NAZARETH, ISRAEL // Nearly 600 Israelis have signed up for a campaign
of civil disobedience, vowing to risk jail to smuggle Palestinian
women and children into Israel for a brief taste of life outside the
occupied West Bank.
The Israelis say they have been inspired by the example of Ilana
Hammerman, a writer who is threatened with prosecution after
publishing an article in which she admitted breaking the law to bring
three Palestinian teenagers into Israel for a day out.
Ms Hammerman said she wanted to give the young women, who had never
left the West Bank, “some fun” and a chance to see the Mediterranean
for the first time.
Her story has shocked many Israelis and led to a police investigation
after right-wing groups called for her to be tried for security
offences.
It is illegal to transport Palestinians through checkpoints into
Israel without a permit, which few can obtain. If tried and found
guilty, Ms Hammerman could be fined and face up to two years in jail.
But Israelis joining the campaign say they will not be put off by
threats of imprisonment.
Last month, a group of 11 Israeli women joined Ms Hammerman in
repeating her act of civil disobedience, driving a dozen Palestinian
women and four children, including a baby, through a checkpoint into
Israel.
The Israeli women say they are planning mass “smugglings” of
Palestinians into Israel over the coming weeks.
“The Palestinians who join us are mainly looking to have a good time
after years of confinement under the occupation, but for us what is
most important is our act of defiance,” said Ofra Lyth, who helped
establish an online forum of supporters after attending a speech by Ms
Hammerman.
“We want to overturn this immoral law that gives rights to Jews to
move freely around while keeping Palestinians imprisoned in their
towns and villages,” she said, referring to regulations that bar most
Palestinians in the occupied territories from entering Israel, and
Israelis from assisting them. Exceptions are made for Palestinians
with permits, sometimes issued for a medical emergency or to some
labourers with security clearances.
For the Palestinian women, though, it is not about making a statement
or defying an unjust law, according to Ms Lyth.
“The Palestinian women tell us: ‘Go ahead and make your political
point, but for us we’re breaking the law so that we can enjoy
ourselves and remember how life was before the checkpoints and the
wall.’ One woman told me: ‘I just want to be able to breathe again’.”
For Palestinians in the West Bank, it is not often easy to breathe.
The territory is home to a growing population of 300,000 Jews in more
than 100 settlements. The settlers are able to drive into Israel on
roads that the army oversees with checkpoints.
It was through one such settler crossing, near Beitar Ilit, south of
Jerusalem, that Ms Hammerman took the three Palestinian teenagers this
year.
For their protection, she has not identifed the young women or the
West Bank village where they live. She refers to the women as Aya, Lin
and Yasmin. They, too, could face jail for breaking the law.
In Ms Hammerman’s article, published in Haaretz newspaper in May, she
admitted that she was aware her actions were illegal.
She told the women, who were 18 and 19, to take off their hijabs for
the day and dress in western-style clothes to avoid attracting
attention from soldiers at the checkpoint. She also taught them an
easy Hebrew phrase Hakull beseder, or “Everything is okay” – in case a
soldier spoke to them.
She then took them on a tour of Tel Aviv, visiting the city’s
university, a museum, a shopping mall and the beach, which she noted
none of them had ever seen even though it is only about 40km from
their village.
Ms Hammerman wrote that the only dangerous moment during the trip was
when a plain-clothes policeman stopped them and asked for the women’s
identity cards. Ms Hammerman lied to the officer, telling him that the
women were Palestinians from East Jerusalem and therefore entitled to
enter Israel.
In June, Yehuda Weinstein, the attorney general, was reported to have
approved a police investigation of Ms Hammerman after a settler
organisation, the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, complained.
The ranks of Ms Hammerman’s supporters have swollen since the group
placed an advertisement, titled “We refuse to obey”, in Haaretz this
month. The ad said the group was “acting in the spirit of Martin
Luther King”, the US civil rights leader, and demanded that
Palestinians be treated as “human beings, not terrorists”.
Over the past week, the online forum has attracted more than 590
Israelis signing up to repeat Ms Hammerman’s act of civil
disobedience.
“That has really surprised and encouraged me,” she said. “I did not
realise there were so many other Israelis who have had enough of this
outrageous law.”
Still, the coverage of Ms Hammerman and her supporters in the Israeli
media has been largely hostile. During a television interview last
week, she was accused of endangering Israelis with her trips. The
show’s host, Yaron London, asked whether she had inspected the
Palestinian women’s underclothes for explosives before allowing them
into her car.
She will will not be deterred, though. She said the group had
discussed future trips for Palestinians, including taking them to pray
at al-Aqsa, the mosque in Jerusalem that has been inaccessible to most
Palestinians for at least a decade, and visits to Palestinian
relatives they cannot see in Jerusalem and Israel.
“We need to get Israelis meeting Palestinians again, having fun with
them and seeing that they are human beings with the same rights as
us.”
She said her immediate goal was to kick-start a discussion among
Israelis about the legality and morality of Israel’s laws and
challenge the public’s “blind obedience” to authority.
Ms Lyth added that the Palestinian women “who have gone on our trips
are the heroes of their village. They and their families know they are
taking a big risk in breaking the law, but harassment is part of their
daily lives anyway”.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
Israelis risk jail to smuggle Palestinians
Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent
Last Updated: August 24. 2010 12:40AM UAE / August 23. 2010 8:40PM GMT
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