[Ppnews] Israel's War on Children - 1,500 Arrested in a Year

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/cook12132010.html

December 13, 2010


1,500 Arrested in a Year


Israel's War on Children

By JONATHAN COOK

Israeli police have been criticised over their 
treatment of hundreds of Palestinian children, 
some as young as seven, arrested and interrogated 
on suspicion of stone-throwing in East Jerusalem.

In the past year, criminal investigations have 
been opened against more than 1,200 Palestinian 
minors in Jerusalem on stone-throwing charges, 
according to police statistics gathered by the 
Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). 
That was nearly twice the number of children 
arrested last year in the much larger Palestinian territory of the West Bank.

Most of the arrests have occurred in the Silwan 
district, close to Jerusalem's Old City, where 
350 extremist Jewish settlers have set up several 
heavily guarded illegal enclaves among 50,000 Palestinian residents.

Late last month, in a sign of growing anger at 
the arrests, a large crowd in Silwan was reported 
to have prevented police from arresting Adam 
Rishek, a seven-year-old accused of 
stone-throwing. His parents later filed a 
complaint claiming he had been beaten by the officers.

Tensions between residents and settlers have been 
rising steadily since the Jerusalem municipality 
unveiled a plan in February to demolish dozens of 
Palestinian homes in the Bustan neighbourhood to 
expand a Biblically-themed archeological park run 
by Elad, a settler organisation.

The plan is currently on hold following US 
pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.

Fakhri Abu Diab, a local community leader, warned 
that the regular clashes between Silwan's youths 
and the settlers, termed a "stone intifada" by 
some, could trigger a full-blown Palestinian uprising.

"Our children are being sacrificed for the sake 
of the settlers' goal to take over our community," he said.

In a recent report, entitled Unsafe Space, ACRI 
concluded that, in the purge on stone-throwing, 
the police were riding roughshod over children's 
legal rights and leaving many minors with profound emotional traumas.

Testimonies collected by the rights groups reveal 
a pattern of children being arrested in 
late-night raids, handcuffed and interrogated for 
hours without either a parent or lawyer being 
present. In many cases, the children have 
reported physical violence or threats.

Last month 60 Israeli childcare and legal 
experts, including Yehudit Karp, a former deputy 
attorney-general, wrote to Mr Netanyahu condemning the police behaviour.

"Particularly troubling," they wrote, "are 
testimonies of children under the age of 12, the 
minimal age set by the law for criminal 
liability, who were taken in for questioning, and 
who were not spared rough and abusive interrogation."

Unlike in the West Bank, which is governed by 
military law, children in East Jerusalem 
suspected of stone-throwing are supposed to be 
dealt with according to Israeli criminal law.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem following the 
Six-Day war of 1967, in violation of 
international law, and its 250,000 Palestinian 
inhabitants are treated as permanent Israeli residents.

Minors, defined as anyone under 18, should be 
questioned by specially trained officers and only 
during daylight hours. The children must be able 
to consult with a lawyer and a parent should be present.

Ronit Sela, a spokeswoman for the Association of 
Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), said her 
organisation had been "shocked" at the large 
number of children arrested in East Jerusalem in 
recent months, often by units of undercover policemen.

"We have heard many testimonies from children who 
describe terrifying experiences of violence 
during both their arrest and their later interrogation."

Muslim, 10, lives in the Bustan neighbourhood and 
in a house that Israeli authorities have ordered 
demolished. His case was included in the ACRI 
report, and in an interview he said he had been 
arrested four times this year, even though he was 
under the age of criminal responsibility. On the 
last occasion, in October, he was grabbed from 
the street by three plain-clothes policemen who jumped out a van.

"One of the men grabbed me from behind and 
started choking me. The second grabbed my shirt 
and tore it from the back, and the third twisted 
my hands behind my back and tied them with 
plastic cords. 'Who threw stones?' one of them 
asked me. 'I don't know,' I said. He started 
hitting me on the head and I shouted in pain."

Muslim was taken into custody and released six 
hours later. A local doctor reported that the boy 
had bleeding wounds to his knees and swelling on several parts of his body.

Muslim's father, who has two sons in prison, said 
the boy was waking with nightmares and could no 
longer concentrate on his school studies. "He has been devastated by this."

Ms Sela said arrests had risen sharply in Silwan 
since September, when a private security guard at 
a settler compound shot dead a Palestinian man, 
Samer Sirhan, and injured two others.

Clashes between the settlers and Silwan youths 
came to prominence in October when David Beeri, 
director of settler organisation Elad, was shown 
on camera driving into two boys as they threw stones at his car.

One, Amran Mansour, 12, who was thrown over the 
bonnet of Mr Beeri's car, was arrested shortly 
afterwards in a late-night raid on his family's home.

Also in October, nine rightwing Israeli MPs 
complained after stones were thrown at their 
minibus as they paid a solidarity visit to Beit 
Yonatan, a large settler-controlled house in 
Silwan. Israel's courts have ordered that the 
house be demolished, but Jerusalem's mayor, Nir 
Barkat, has refused to enforce the order.

In the wake of the attack, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, 
the public security minister, warned: "We will 
stop the stone-throwing through the use of covert 
and overt force, and bring back quiet."

Last month police announced that house arrests 
would be used against children more regularly and 
financial penalties of up to $1,400 would be imposed on parents.

B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, reported 
the case of "A.S.", a 12-year-old taken for 
interrogation following an arrest at 3am.

"I sat on my knees facing the wall. Every time I 
moved, a man in civilian clothes hit me with his 
hand on my neck 
 The man asked me to prostrate 
myself on the floor and ask his forgiveness, but 
I refused and told him that I do not bow to 
anyone but Allah. All the while, I felt intense 
pain in my feet and legs. I felt intense fear and I started shaking."

In a statement B'Tselem said: "It is hard to 
believe that the security forces would have acted 
similarly against Jewish minors."

Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, denied that 
the police had violated the children's rights. He 
added: "It is the responsibility of parents to 
stop this criminal behavior by their children."

Jawad Siyam, a local community activist in 
Silwan, said the goal of the arrests and the 
increased settler activity was to "make life 
unbearable and push us out of the area".

The 60 experts who wrote to Mr Netanyahu warned 
that the children's abuse led to "post-traumatic 
stress disorders, such as nightmares, insomnia, 
bed-wetting, and constant fear of policemen and 
soldiers". They also noted that children under 
extended house arrest were being denied the right to schooling.

Last year the United Nations Committee Against 
Torture expressed "deep concern" at Israel's 
treatment of Palestinian minors, saying Israel 
was breaking the UN Convention on the Rights of Children, which it has signed.

Over the past 12 months, Defence for Children 
International has provided the UN with details of 
more than 100 children who claim they were 
physically or psychologically abused while in military custody.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in 
Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are 
“<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745327540/counterpunchmaga>Israel 
and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and 
the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) 
and 
“<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1848130317/counterpunchmaga>Disappearing 
Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” 
(Zed Books). His website is <http://www.jkcook.net>www.jkcook.net.




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