saudi official expected the BBC journalist not to know this, or he expects us to believe they can deliver weapons to factions fighting side by side with an al Qaeda affiliate and that those weapons will not make their way into Nusra’s hands. In any case, this is very close to an official admission that the Saudis (along with Qataris and Turkish) are supplying weapons to an al Qaeda affiliate. This of course is not a secret to anyone who’s paying attention.”

Charles & Camilla Royally Defending Human Rights  

In response to Vaz’s complaint, the BBC did not tell its readers about this vital admission. Instead, it simply edited that Saudi admission out of its article. In doing so, it made the already-misleading article so much worse, as the BBC went even further out of its way to protect the Saudis. This is what that passage now states on the current version of the article on the BBC’s site (emphasis added):

He said those groups being supplied did not include either Islamic State (IS) or al-Nusra Front, both of which are proscribed terrorist organizations. Instead, he said the weapons would go to the Free Syrian Army and other small rebel groups.

Bush & a Saudi Prince

So originally, the BBC stated that the “Saudi official” announced that the regime was arming the Army of Conquest. Once it was brought to the BBC’s attention that the Army of Conquest includes the al Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front — a direct contradiction of the Saudi official’s other claim that the Saudis are not arming Nusra — the BBC literally changed the Saudi official’s own statement, whitewashed it, to eliminate his admission that they were arming Army of Conquest. Instead, the BBC now states that the Saudis are arming “the Free Syrian Army and other small rebel groups.” The BBC simply deleted the key admission that the Saudis are arming al Qaeda. As Vaz told The Intercept:

This is an incredible whitewashing effort! Before they were directly quoting the Saudi official, and he explicitly referred to “three rebel alliances,” including “Jaish al-Fatah” [Army of Conquest]. There is no way a journalist was told “other small rebel groups” and understood what was written before. In their reply to my complaint they said the mistake was an “editorial oversight,” which is truly laughable. What we saw was a prestigious western media outlet surrendering the floor to an anonymous official from the most medieval of regimes, the official pretty much saying that they were going to supply (more) weapons to an al Qaeda affiliate, and instead of pointing this out, the BBC chose to blur the picture and cover the terrorist-arming/funding activities of the Saudis/Qataris/Turkish.

Kerry & King Salman

I personally don’t view the presence of al Qaeda “affiliated” fighters as a convincing argument against supporting Syrian rebels. It’s understandable that people fighting against an oppressive regime — one backed by powerful foreign factions — will align with anyone willing and capable of fighting with them. Moreover, the long-standing U.S./U.K. template of branding anyone they fight and kill as “terrorists” or “al Qaeda” is no more persuasive or noble when used in Syria by Assad and the Russians, particularly when used to obscure civilian casualties. And regarding the anti-Assad forces as monolithically composed of religious extremists ignores the anti-tyranny sentiment among ordinary Syrians motivating much of the anti-regime protests, with its genesis in the Arab Spring.

But what this does highlight is just how ludicrous — how beyond parody — the 14-year-old war on terror has become, how little it has to do with its original ostensible justification. The regime with the greatest plausible proximity to the 9/11 attack — Saudi Arabia — is the closest U.S. ally in the region next to Israel. The country that had absolutely nothing to do with that attack, and which is at least as threatened as the U.S. by the religious ideology that spurred it — Iran — is the U.S.’s greatest war-on-terror adversary. Now we have a virtual admission from the Saudis that they are arming a group that centrally includes al Qaeda, while the U.S. itself has at least indirectly done the same (just as was true in Libya). And we’re actually at the point where western media outlets are vehemently denouncing Russia for bombing al Qaeda elements, which those outlets are  manipulatively referring to as “non-ISIS groups.”

It’s not a stretch to say that the faction that provides the greatest material support to al Qaeda at this point is the U.S. and its closest allies. That is true even as al Qaeda continues to be paraded around as the prime need for the ongoing war.

But whatever one’s views are on Syria, it’s telling indeed to watch the BBC desperately protect Saudi officials, not only by granting them anonymity to spout official propaganda, but worse, by using blatant editing games to whitewash the Saudis’ own damaging admissions, ones the BBC unwittingly published. There are many adjectives one can apply to the BBC’s behavior here: “Objective” and “neutral” are most assuredly not among them.

Support Ezra Nawi - Defend Palestinian Human Rights

Ezra Nawi is a dedicated and brave Israeli human rights activist. He is also a pacifist, gay and comes from an Iraqi Jewish family. The video (which I don't seem to be able to load!) shows his violent arrest by Israeli troops intent on demolishing the shacks of Palestinian families. You can see the Israeli troops laughing and joking at their work. You could imagine similar scenes of enjoyment as Jewish families were evicted from their houses in the 1940’s as Nazi soldiers looked on whilst sharing a joke.

Following the previous story, I wrote to the Israeli Ministry of Justice and received the reply below. Apparently it was all a question of Ezra Nawi having gone to intimidate the peaceful settlers of south Hebron, thus necessitating his arrest!

We can hear one Israeli soldier describing how his actions were reminiscent of what he had done in Russia. Ezra Nawi tells his laughing tormentors how their actions will only leave a legacy of hate and bitterness as children are left to sleep under the stars.

The identikit response from Advocate Assaf Radzyner informed me and others that Ezra Nawi was convicted for assaulting .two SS sorry Israeli police officers. As anyone who watches the film the only assaults that took place were on the Palestinians and Ezra. So here is demonstrable proof that Israeli courts will turn a blind eye to the criminal actions of the Israeli military whilst being willing to convict on the basis of bogus and evidently false testimony. As the film was available at the court hearing one can draw one’s own conclusions concerning Israeli ‘justice’.

You can contact the Support Ezra Nawi campaign here. and read an article by an Israeli academic Neve Gordon of Ben Gurion University.

Tony Greenstein

June 21, 2009
Assaf Radzyner
Advocate
Israeli Ministry of Justice
Human Rights and Foreign Relations Department,
Sivan 29, 5769
Israel
Ref: 894

Dear Mr Radzyner,

Thank you for your letter of explanation in respect of Ezra Nawi.

So, if I understand you correctly, Mr Nawi comes every week to the South Hebron area with the intent and purpose of disturbing the peaceful settlers of the South Hebron area. I wondered whether these are the same settlers I saw on different video films such as the Iron Wall, who regularly throw stones at Palestinian houses, attack their children and cause damage to Palestinian property? Are these the same settlements established by one Rabbi Moshe Levinger, a man not known for his peace-loving intentions?

Is this the same Israeli Police and Military who again have been regularly caught on camera standing idly by when Palestinians in Hebron are attacked, telling international peace observers that they cannot see anything as the stones fly? Oh yes it is well documented that only Palestinian violence is considered a crime whereas settler violence is 'understandable' 'defensive' etc.

Your letter is worthy of the best traditions of spokesmen for European anti-Semitic regimes. They also used to turn a blind eye to anti-Jewish pogromists, whilst of course arresting and beating up those defending themselves. You have learnt your trade well. I would tell you that you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself but of course shame is something you long since forgotten the meaning of.

The Hebron settlers are known as particularly racist and atavistic. It is not for nothing that they have composed the delightful graffitti which I have seen on walls in that area headed 'Arabs to the gas chambers.'

I happened to watch the recording of the arrest of Mr Nawi. I could see no provocation or violence from him, unless it is provocative to the settlers for an Israeli Jew or other human rights supporter to come and defend the indigenous population of the area. What kind of court is it that convicts someone for having been attacked by the Police?

If Mr Nawi was convicted of assaulting 2 police officers when we could clearly see the opposite, it would suggest that when it comes to offences against Palestinians, the Courts are no more than rubber stamps for the occupation authorities, notwithstanding your weasel words. No counsel in the world can convince a court that has already made its mind up.

The wanton and deliberate demolition of the houses or shacks of Bedouins of the area is a war crime in everyone's eyes but your own. What is your excuse? Hamas? But this is the West Bank. It is your theft of land and destruction and racist demolition of Palestinian homes which has fed the violence which you then use as the excuse for more demolitions, confiscation and violence. But then violence is only a term you apply to Palestinians.

Israel should not be surprised at its increasing political isolation. My own trade union has just voted to support a boycott of Israeli products. Most people don't take kindly to demolishing the homes of Palestinian residents in the West Bank and the wanton attacks by settlers and Israel's armed forces on defenceless people.

Clearly Israeli government spokespersons have learnt well from their anti-Semitic forebears.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Greenstein
Brighton & Hove UNISON