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26/05/2008
Seeking to punish critics for communicating the truth about
Israel to the world, Israel has barred an American scholar from
entering the country and a Palestinian journalist from leaving
the occupied territories for a brief trip to Germany.
Israel’s chief domestic intelligence agency, or Shin Beth, as it
is known by its Hebrew acronym, has detained and deported
Professor Norman Finkelstein, a prominent American Jewish
historian and intellectual.
Finkelstein is a well-known critic of the apartheid Israeli
state, especially its 41-year-old Nazi-like occupation of East
Jerusalem, West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
He is also the author of a famous book titled “the Holocaust
Industry,” in which he accused Israel and allied Zionist circles
of using the memory of holocaust victims for political ends.
Finkelstein arrived at the Ben Gurion Airport Friday, 23 May,
for a visit to friends in the city of Hebron, where nearly
200,000 Palestinian citizens are effectively held hostage to the
whims and moods of a few hundred fanatical Jewish settlers who
believe that non-Jews in Israel/Palestine ought to be treated as
water carriers and wood hewers, or expelled and/or exterminated.
However, upon his arrival at the airport, the 55-year-old
professor was unceremoniously whisked away to a nearby Shin Beth
office where he was interrogated for several hours on his views.
Shortly before he was put on a plane back to Amsterdam, his
point of departure, the Jewish historian was told that he
wouldn’t be able to visit Israel for ten years.
Finkelstein is the son of survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto and
concentration camps. He wrote in his book that “I do care about
the memory of my family’s persecution. The current campaign of
the Holocaust industry to extort money from Europe in the name
of the needy Holocaust victims has shrunk the moral stature of
their martyrdom to that of a Monte Carol casino.”
Predictably the powerful Zionist establishment, both in Israel
and North America, couldn’t tolerate his daring and
meticulously-documented criticisms. In 2007, he was forced to
leave DePaul University following a virulent vilification
campaign from powerful Zionist organizations, including
Professor Alan Dershowitz, the stalwart supporter of apartheid
in Israel.
And now my story: A few weeks ago, I received an invitation from
the German Institute for External Relations to attend a
conference on how journalists ought to reconcile patriotism with
journalistic professionalism in wartime. I went to the German
representative office in Ramallah where I was interviewed on my
political orientation and whether I had any association with
organizations the German government considers “terrorist.”
I have always been and continue to be an independent-minded
journalist. I never belonged to nor was a member of any
political organization or party. True, like everyone else, I do
hold certain views with regard to the Israeli occupation of my
country and oppression of my people. But so what? After all, no
honest person under the sun would or should expect us to love
our tormentors. Do Jews love their tormentors?
I have made laborious efforts and knocked on many doors to
obtain a permit that would enable me to travel abroad for the
two-day conference. Interestingly, I have not been allowed to
travel abroad for 13 years, a part from a brief trip to Makkah
and Madina with my late mother for the Haj pilgrimage in 1997.
Last week, I went to the local District Coordination Office
(DCO) in Dura, my town, hoping that they would be able to help.
The office forwarded my personal details to the Shin Beth office
in Hebron. However, the next day, I was told rather tersely that
I was “barred from traveling for security reasons.” No further
details were given.
In the process, I discovered that painful truth the Palestinian
Authority DCO officials were no more than insignificant
middle-men between the Israeli occupation authorities and
Palestinian citizens. They had absolutely no authority or
influence, which generally epitomizes the overall status of the
entire PA vis-à-vis Israel.
Last week, I was advised to go to the Israeli army Civil
Administration headquarters in Hebron in an effort to obtain a
security clearance or at least explain my case to officials
there.
There I saw dozens of Palestinian permit-seekers stuffed like
farm animals in a metal pen, waiting to be allowed to go in. I
was told that some people there had been awaiting their turn for
ten hours. Some of the people urgently needed a travel permit
for medical purposes such as undergoing an urgent surgical
operation at an East Jerusalem hospital.
I calculated that even if I had to experience the humiliation of
languishing for 10 or 15 hours in that pen-like metal corridor,
constantly monitored by trigger-happy soldiers in nearby
military watchtowers, there was no guarantee that I would be
allowed to get in and meet a security official to whom I would
be able to explain my case.
In fact, it was abundantly clear that the soldiers enjoyed the
indescribable humiliation and persecution Palestinian
permit-seekers were going through on a daily basis at the
notorious facility.
I really thought that the “civil administration office” was a
stark misnomer and that a truly appropriate name for the hateful
facility would be “the Central humiliation station” since there
was absolutely nothing civilized about it.
A few days ago, I called Hussein Sheikh, head of the Civilian
Affair Coordination Office in the West Bank, and explained to
him my problem.
I informed him that I was never arrested or detained by the
Israelis and that there was no real justification for barring me
from traveling. He concurred and asked me to fax him my details.
However, after waiting several days, it was clear that the
Israeli occupation authorities paid no attention to his
“mediation” on my behalf.
Some people here have suggested that I ask some erstwhile
collaborators for help. However, I know well that broaching an
Israeli dog to intercede with the Israelis for me was asking me
for too much. After all, I spent half of my life exposing these
malignant outgrowths that enabled Israel to achieve many of
their murderous goals in Palestine.
Fettering journalists
Needless to say, Israel, which classifies Palestinians into
either terrorists who ought to be annihilated or quisling-like
collaborators, has no right to deny Palestinian journalists
freedom of movement, internally or externally. Indeed, without
this freedom, a journalist can hardly carry out his job
properly.
As Palestinian journalists, we can’t be expected to compromise
our honesty and professionalism for the sake of getting a travel
permit from an occupying power that calls itself the freest and
most democratic state in the Middle East.
We cannot adopt the Israeli narratives, use the Israeli jargon
and parrot the Israeli lies. Our responsibility is first and
foremost is to our conscience.
Israel and her supporters in North America and Europe claim ad
nauseam that it is a democratic state.
But truly democratic states don’t impose town-arrests on
journalists because their writings are deemed non-conformist.
Indeed, a state that behaves this way must be hopelessly
insecure to the hilt, otherwise one is prompted to wonder what
security risks would result from allowing a journalist to travel
to Germany, a state that embraces Israel and Zionism soul and
heart?
Is Israel worried that people like Khalid Amayreh and Norman
Finkelstein would expose its criminality more than it has
already been exposed? Is this the reason why the Israeli
authorities are trying fetter people’s freedom of movement?
Israel has no right to grossly violate people’s human and civil
rights in the name of an amorphous and wantonly abused mantra
called “security.”
Israel, which had left no stone unturned to get the government
of the former Soviet Union to allow Nathan Sharansky and other
so-called “Prisoners of Zion” to leave Russia is very much
committing the same crime by denying thousands, or probably tens
of thousands, of Palestinians their inalienable right to travel
abroad for religious, professional, business, health or
recreational reasons.
We are not Israeli citizens, and Israel has no sovereignty over
us. Hence, the draconian repression is incompatible with
international law.
Hence, I call on my colleagues around the world to strongly
protest this violation of my natural and human rights to travel,
first as a human being and second as a journalist.
Finally, a few words to the Palestinian Authority: You are
maintaining a huge bureaucracy of thousands of officials and
operatives whose main job is supposed to help Palestinian
citizens bypass or overcome the stringent restrictions of the
occupation.
However, it is obvious these people have failed to carry out
their tasks.
It is really sad and embarrassing that while Israel allows
certain VIPs to travel freely (probably in the hope that the
preferential treatment would pernicious Israeli goals) the
Israeli occupation regime continues to deny the vast bulk of the
Palestinian people their basic rights, including the right to
travel.
It is time that you insist that Israel refrain from interfering
with Palestinian freedom of movement. If you can’t do it, then
just pack up and leave.
This would be much better for your own dignity and the dignity
of the Palestinian people.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk |
