On the afternoon of Sunday, December 11, 2005, Mohammed Hamadan of Umm Tuba, near Jerusalem, spotted a mare mule galloping toward the village houses. When she drew near, he was horrified to discover that she was dragging Mahmoud Shawara, an acquaintence from the neighboring village of Nuaman, with his head bashed in. The unconscious Shawara was tied to the mule's neck by his left hand.
He died five days later at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem. His family filed a complaint alleging that Border Police officers, who had arrested Shawara in the morning on the grounds that he was illegally inside Jerusalem's jurisdiction, caused his death by tying him to the mule and making her bolt. The Police Investigations Department (PID) at the Justice Ministry claimed that Shawara died in an accident: He bound himself to the mule, because she was wild, and could not free himself after she threw him off while galloping between Nuaman and Umm Tuba.
Gideon Levy brought the story of Shawara's death (Haaretz, December 23, 2005), and left it to readers to decide whom to believe: the claims of the family, which provided supporting evidence from other cases in which Border Police officers had tied Palestinians to their animals as punishment or deterrence; or the version of the State of Israel's sanctioned authority, which after a review and investigation ruled that the unfortunate Shawara had brought death upon himself.
The military reporters and reporters covering the territories also left the public wondering this past weekend: Should they believe the prime minister, defense minister, foreign minister, chief of staff and Major General Meir Klifi regarding the circumstances in which the seven members of the Ghalia family were killed on the Gaza beach, or the version maintained by Human Rights Watch and Palestinian witnesses?
Whereas the Israel Defense Forces claims, after an ostensibly meticulous examination, that the family could not possibly have been hit by fire from its troops, Palestinians - among them doctors at the hospital in Gaza, the ambulance driver who evacuated the wounded and witnesses who were at the scene of the explosion - present evidence that seemingly refutes Israel's version (as Shlomi Eldar's Channel 10 report Friday night showed). In addition, there is the testimony of Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, who has in his possession a fragment of a 155-millimeter shell of the type the IDF was firing during the incident in question (Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel, Haaretz, June 15, 2006).
Describing the discrepancy between the versions of the state authorities and the victims of its operations as one that leaves the Israeli public wondering - is an understatement. Many Israelis actually believe the Palestinians, or those who speak for them, and not because they are consumed with self-hatred. They have regrettable precedents: abuse of Palestinians that is initially denied until clear-cut evidence discredits the denials (testimony from "soldiers breaking the code of silence"); deaths of foreign human rights activists, which the state authorities ignore until international pressure compels them to investigate the circumstances in depth (the case of Tom Hurndall); bogus descriptions of how innocent people were killed during assassinations from the air (the Salah Shehada hit); false accusations against international bodies (the claims that UNRWA had helped transport a Qassam rocket while photos proved it was a stretcher); incorrect data regarding the status of built-up areas that had been designated targets for shelling (populated homes in Rafah, May 2004); internal IDF and police inquiries whose conclusions were refuted or required double-checking (the PID on the responsibility of policemen for the killing of Israeli Arab citizens in the October 2000 riots; the IDF on Captain R.'s behavior in the confirmed-kill case of the girl Iman al-Hams); the accepted tradition in the defense establishment to wrap political and settlement-related moves in sham security arguments (just this past Thursday the High Court of Justice ruled that the IDF had misled it in describing the reasons for determining the route of the separation fence in the vicinity of the settlement Tzofin).
The state authorities, including the defense establishment and its branches, have acquired for themselves a shady reputation when it comes to their credibility. Do not be surprised, therefore, when not only the international community but also the citizens of Israel do not believe their versions - until proven otherwise.
Lies of the land
Meron Rapoport
Haaretz
June 25, 2006
From the gate in the separation fence between Qalqilyah and the settlement of Tzofin, the High Court of Justice seemed like a mirage, a summer hallucination born of the hot, heavy haze of noon. We arrived at the gate last Tuesday with Jalal Khalif, the council head of the nearby village of Nebi Elias, and what was more important from the point of view of the soldiers, the holder of a permit - no. 1,093 - from the Civil Administration allowing him to cross his fields through precisely this gate, between the hours of 5 A.M. and 7 P.M. The permit is valid until December 31, 2007. But all these details and numbers were of no interest to the soldiers.
"You can't cross here," one of the two soldiers said.
"But this is the only way I can get to my fields," Khalif protested.
"You are not going through here and that's that," the soldier replied.
Khalif, who has experience with these kind of confrontations, moved aside without arguing. "You see," he said to me, "even with a permit they don't let us through."
I asked the soldier how Khalif was supposed to get to his land - 240 dunams of olive trees that belong to him and his family. "He can go from there," said the soldier, pointing to the east. "They can enter from the gates there." (Later we went there but found that there are no gates "there" and the only remaining gate was tightly closed and buried under a pile of thorns.)
"But he has a permit to enter from this gate," I told the soldier. "And the High Court of Justice also issued an order that the entire fence in this area be brought down because it is not legal."
"Does that really seem so, to you?" asked the second soldier at the roadblock, in a disparaging tone.
A third soldier, who was standing in the lookout tower, directed his gun for good measure in the direction of the photographer who was accompanying us, Nir Keidar. He was not pleased with the fact that we stood our ground. Truth to tell, Khalif also did not believe the High Court would remove this fence, which has already separated the residents of Nebi Elias and the nearby township of Azun from more than 1,000 dunams of agricultural land that belongs to them, for more than three years.
"When I saw the tractors approaching our trees," Khalif says, recalling the building of the fence almost four years ago, "I thought to myself 'Hallas al-ard,' our land is gone, we won't see it again." When he and the head of the Azun local council, Ikhsan Hussein, appealed to the court with the assistance of Moked-Center for the Defense of the Individual and attorney Michael Sfard, to dismantle this part of the fence, Khalif says he did not pin any hopes on the outcome. "I said to myself that an Israeli would not rule against another Israeli. But I didn't realize how strong the court is here. Even the court in The Hague could not have given me back my land. An Israeli court can. Only an Israeli can order another Israeli."
That is precisely what happened. One Israeli - in this case the court - ordered another Israeli, the Defense Ministry, to pull down part of the fence running along some 10 kilometers in the vicinity of Azun and Nebi Elias east of Qalqilyah. The High Court did not merely order the Defense Ministry to pull down the fence; it was very angry. "A grave affair," the court said of the ministry's actions, "that cannot be tolerated."
Supreme Court President Aharon Barak wrote: "The information provided to the court did not reflect all the considerations before the decision-makers... We hope this will not be repeated." The language was legalistic but no one could mistake the gravity of its tone; in everyday language, Barak accused the ministry of lying. The court's anger is clear also from its order that the state pay NIS 50,000 in court costs to the plaintiffs - a rare occurrence in cases such as these.
The story dates back to September 2002. At that time, the Israel Defense Forces issued orders confiscating land for the first phase of the separation fence. The residents of Azun and Nebi Elias petitioned the High Court of Justice in Jerusalem to cancel the orders. They claimed the fence would prevent them from working on their land, which would be on the other side of the planned barrier. We have no choice, the state responded, basing its statements on affidavits from the Defense Ministry. "The security consideration was the central consideration in choosing the [fence's] route," the ministry explained. The IDF also promised the Palestinian farmers would be able to continue farming their land that was beyond the fence. In October 2002, the residents' petition was rejected and less than a year later, a fence separated them from their land.
The farmers of Azun and Nebi Elias, just like the Palestinian farmers along all completed sections of the fence, were able to reach their land with as "little" trouble as that faced by Khalif this week. Many did not receive permits at all to pass through the few gates built in the fence, and those who did receive permits, often found the gates closed. And if the gates were open, their passage was dependent on the whims of the soldiers on duty. During the olive harvesting period, in large part due to pressure from the media, on the whole, the farmers were allowed to get to their trees. During the rest of the year - not really.
In the olive groves belonging to the residents of Nebi Elias - which we reached eventually after the IDF spokesman intervened - there were thorns a meter high. But it was not the thorns in Jalal Khalif's olive groves that bothered the High Court. The court was concerned about other issues raised in the new petition submitted by the residents of Azun and Nebi Elias about a year ago, via attorney Michael Sfard.
Relying on a report drawn up by two human rights organizations, Bimkom and B'Tselem, Sfard claimed the considerations that guided the defense establishment when fixing the route of the fence in this area were not "operational-security considerations" as the state had claimed in its response to the High Court. The central consideration, Sfard said, was the desire to take care of the future expansion of Tzofin, a not very large settlement sitting on a hill east of Qaliqilyah. This claim was based largely on a copy of the Tzofin master plan 149/5.
According to the plan, which was never submitted to the building and construction committee and therefore has no legal validity, an industrial zone is supposed to be set up at a distance of three kilometers from the homes on the eastern side of the existing settlement. The borders of this industrial zone follow exactly the route of the fence. It was clear this was not a coincidence. Those planning the fence wanted to ensure the settlement could continue to expand. There were no considerations of security there.
What enraged the High Court justices was that, in its response in 2002, the state did not make any mention of the industrial zone. In the 25 pages on which the response is written, there is talk of suicide bombings, which were then at their peak, about the "hill that commands a view of route 55," of the need for space for maneuvering and chasing attackers, about "moving away from areas that are closely built up," but not a word about the need to expand the settlement of Tzofin.
Only in the state's response to the new petition, three years later, did it suddenly admit this was the real story. "Indeed, in the south-eastern part of the settlement [Tzofin] there is a small section where one of the considerations for setting it up was the existence of a plan which is still in the approval stages," the state wrote in its response in 2005. "Were this part of the barrier being planned today, the planning would be somewhat different."
Later the state informed the court that the Defense Ministry was prepared to dismantle the fence in its present form and find a new route, no less security-oriented than the former, that would leave the planned industrial zone outside the fence. The Palestinians would be able to return to their land without Israeli security being endangered in any way. This "small" correction - we learn from the affidavit presented by the Defense Ministry - will cost the taxpayer close to NIS 90 million, including the dismantling of the old fence and the building of the new one.
The IDF spokesman said in response that "the defense establishment attaches supreme importance to credibility and in particular to the veracity of details it submits during legal processes. Therefore, as soon as it transpired that in the first petition of 2002 the court had not received a full picture, a notice was sent to the court. In order to ensure that such a thing does not happen again, and in order to examine whether there is a need to take steps in view of this incident, a check is being carried out inside the IDF and defense establishment to determine what steps were taken that led to authorizing the route of the fence close to Tzofin."
The state's first response to the High Court - the response that angered the justices - was based on an affidavit from Colonel Danny Tirza. At that time, Tirza was part of the Central Command and his title was head of strategic planning for the route of the fence. Today he is a reserves officer and is defined as an adviser to the defense minister. The title that really fits him is "Mr Fence." Tirza, who is a resident of the Kfar Adumim settlement, was involved with the fence from the start. He was in fact Ariel Sharon's man for fence affairs and worked directly with him.
Formally speaking, the IDF was responsible for fixing the route of the fence and the Defense Ministry was responsible for building it. In effect, the fence looks the way it does, to a large extent, because of Tirza.
During any visit to the area, whether with Palestinian residents or visitors from abroad, Tirza could be seen. It is difficult to describe his appearances as a success story. The failures began two years ago, with a petition submitted by the residents of Beit Suriq near Jerusalem. The principle of the route of the fence the Defense Ministry began building in that region was simple: as much land as possible for Israel, with as few Palestinians as possible on it.
It is an "avaricious" line, says Colonel (Res.) Shaul Arieli, Tirza's former commander in the Peace Authority set up under Yitzhak Rabin's government and today in charge of the maps of the Geneva Initiative, an Israeli-Palestinian blueprint for peace. The High Court disqualified the route of the fence because it found the harm it caused to the Palestinian residents was "out of proportion." Speaking on TV, Tirza said at the time that "this is a black day for the state. The decision of the High Court of Justice is a critical mistake and we shall pay for it with human lives." He was reprimanded for the remark but remained in his position.
In recent times, the failures have come one after the other. A few months ago, the High Court decided to order the dismantling of the fence around Alfei Menashe, which was set up at the same time as that near Azun, and to order that it be replaced by a new "narrower" fence. Here, too, during the deliberations it transpired the fence was expanded out of consideration for future development plans, that had not been approved, of the settlement.
According to a document presented by Netzah Mashiah, who is responsible for the fence project in the Defense Ministry, the cost of building a new fence and dismantling the previous one is some NIS 190 million.
If we take into account also the replanning of the route after the court ruling on Beit Suriq, the cost of "fixing" the fence is at least half a billion shekels, including Azun. This is before the discussions on the route at Bil'in and around Ma'aleh Adumim where the defense establishment is planning a 60-square-kilometer enclave that includes, by chance of course, the settlement of Kfar Adumim where Tirza lives, and other places.
"The state of Israel has thrown away hundreds of millions of shekels as a result of its greediness for Palestinian land that do not contribute to its needs," Arieli says. Tirza, he says, played a large part in this process. "He was not the one who approved it, but he was very central. His strength stemmed from the backing he received from Ariel Sharon. His ideology and his connections with the settlers made it possible for him to apply all Sharon's caprices, with his avaricious approach.
"He used to show the officers what Sharon wanted. His policies meshed so well with his positions that he allowed himself to call the 200 generals and top brass who belong to the Council for Peace and Security, 'collaborators,' simply because they opposed his route for the fence."
Arieli says he knew from the start that the reasons given the High Court of justice were not the real reasons: "I am familiar with the master plan for Tzofin; I was in the army when it was drawn up. And I saw Tirza telling the court that the considerations were security considerations when I knew he knew the route followed the master plan for the industrial zone."
Amos Yaron is horrified when he hears the attacks on Tirza. Yaron, who was director general of the Defense Ministry until a few months ago, views the fence project as a source of pride. "To take Danny Tirza and make him into a scapegoat is simply an impertinence," he says. [Tirza and the other planners] did not decide on the final route for the fence. They simply made recommendations and their superiors had the final word.
Tirza was not interviewed personally for the article. He is still considered a Defense Ministry official; it is not clear for how long. There were media reports this week that Amir Peretz has decided to fire him in the wake of the partial affidavit he presented to the High Court. Sources in the Defense Ministry say the decision whether or not to dismiss him has not yet been taken.
The same sources say Peretz requested that the ministry director general and the legal adviser to the ministry examine all the affidavits submitted by Tirza in the past about the fence. When the examination is completed, a decision will be taken about his future.
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