More than 100 arrested at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, moved to Israeli prison

By Joseph Dana: +972 Magazine

More than 100 ‘Welcome to Palestine’ activists reportedly barred from entering Israel and will spend the weekend in detention facilities, while hundreds others banned from boarding flights; on Friday, bystanders jeer, assault Israeli activists as police look on.


Israeli activist Matan Cohen being detained by police at Ben Gurion airport (photo: Oren Ziv / activestills.org)

Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv – On one of the busiest travel days of the week, Ben Gurion International Airport just outside of Tel Aviv was in a state of near chaos this afternoon. Hordes of tourists mixed with hundreds of police officers and journalists in the grand arrival terminal as Israel prepared for the landing of hundreds of pro-Palestinian tourists attempting to travel to the West Bank. Last night, two pro-Palestinian American activists, who were also passengers on the US boat to Gaza, were detained by immigration authorities as they attempted to enter Israel. They were the first of reportedly hundreds activists who have been banned from entering the state of Israel in the last 24 hours. Hundreds of other tourists were not allowed to board their flights to Tel Aviv after Israeli security authorities sent their names to airlines such as Air France which were carrying suspect activists to Israel.

Several dozen activists arrived at Tel Aviv in the afternoon from Switzerland, London and Germany. Israel has moved the passengers to a different terminal, where they were interrogated by security forces. Later this evening, it was reported that more than one hundred passengers who declared their wish to visit the West Bank or were suspected to be pro-Palestinian will spend the weekend in detention facilities, before they are to be deported from Israel on Sunday.


Over the past week, Israeli media has been frantically reporting that hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists planned to arrive at Ben Gurion airport with clear intentions to visit the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Part of a Europe-based campaign, “Welcome to Palestine,” their political protest has been labelled the “air flotilla” or “flytilla” by the international press, despite organizers rejecting connections to the flotilla, which was recently stopped by the Greek coast guard from sailing to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli media, at the time of writing, is referring to the event as a “Gaza fly-in“ despite no proof or comment that passengers intend to travel to Gaza. In fact, the organizers have been clear in their desire to travel freely and openly to the West Bank and not Gaza.

Visitors to the West Bank usually hide their destination for fear of being deported from Israel, but participants of “Welcome to Palestine” decided to openly declare their wish to visit Palestinian towns and villages.


Israeli Policemen at Ben Gurion Aiport, June 8 2011 (photo: Oren Ziv / activestills.org)

This morning, hundreds of plain clothes and uniformed police scoured the Ben Gurion arrival hall in order to “establish calm” ahead of the arrival of the activists. By 13:00, Israeli and foreign journalists had taken over the arrival terminal as the first flights landed. At approximately 13:30, several Israeli activists belonging to the leftist group Anarchists against the Wall held up small signs reading “Welcome to Palestine.” Some protesters held up Palestinian flags before undercover and regular cops pounced on them and dragged them outside the terminal.




Several dozen people, who had been waiting in the terminal to pick up loved ones, began chanting, “Pieces of shit” and “Go to Syria” as the protesters were taken to waiting police vans. Some of the onlookers spit, kicked and punched the protesters while they were in police custody. Police officers did nothing to prevent these attacks.

At one point, Jerusalem Post columnist Larry Derfner was detained as he pleaded with the angry mob of onlookers to stop attacking the detained activists.

“You can’t enter the West Bank without military permission even as a tourist,” Prime Minister’s Office Arabic spokesman Ofir Gendelman remarked after the Israeli activists were arrested. His statement confirms Israel’s absolute military control over the West Bank. “These pro-Palestinian activists do not recognize the State of Israel and this is a clear provocation against us,” he continued in the buzzing terminal. When asked if passengers will be deported for stating intentions to travel to the West Bank as tourists, his response was dismissive: “We know that some of these passengers have connections with Hamas and this is unacceptable.”

Earlier this week, a media release by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office labeled the Welcome to Palestine campaign as “part of an ongoing attempt to undermine Israel’s right to exist.”

After the detained activists were driven away from the airport, police officers began inspecting the press credentials of all the journalists present. Two journalists, carrying valid Israeli government issued press cards, were asked to leave the airport and were escorted to the exit by armed soldiers. The journalists, both well-known leftists, believe that they were asked to leave the airport because of their political affiliations with prominent left-wing groups in Israel. You can read the account of one of the journalists in Hebrew. No other journalists were barred from covering the event.


Israeli journalist Haggai Matar expelled from Ben Gurion airport by police, June 8 2011 (photo: Oren Ziv / activestills)

It seems that some passengers have made it through the passport controls and are currently on their way to Bethlehem where there will be a large celebration marking their arrival this evening. Exact numbers of activists that successfully entered Israeli is unknown at this point. Israeli lawyers are at the airport working with the detained passengers.

This post has been updated. Noam Sheizaf contributed to this piece from Tel Aviv.

American Jewish activist, Lucas Koerner says "Not in my Name".

Dear friends,
no doubt may of you will have seen the footage already from the "Jerusalem Day" march by rightwing Israeli Zionists in Israel. The footage shoot by the Sheik Jarrah Movement, show the marchers chanting racist chants against Palestinians such as “let your village burn”, "butcher the Arabs", “death to Mohammad”, "I hate all Arabs" as well as “death to all leftist”. You can see the video here:



This annual march is little different to the Orangemen marches that took place in Northern Ireland. The pro-British Protestant Orangemen would deliberately march through the Catholic Republican neighbourhoods, The Orangemen march, like this march by Israeli Jewish Zionists, was all about the Occupier exerting their presence on an occupied people.

In the last few days other footage has emerged of a young Jewish American activist, who was arrested for standing on the sideline of the rightwing march. Lucas Koerner was violent arrested by the Israel police for peacefully demonstrating in solidarity with the Palestinian people and against Israel's occupation. You can watch footage of Lucas' arrest below in a video in which he explains why he is wearing a keffiyah, a kippah (traditional Jewish religious head covering for males), and Palestinian flag.
I have also included below Lucas' account of his arrest from his blog.

Lucas' treatment and arrest reminded me of a similar incident which took place in 2004, when I was with my Jewish team mates from IWPS, Kate and Hanah, who are two of the most amazing women I have the privilege of knowing. We had travelled into Occupied East Jerusalem from the West Bank to attend a counterdemonstration organised by Israeli leftists against a massive settler demo of 100,000 in opposition to Sharon's disengagement plan. In order to get from East Jerusalme to the counter-demo in West Jerusalem, we had to pass through the settler demonstration. Kate, never shy in hiding her convinctions, was wearing a "Jews for a Free Palestine" t-shirt. On our way back, we lost one of our newly arrived team mates in the crowd and so were standing to the side of the demonstration trying to ring and locate her. I noticed a number of people were quisically reading the slogan on Kate's t-shirt. Before we knew it an elderly American Jewish Zionist accosted Kate and Hannah and began screaming at them, calling them "dirty whores" and a range of other sexists names and raising his fist at them threatening to hit them. Kate and Hannah stood their ground and refused to be intimidated by the Zionist and his abuse. The man's behaviour was witnessed by uniformed Israeli police and Border Police but not one attempted to stop his violent behaviour towards a group of peaceful women.

After about 15 minutes, a young undercover Israeli police office made himself known to us and started to blame us for the disturbance. I had the presence of mid to challenge him saying "I thought Israel was suppose to be a democracy!". To my surprise, he was taken aback by this and then said sheepishly "yes". So I asked," then why are you letting this man threaten these women? You need to put a stop to it". Sheepisly and to my suprise he then went on tried to stop the American Zionist. However, the American Zionist's abuse was soon started again, after he saw me taking photographs and then it was my turn to be verbally abused and physically threatened. Kate and Hannah were now coping abuse from other settlers. Again the Israeli police and border guards stood by and watch and laughed. Eventually, they must have decided that they had enough fun and then came and stood five across in front of us and pushed us to about 500 metres away, despite the fact we had been completely peaceful and simply trying to locate a missing colleague. While they physically restrained us, they ignored the settlers who had been the ones who had acted violently. While we were lucky not to be on the receiving end of the treatment Lucas received but I recall at the end of the incident, all five of us were extremely upset and in tears after being verbally abused, threatened with mass physical abuse and manhandled.

I know for me it marked the "turning point" - up until that stage, I had taken everything I had witnessed in my stride. Given it was my first time witnessing the Occupation, I was surprised I had been able to deal with the preceeding 6 weeks so well. But the settler attack, marked my psychological breaking point. For the next week, I voluntarily withdraw from dealing directly with either soldiers or settlers, as I knew I would not be able to engage with them in a calm or rational manner, as I was too angry about what I had witnessnessed over the last weeks. IWPS has a rule, that any engagement with Occupation Forces or settlers must not escalate a situation further and must not make the situation worse for Palestinians. If at anytime our engagement is not able to meet this criteria, then we voluntarily step back and allow our other team mates to take the lead in dealing with the situation.

Please share Lucas' video and story with your networks

In solidarity, Kim

***
My Arrest by Lucas Koerner - 9th June 2011
http://strongerthanslavery.tumblr.com/



Returning from Hebron Wednesday afternoon, I glanced outside my window, only to see miles and miles of blue and white. Today was Jerusalem Day, and a parade of thousands marched through the streets celebrating, as if in an orgy of nationalistic fervor, the 44th anniversary of the Israeli conquest of East Jerusalem. What shocked me initially was how eerily monolithic the procession was: it seemed as though the ocean of Israeli flags was meant to blur all distinctions between old and young, boss and worker, women and men, settler and 48er. In light of the events of recent days, I sensed a strong political undertone beneath the cheers and yells of the ecstatic crowds. Coming on the heels of Netanyahu’s defiant speech before Congress, it appeared to me that the marchers streaming down Sultan Suleiman St. that evening sought to echo their PM’s bold remarks, that all of Jerusalem was “theirs” forever. Indeed, it seemed that this display of triumphal nostalgia concealed a deeper, far weaker emotion, a lurking fear of a future in which nothing between the river and the sea would be exclusively “theirs” but would have to be shared with the other.
After witnessing first hand, over the past week and a half, the many horrors the occupation has inflicted on the Palestinian people, my fellow delegates and I trembled with indignation at the chutzpah of these Israeli marchers as they boisterously paraded through East Jerusalem, brandishing their flags of conquest. Prompted by the traffic to walk the rest of the way to our hotel, we were inspired to launch an impromptu parade of our own. Donning our keffiyehs we had purchased at the Hebron Keffiyeh factory and our small Palestinian flags, we we’re met by spit, aluminum cans, and pure, unadulterated hatred. Police instantly set upon us, accosting me, demanding that I put away my 3 by 5 inch Palestinian flag. It was remarkable how so much as giving voice to the other, the “Arab”, the Palestinian, in 3 by 5 form in E. Jerusalem no less could ignite such visceral fear and hatred.

Upon returning to the Holy Land Hotel, my comrades (Haneen, Amanda, Peter, Lydia, Tammy & Tiffany) and I decided that we would go back to the parade merely to hang out and observe, this time without our small Palestinian flags. In order to avoid any provocations, we simply posted up on the side walk, and, still wearing our keffiyehs, we proceeded to wave and make peace sign gestures to the paraders, who marched on the other side of the street, separated from us by a high gate. The initial reaction of the marchers was a combination of shock and disbelief. I myself had elected to wear, along with my keffiyeh, a kippah adorned with a small Palestinian flag. This last article of clothing on my head contributed, I believe, more than anything else to the climate of collective bewilderment, especially among the youth. For them, Judaism and its physical symbol, the kippah, were inseparably bound up with the particular strain of ethno-religious nationalism associated with the state of Israel. It simply never occurred to them that a Jewish person would, in the name of Jewish ethics, stand in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom. I feel that it was precisely this cognitive dissonance on a societal level that formed the motivation for my arrest.

As we walked up and down the sidewalk, waving our peace signs, many Palestinians of all ages approached to join us. With twenty or thirty people now gathered on the sidewalk facing the parade, we turned over leadership of what had become a demonstration to Palestinian activists, and we happily clapped and danced to their songs and chants. Standing on two feet high pylons, we tried to maintain our visibility as internationals in order to confer as much protection as possible to the Palestinians. The demonstration remained totally peaceful - just singing, whistling, and clapping. In fact, much to the chagrin of the paraders, we often danced to their music. Many Palestinians, fascinated with my kippah, approached me and exclaimed, “I love you”. For a moment, a space was opened for Palestinians to freely gather in their own streets and protest, peacefully demanding their basic rights. We were soon to learn just how brief that moment would be.

Suddenly, the police moved in without warning of any kind. Officers on horseback came so close to the sidewalk, nearly hitting some of the demonstrators. I stepped down from the pylon. In that instant, my impulse to flee was counteracted by the firm realization that, standing on a sidewalk waving a peace sign, I had every right to be there, and if I fled, who would stand with the Palestinians? I stepped back up on the pylon. Moments later, an Israeli police officer ran up, seized me, and dragged me to the other side of the street. He then punched me in the face, put me in a choke hold, and with four other officers, slammed me to the ground. I was eventually handcuffed and carried to the car; I allowed my body to go limp and refused to walk on my own in a gesture of nonviolent defiance. Throughout the whole affair, the only thing audible coming from the policemen was a constant stream of curses words, “motherfucker”, “piece of shit”, etc., which was to me a ringing confirmation of how infuriated and threatened they were by a 19-year old wearing a kippah and a keffiyeh standing with the Palestinians.

To be continued in the next post: “In Israeli Jail”

Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak sentenced to 3 months in prison

Dear friends,

Prominent Israeli activist, Yonathan (Jonathan) Pollak has just been sentenced to 3 months prison for participating in a Critical Mass bicycle ride protest against Israel's 2008 all out assault on the people of Gaza.

Yonathan's arrest was politically motivated, as his lawyer Gaby Lasky has outlined.

Yonathan has been a leading activist involved in the the joint Palestinian-Israeli popular struggle against Israeli occupation and apartheid for a number of years. He is one of the founders of the Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall and active in the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC)

Please find below the media release issued by the PSCC on Yonathan's sentencing. Also included is Yonathan's speech to the court about his arrest and sentencing.

In solidarity,
Kim

***
Popular Struggle Coordinating Committee Press Release
Monday, 27 December 2010

Israeli Activist Jonathan Pollak Sentenced to 3 Months in Prison; Tells Judge "I'll Go to prison With my Head Held High"




Pollak in Court - photo courtesy of Active Stills

Pollak was sentenced to three months imprisonment this morning at the Tel Aviv Magistrates' Court for his participation in a 2008 bicycle in protest of the siege on Gaza. He will begin serving his sentence on Januray 11th.

Tel Aviv Magistrates court judge Yitzhak Yitzhak convicted Pollak of illegal assembly for his participation in a January 2008 Critical Mass ride against the siege on Gaza and then sentenced him to three months imprisonment that will begin on January 11th, 2011. Pollak was the only one detained at the said protest, and was accused of doing nothing other than riding his bicycle in the same manner as the rest of the protesters. The conviction activates an older three-month suspended sentence, imposed on Pollak in a previous trial for protesting the construction of the Separation Barrier. An additional three months prison term was also imposed for the current conviction, which will be served concurrently.

On his conviction, Pollak argued for his sentence, saying "I find myself unable to express remorse in this case [...]. If His Honor decides to go ahead and impose my suspended prison sentence, I will go to prison wholeheartedly and with my head held high. It will be the justice system itself, I believe, that ought to lower its eyes in the face of the suffering inflicted on Gaza's inhabitants, just like it lowers its eyes and averts its vision each and every day when faced with the realities of the occupation." See Pollak's full statement bellow.

For more details: Jonathan Pollak +972-54-632-7736



Pollak outside of court - photo courtesy of Active Stills

On January 31, 2008, some 30 protesters participated in a Critical Mass bicycle ride through the streets of Tel Aviv in protest of the siege on Gaza. During the protest, Pollak was arrested by plain-clothes police who recognized him from previous protests and because, as claimed in court, they assumed he was the organizer and figurehead of the event. The protest was allowed to continue undisturbed after Pollak's arrest and ended with no further incidents or detentions.

The arrest and consequent indictment appears to be the result of police vindictiveness, rather than of Pollak's behavior at the time of the event; Pollak was but one in a group of protesters who behaved exactly like him, yet he was the only one to be singled out. Moreover, environmental Critical Mass events take place in Tel Aviv on a regular basis, but have never been met with such a response. Other protests, which have caused far more sever obstruction of traffic (e.g. the motorcade protest of thousands of motorcycles) did not result in arrests, and surely did not lead to the filing of criminal charges and imprisonment.

Adv. Gaby Lasky, Pollak's lawyer: "The police not only singled out Pollak from a crowd of people who all did exactly as he did, but also singled out the entire protest for no reason other than its political alignment. Similar events regularly take place in Tel Aviv without police intervention, let alone arrests and indictments.”


Pollak at a demonstration in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Pollak's sentencing argument:
Your Honor, once found guilty, it is then customary for the accused to ask the court for leniency, and express remorse for having committed the offence. However, I find myself unable to do so. From its very beginning, this trial contained practically no disagreements over the facts. As the indictment states, I indeed rode my bicycle, alongside others, through the streets of Tel Aviv, to protest the siege on Gaza. And indeed, while riding our bicycles, which are legally vehicles belonging on the road, we may have slightly slowed down traffic. The sole and trivial disagreement in this entire case revolves around testimonies heard from police detectives, who claimed I played a leading role throughout the protest bicycle ride, something I, as well as the rest of the Defense witnesses, deny.

As said earlier, it is customary at this point of the proceedings to sound remorseful, and I would indeed like to voice my regrets regarding one particular aspect of that day's events: if there is remorse in my heart, it is that, just as I argued during the trial, I did not play a prominent role in the protest that day, and thus did not fulfill my duty to do everything within my power to change the unbearable situation of Gaza's inhabitants, and bring to an end Israel's control over the Palestinians.

His Honor has stated during the court case, and will most likely state again in the future, that a trial is not a matter of politics, but of law. To this I reply that there is hardly anything to this trial except political disagreement. This Court may have impeded the mounting of an appropriate defense when it refused to hear arguments regarding political selectiveness in the Police's conduct, but even from the testimonies which were admitted, it became clear such a selectiveness exists.

The subject of my alleged offense, as well as the motivation behind it were political. This is something that cannot be sidestepped. The State of Israel maintains an illegitimate, inhuman and illegal siege on the Gaza Strip, which still is occupied territory according to international law. This siege, carried out in my name and in yours as well, sir, in fact in all of our names, is a cruel collective punishment inflicted on ordinary citizens, residents of the Gaza strip, subjects-without-rights under Israeli occupation.

In the face of this reality, and as a stance against it, we chose on January 31st, 2008, to exercise the freedom of speech afforded to Jewish citizens of Israel. However, it appears that here in our one-of-many-faux-democracies in the Middle East, even this freedom is no longer freely granted, even to society's privileged sons.

I am not surprised by the Court's decision to convict me despite having no doubt in my mind that our actions on that day correspond to the most basic, elementary definitions of a person's right to protest.

Indeed, as the Prosecution pointed out, a suspended prison sentence hung over my head at the time of the bicycle protest, having been convicted before under an identical article of law. And, although I still maintain I did not commit any offense whatsoever, I was aware of the possibility that under Israeli justice, my suspended sentence would be imposed.

I must add that, if His Honor decides to go ahead and impose my suspended prison sentence, I will go to prison wholeheartedly and with my head held high. It will be the justice system itself, I believe, that ought to lower its eyes in the face of the suffering inflicted on Gaza's inhabitants, just like it lowers its eyes and averts its vision each and every day when faced with the realities of the occupation.

Israeli repression increases against non-violent grassroot activists

Free Mohammad Othman, Palestine’s first BDS Prisoner of Conscience!

Dear friends,
Mohammed Othman, Palestinian activist involved in the BDS campaign has been arrested by the Israeli state on his return from a trip to Norway.

Please find details of his arrest and what you can do to assist in the campaign to free him. Please take action where you can.

I have also included a link to a Podcast from the International Middle East Media Centre of an interview with Mohammed.

http://palcast.org/2009/09/904

In solidarity, Kim

***

Free Mohammad Othman,

Palestine’s first BDS Prisoner of Conscience!


Photo credit: Photos courtesy from Free Mohammad Othman

On Tuesday, September 22, Mohammad Othman (33 years old)—a Palestinian human rights activist and advocate of the non-violent civil society campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)—was arrested by Israeli authorities at the Allenby Crossing, the border terminal between Jordan and the occupied Palestinian territory. He was returning from a trip to Norway—where he had been promoting BDS—when he was detained, arrested and then moved to a prison where he is being held for a military hearing scheduled for next Tuesday.

While Mohammad is only one of the approximately 11,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and detention centers, he has become the first Palestinian to be imprisoned by Israel in response to BDS advocacy activity. With BDS campaigns around the world gaining momentum, Israel has increasingly come under pressure to comply with international law and respect Palestinian rights. It is precisely the spectacular rise in the effectiveness of the BDS campaign and its successes in the Western mainstream that seems to have prompted Israel to take such a draconian measure against a prominent and indefatigable BDS activist.

Mohammad has dedicated the last ten years of his life to the defense of Palestinian human rights. His village, Jayyous, in the occupied West Bank, has lost most of its fertile agricultural land to Israel’s illegal Wall and colonial settlements. He has campaigned with the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign against the dispossession of Palestinian farmers and has urged for mechanisms of accountability for Israeli violations of international law and human rights, based on the Palestinian call for BDS, issued on 9 July 2005, a year after the International Court of Justice at the Hague had found Israel’s Wall and colonies illegal.


Demonstration outside Israeli embassy in Norway demanding Mohammad's freedom
Photo credit: Photos courtesy from Free Mohammad Othman

Mohammad’s trips to Norway—during which he met with senior officials including Finance Minister Kristen Halvorsen—reflect the increasing international support for effective mechanisms of upholding international law and Palestinian rights. Norway’s state Pension Fund recently announced that it had divested from Elbit Systems, the Israeli company which provides both Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and other military technology for Occupation forces as well as security systems for the Wall and settlements. The decision came after representatives of the fund’s Ethics Council met with Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists, including Mohammad, who accompanied them on a tour of Jayyous and other West Bank villages affected by the Wall.

Since Israel’s illegal war of aggression on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009 that killed over 1400 people, predominantly civilians, the BDS movement has grown exponentially and gained wide support among conscientious individuals, unions and international civil society in general, as well as among some governments. In the last two weeks, more countries have followed Norway’s example. The Brazilian Parliament has expressed itself against the ratification of a Free Trade Agreement with Israel until a Palestinian state is established, and the government of Spain denied settlement-based Ariel University College permission to participate in a high profile academic architecture competition. With the BDS movement making significant gains worldwide, human rights defenders like Mohammad are likely to be increasingly targeted by the Israeli government in its efforts to evade accountability for its ongoing violations of international law.


Photo credit: Photos courtesy from Free Mohammad Othman


The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) calls on all those who support basic human rights, whether or not they endorse BDS, international solidarity groups and human rights organizations to act urgently to bring attention to this case and apply due pressure to achieve the immediate and unconditional release of Palestinian human rights activist Mohammad Othman.

It is crucial that the international community combat Israeli attempts to criminalize human rights activists adopting BDS or any other popular struggle aimed at ending violations of international law and upholding universal principles of human rights.

Recommended Actions:

* Encourage others to join this campaign through petitions, demonstrations and / or letter writing / phone calling. Please provide them with contact information and details;
* Urge your representatives at consular offices in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem/Ramallah to demand the immediate release of Mohammad Othman. (For your consular contacts, see: http://www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-in/Israel#11725);
* Let the Israeli Embassy in your country know that you are campaigning for Mohammad’s release and for a just and lasting peace based on international law.
* Bring the case of Palestine’s first BDS prisoner of conscience to the attention of local and national media outlets;
* Follow the blog and facebook to free Mohammad Othman to see the latest updates and action alerts.

Blog: freemohammadothman.wordpress.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=36429272741&ref=ts

For more information contact: freemohammad@bdsmovement.net