THE HANDSTAND

APRIL 2003

The news of the last two days of ostensible American successes in the invasion of Iraq, compared to relatively uneasy two weeks in the onset of the operation, have generated a joyful and frivolous mood in the Israeli electronic media. Again generals and commentators joined in celebrating the development of a new situation that they believed could only benefit Israel. Under the surface deeper racist and lofty attitudes towards anything Arab surfaced as part of the discourse on the war.But there was an additional, far more disturbing, aspect of this jubilant mood – the absence of any significant reference to the Israeli policy in the occupied territories. Indeed, the impression the media created was that if the Americans seem to have the upper hand in Iraq, Israel is free to do whatever it wants or aspires in Palestine.

During those two days of supposedly ‘good’ news coming from Iraq (the first days of April), far from the conscience and eyes of the local and international media, the Israelis were experimenting with the idea of ‘transfer’ (the Israeli euphemism for expulsion and ethnic cleansing). On the night of April 2, in the Tul-Karem refugee camp in the West Bank about 2000 men of the age between 18 and 50 were loaded on lorries and deported from their houses, without explanation or reason, and expelled for three days (until the 4^th when they told they can come back, but have not done so as yet). The operation, so it was reported went smoothly without resistance and was very effective – according to the deputy Israeli defense minister, Mr. Boym. The Israeli army spokesperson explained that this was part of regular policy to search for ‘terrorists’ after the suicide bomb which exploded in Netanya wounding, but not killing, many people. Closures, curfews, house to house search and mass arrest for few hours were in the past employed after suicide bombs which killed dozens of citizens, but in Tul-Karem the nature of the Israeli operation took a very different form. It was a drill in transfer.

The concept of Transfer has moved in the last two years in to the center stage in Israel. Once harbored by extreme right circles, it is now the bon ton of professional academic, mainstream politicians and journalist who regard it as sensible ‘demographic solution’ for a future settlement of Palestine. The present Prime Minister Sharon said on more than one occasion that new negotiations over the fate of the occupied territories could lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state over almost half of the West Bank. The fence, which is actually a wall, Israel is building, is also, if indeed completed, going to divide the West Bank by half. And indeed there are large parts of the West Bank consensual Israel wishes to annex, but what is going to be the fate of the Palestinians living there? Giving the newly won legitimacy for the idea of transfer and persistent rumors of army logistical preparations for operations of mass deportations (the peace movement Gush Shalom published recently an alert to soldiers who may be involved in such preparation and warned them that they risk been brought to justice as war criminals), shed a different light of the min-transfer (as Zehava Galon an MP for Meretz called it) that was experimented with in Tul-Karem.

The war in Iraq overshadows in the media coverage the daily crimes against humanity Israel is committing in the occupied territories: weekly destruction of houses an businesses and the daily killing of civilians (many of which are children) are just the horrific tips of an iceberg of cruelty and callousness.

For peace activists like myself the new development accentuates once more the question of what to do? As I argued before the balance of power in Israel and Palestine is such that not much can be hoped from action from within. This kind of action has to be empowered, and quickly, by outside pressure – in the form of sanctions and boycott – unless we will be faced with another Nakbah. The Israeli Chief of Staff, Bugi Yeelon, declared on more then one occasion that there is a need to brand the Palestinian skin with a defeat that would be a disincentive for any further struggle. Nadav Ha-Etzni, a columnist in Maariv, very close to military circles, uttered that this means that there is a need to inflict a mini-Nakbah on the Palestinians. Many leading Israeli politicians and senior generals share this view. The drill in Tul-Karem is a precursor for a catastrophe that has to be averted by all those wishing to save what is left of Palestine and the Palestinians. Not an easy agenda to adopt, now that Iraq is brutally savaged and destroyed, but nonetheless one that has to be taken.

..Professor Ilan Pappe, Haifa University.

..Gush-Shalom Report of the Event:
<info@gush-shalom.org>
Date sent:          Thu, 3 Apr 2003 02:15:38 +0200

An Israeli Army Colonel has taken public responsibility for the large-scale harassment of civilian population at Tulkarm Refugee Camp, in violation of International Law and of the Fourth Geneva Convention to which Israel is a
signatory. The officer - identified on the Kol Yisrael radio only by his first name, David, and by his function as commander of the Ephraim Brigade - is at the head of the Israeli forces which staged a massive invasion of the Tulkarm Refugee Camp, an invasion which "Colonel David" declared to be "a good and successful action, with satisfactory results".

The Tulkarm Refugee camp was on early Wednesday morning invaded by large Israeli forces - infantry, APC's and tanks supported by helicopter gunships. The soldiers ordered all men and boys  between 15 and 55 to leave their homes and concentrate at two locations in the camp - the UNRWA Girls' School and the courtyard of the Jipon
Paint Factory. There they were kept for many hours and interrogated, one by one. The army detained eleven men which were said to be "wanted terrorists". The other men and boys were then loaded on buses and lorries which took them several kilometres outside Tulkarm, where they were told to get off and forbidden to go back to their homes for the coming three days. The army left them, with
nothing but the clothes on their backs, making no provision of any kind for their thee days of enforced exile.

Inhabitants of the nearby Danabe Village, as well as of the Nur Shams Refugee Camp which is so far untouched by the army raid, tried their best to help the displaced men and boys - but being in difficult economic circumstances themselves, found it difficult to take care of so many. Meanwhile, some women of the Tulkarm Refugee Camp came to bring food and basic provisions to their husbands, brothers and sons -but then found that the soldiers would not let them back into the camp, and became displaced, too.

Gush Shalom sent a letter to General Menchem Finkelstein, head of the Army's legal Department, setting out the above facts and pointing out that they constituted a violation not only of International Law but also of the IDF's own Military Code and of what the army claims are its policy guide- lines as regards treatment of civilian population. "Failure to point out to Colonel David - whose full name must be familiar to you - the grave legal and moral consequences of the acts to which he took responsibility would make yourself and the army's Legal Department share in that responsibility."

Background A Gwynne at the WestBank Wall