Abducted From Their Homeland by Nazi Mustarebeen

A member of Israel’s undercover Mustarebeen arrests a Palestinian demonstrator near the Jewish West Bank settlement of Beit El, outside Ramallah, during protests against Israel’s “security measures” at the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, July 28, 2017. (ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs,October 2017, pp. 12-13

Special Report

By Kate Daher

For this article, unfortunately, I’m compelled to omit the names of those I am writing about in order to protect the innocent from retribution—that is, the Palestinians who will suffer further under Israel’s notorious collective punishment policy if the injured com-plain too loudly.

AS WE BATHED in the light of a stunning blue moon at Wadi Rum in Jordan, my traveling companion and I were unaware that, at almost that very hour, Israeli settlers were burning to death a Palestinian baby boy in the village of Duma—not far from another Palestinian village in the West Bank we had left just a few days earlier, after visiting a friend’s family and siblings. The Dawabsheh family was being tortured and torched by settlers who had graffitied their small house with the word, “REVENGE.” The settlers proceeded to throw firebombs into the open windows of the sleeping family’s home, killing 18-month-old Ali, his father, Saad, and his mother, Riham. (See September 2015 Washington Report, p. 11.) To this day, Israel refuses to compensate Ahmad Dawabsheh, a 4-year-old toddler at the time, who was badly burned and barely survived this unforgettable brutality.

Nor did I think I would meet my friend’s family again, but two years later I am sitting on his deck with his visiting parents, whom I first met in that village near Duma when I spent an afternoon eating lunch in their home and touring their village. Tonight, as my friend translates, his father is smoking a tobacco-filled hookah pipe while his mother serves tea with fresh mint.

Much has changed for them since our first meeting in the summer of 2015.

Now, their 17-year-old son is in an Israeli prison, while their 27-year-old son is being held in a different prison inside Israel. In the fall of 2015—just two months after our visit—their younger son was playing with a friend on his mother’s iPad in the family store when the Internet suddenly went out. The boys thought this might be another electrical blackout, since this occurs frequently in the occupied Palestinian territories. Instead, three men with guns drawn stormed the building and forced the two young men into a back room, threatening to kill them if they made any noise. What the boys didn’t realize was that parked outside was a minibus used to haul Palestinians away from their homes and into Israeli prisons. The unmarked vans are used by Israeli special forces, who are backed by the Israeli army, and bear white Palestinian license plates, instead of the yellow ones reserved for Israelis. The special forces are called “Mustarebeen” in Arabic, “Duvdevan” in Hebrew, or “Arabized” in English—meaning “they look like Arabs.” This enables them to move more freely in the land they occupy and where they do not belong.

That day in Palestine, the special forces unit kidnapped the teenagers and beat them in the back of the van. When the older son discovered the destruction and damage to his shop, he assumed a robbery had taken place, since multiple items were missing (and never returned). He quickly gathered some friends and drove to the outskirts of the village to look for his younger brother. Soon enough, they came upon the security van. When the elder son jumped out of his car, he was immediately fired upon: 10 shots, 4 of which penetrated his body. The parents had no idea this was happening until some time later.

VIOLATING­ INTERNATIONAL LAW

Arresting Palestinians in the West Bank and transporting them to Israel is a violation of international law. According to an article in the April 26 Washington Post, “approximately 40 percent of Palestinian males have been arrested or detained at some time.” In the words of Amnesty International, “Israel’s decades-long policy of detaining Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza, in prisons inside Israel, and depriving them of regular family visits is not only cruel but also a blatant violation of international law…”

Indeed, the trip to visit family members in prison is its own special nightmare—a long, arduous, and often unsuccessful, process. Israeli authorities frequently deny families a visitation permit—the first step in the process. Family visitation rights were at the heart of the recent 40-day hunger strike led by Palestinian political prisoner Marwan Barghouti.

Another issue in the strike was the use of vehicles called Postas to take prisoners from the prisons to their military court hearings. Unlike their Israeli settler “neighbors,” Palestinians living in the occupied territories are not entitled to civil trials. The Posta features small metal cells that increase the hand- and foot-cuffed prisoners’ pain and bruising when they are tossed around in the back of the vehicle (similar to the way Freddie Gray suffered during his fatal ride in a Baltimore police van). In the early days of his imprisonment, the elder brother missed scheduled court hearings, where his parents might see him, for fear that his injuries would worsen if he was transported in this vehicle. “A rough ride,” as his father described it.

In the case of my friend’s family, because his brothers are held in separate prisons, their parents are required to travel on different days, doubling the arduous process: applying for permits, leaving at 4 a.m. to catch the bus, passing through Israeli military checkpoints—and with no guarantee that they will see their son. Many visiting family members are denied entrance at the prison gate, without explanation.

To date, the older son remains in critical need of medical attention as a result of his gunshot wounds. On at least two occasions, the prison authorities scheduled his surgery on the same day they scheduled his parental visits—undoubtedly another use of collective punishment. Forced to choose between visiting with his parents and taking care of his own health, he chooses to see his parents.

Traveling by bus between Bethlehem and Jerusalem during my last visit, I witnessed a similar event, though under less severe conditions. At one point, the bus was stopped by Israeli security, and all the Palestinian passengers were required to get off and show their papers to the soldiers at the checkpoint. The rest of us remained on the bus and waited quietly. I watched as each Palestinian obeyed the order to hand over their passbooks, and was surprised to see that one elderly woman was not getting back on the bus. I asked the other passengers what was happening, and they explained that she was detained because “there was a small tear in her passbook.” The guards did not remove her belongings, including her purse, from the bus. They remained on an empty seat near mine as the bus drove away. She stood outside, her back straight, hands folded in front of her. The silence on the bus was deafening. When I realized that something was terribly wrong, I quickly snapped her photo.

All the sorrow, anguish and humiliation of several decades of occupation were visible on her pained face as she stood on the side of the road.

As I continued our conversation with my friend’s parents back here in the States, I asked about the crimes allegedly committed by their sons. It seems that someone had fired a weapon close to an Israeli settlement, and, while no one was injured, several young people were made to appear in front of military courts and then sentenced to prison terms.

Genuinely surprised by my question, “what was their crime?” the father took a minute to respond. “Their crime,” he said, “is that they love their country.”