Justice, Gas and Tears
In the silence of the courtroom, there was an
audible gasp of surprise and shock when Supreme
Justice Aharon Barak, reading the court's decision,
reached the words: "The military commander did not
use his discretion in a proportional way, as required."
At that moment the veteran peace activists who filled
the room realized that they had won.
Four days before, we could not have dreamt of that.
We were far from the sterile silence of the beautiful
Supreme Court building: a distance of a few kilometers
geographically, a distance of light-years mentally.
At that time we were running through clouds of tear
gas, choking and coughing, in the center of A-Ram.
It began, surprisingly, in an atmosphere of friendliness.
We came in a convoy of buses from all over the
country in order to join the inhabitants demonstrating
against the wall, on the eve of the Supreme Court
decision.
We expected to be held up at the roadblock across the
entrance to A-Ram. The demonstration was not secret,
we had announced it in the media. We were ready to
leave the buses quickly and continue around the
roadblock on foot. We were surprised, therefore, when
the border-policemen were all smiles. The one who
entered our bus spoke like a sympathizer. "Do you
know what you are getting into?" he asked in a friendly
way. When we answered that we did, he said "have a
nice day" and waved us on.
In the center of A-Ram, thousands of Palestinians were
waiting for us. We intended to march on the main road,
along the planned path of the wall that will cut the
densely populated urban area in two. The big concrete
slabs of the wall were already lying in the ground,
waiting for the moment when the court would lift the
temporary injunction that is holding up the building
activity.
The demonstration was intended, of course, to be
completely non-violent. The proof: in the first line there
marched a Christian Orthodox priest, a senior Muslim
sheikh, local dignitaries and present and past members
of the Knesset and the Palestinian parliament. In front
of us walked the A-Ram youth orchestra.
As a symbolic act we had brought five big hammers,
and some of the demonstrators were asked to use
them to strike concrete slabs lying on the ground.
We advanced slowly in the burning sun. Suddenly a
row of border-policemen appeared on top of the hill
overlooking the road. Before we realized what was
happening, a salvo of teargas grenades - one, two,
three … dozens - were shot at us. In a few moments
we were enveloped by a dense cloud of gas that
covered all escape routes.
We dispersed in all directions, but the gas grenades
continued to explode around us. Those of us who
made it to the central square of the town were attacked
with tear gas, water cannon and rubber-coated bullets.
The place resembled a real battlefield - clouds of gas,
the sound of exploding stun grenades and shooting,
the screaming sirens of the Palestinian ambulances,
burning boxes along the street, abandoned posters,
shuttered shops. When the Palestinian paramedics
started to run with their stretchers towards the
ambulances, local boys emerged from the alleys to
throw stones at the border-policemen (a mercenary
force universally hated in the Palestinian territories).
From time to time groups of border-policemen ran
towards us, grabbing demonstrators of both sexes and
dragging them towards the armored jeeps. One of the
ambulances was burning. Undercover policemen in
plain clothes, pistols in their hands - beat people and
dragged them along the ground.
All this continued for more than two hours. All that time,
a question was nagging me: Why was this happening?
Clearly we had walked into a well-prepared trap.
But what was the aim?
On the way back we listened to the news on the radio.
A police spokesman announced that the border-police
had been attacked by demonstrators who threw axes
and hammers at them. In our bus, everybody burst out
laughing.
The mystery was solved two days later in court, when
the judges were dealing with A-Ram. The government
attorneys demanded that the temporary injunction that
was holding up the wall in A-Ram be lifted. They had a
crushing argument: two days ago, they said, the
border-policemen guarding the machinery had been
viciously attacked by demonstrators. Their life was in
danger. Therefore, in order to save the policemen from
the evildoers (us), the building of the wall must be
speeded up.
The judges, so it seems, were not impressed.
They announced that in another two days, on
Wednesday, the court would publish a set of principles
that would, from now on, apply to the whole length of
the barrier, including A-Ram.
And indeed, on Wednesday the decision that caused
the audience to gasp was delivered. We knew in
advance that the court could not forbid the wall
altogether. That would have been a challenge to the
government, the army and the national consensus.
Neither did we expect a decision that would have
decreed that the wall should be set up on the Green
Line (the internationally recognized pre-1967 border).
We thought that the court would, at most, change the
path of the wall a few kilometers here and there.
But the actual decision went much further: it demands
big changes all along the 750 kilometers of the barrier,
in order to remove it from the vicinity of Palestinian
villages and release their land.
The judges accepted, in fact, most of the arguments
that we had been voicing in dozens of demonstrations:
(a) that the path of the wall violates international law,
(b) that it destroys the fabric of life of the Palestinian
population and turns their life into hell, and
(c) that this path does not emanate from security
considerations, but rather from a desire to enlarge
the settlements, annex territory to Israel and drive the
Palestinians out.
Judge Barak, the president of the Supreme Court who
drafted the decision, was walking a tightrope. On one
side he risked provoking the powerful military
establishment and a large section of public opinion.
On the other side, he wanted to keep his considerable
reputation in the international judicial community.
Years ago I interviewed him at length. One of the
things he told me is engraved in my memory:
"The court has no divisions to enforce its decisions.
Its power is based solely on the confidence of the
public. Therefore, the court cannot distance itself too
much from the public." That was shown again this
week: Barak went very far, but knew where to stop -
half way between the planned path and the green Line.
In this he was helped by the Council for Peace and
Security, a pro-peace group of retired senior army
officers, who proposed an alternative path.
Barak knows well that he is taking a considerable risk:
if a suicide attack now takes place inside Israel, the
right-wing will surely put the blame on the court.
Actually, something similar has already happened.
Only a few minutes after the court decision was read
out, Colonel (res.) Danny Tirzeh, the skull-capped
officer with responsibility at the Ministry of Defense for
the building of the wall, said that the court's decision
will cause Jews to be murdered. The man was not fired
on the spot, God forbid, but only rebuked by his
minister.
Ariel Sharon may well be satisfied with the court's
decision. True, the path of the wall will have to be
planned anew, costing more money and time.
But in a week the International Court of Justice in
The Hague will deliver its decision on the wall and the
matter will return to the UN. There the Israeli and
American representatives will argue that the Israeli
court has already rectified the inequities that needed to
be addressed.
In A-Ram and the other suburbs of Jerusalem, too, the
path will have to be changed. I hope that it will be
removed from the highway where we were
demonstrating last Saturday. I have inhaled enough
gas to last me a while.
gush-shalom.org |
