Israel Refusing to Help Palestinians Who May Face Death for Selling Land to Jews
Haaretz
examination finds that Israel denies Palestinians' request for asylum
or protection even when they have been sentenced to death in the
Palestinian Authority.
Sharon Pulwer and Gili Cohen |
More
than 95 percent of Palestinians who appeal for help from Israeli courts
or authorities because their lives are endangered, due to their
cooperation with Israel, are denied asylum or protection, Haaretz has
found.
In
a typical case, the High Court of Justice last week rejected a petition
from a West Bank Palestinian who sought protection because his life was
in danger. His community suspected he had cooperated with Israel and
had been involved in selling land to Jews.
Only
a few days earlier, Israeli leaders roundly condemned a left–wing
activist who said he had turned over to the Palestinan Authority Arabs
who had sold land to Jews and could, as a result, face death. The
leaders also denounced the Palestinian Authority for its brutal conduct.
The
activist, Ezra Nawi, was documented in the Uvda (“Fact”) TV program
boasting that he had turned over to the PA Palestinians who had sold
West Bank lands to Jews. Nawi said in the program that the land sellers
faced torture and death in the dungeons of the Palestinian Preventive
Security Force.
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “the expose was further testimony to
the PA’s brutality, that tortures and murders Palestinians whose ‘crime’
was selling lands to Jews.” Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said “under
guise of concern for human rights some [left–wing] activists engage in
inciting against Israel, spreading lies and as it transpires –
endangering the lives of Palestinian land sellers by exposing them to
the PA, hich imprisons them and even executes them.”
But
what happens when the same land sellers appeal to the Israeli
authorities for help, claiming that they are threatened in the PA
territories and ask for asylum?
Haaretz’s
examination finds that Israel denies the Palestinians’ request for
asylum or protection even when they have been sentenced to death in the
Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians who ask for help are suspected
not only of selling land – in some cases they are suspected of
cooperating with the Israeli authorities in other ways.
even
we, in our wildest imagination wouldn’t have thought the day would come
when the walls belonging to Jews would also sprout ears.
Left-wing
activist Ezra Nawi, who was recorded secretly by right-wingers saying
his actions led the Palestinian Authority to execute a Palestinian who
sold land to Jews, in Jerusalem, 2010.Credit: Emil Salman
A
committee of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the
Territories (COGAT), a unit in the Defense Ministry, meets once a month
to discuss requests of Palestinians who have asked Israel for help,
after their lives have been threatened for cooperating with Israel.
The
committee learns of requests for help only from the summary a COGAT
officer makes after questioning the Palestinians under threat. The
officer must clarify the factors behind the threats against the
applicant, what steps the Palestinian Authority has taken against him
and where he is staying – in Israel or in the West Bank. Then COGAT’s
regional coordination and liaison administration officer decides whether
the applicant will receive a permit to stay in Israel for a month,
until the committee deals with his request more thoroughly.
Even
if the committee decides that the applicant’s life is in danger, the
permit he receives does not allow him to work or entitle him to any
medical or other assistance.
Every
year the relevant team in the COGAT coordination administration
examines whether the Palestinian is still in danger, and if it decides
the danger has passed, the Palestinian is asked to return to the West
Bank.
Most
requests are denied. Haaretz found that in 2014 only three requests out
of 136 were granted. In 2015 nine out of 222 requests were granted.
Officially,
the committee deals with cases of Palestinians who claim they are
threatened following cooperation or suspected cooperation with Israel.
There is no uniform policy to deal with land sellers.
COGAT
replied to Haaretz’s query that the committee will not deal with
Palestinians who sold land to a private person at all, and only deals
with cases in which land was sold to a state institution, like the World
Zionist Organization or Jewish National Fund.
However,
it said that if a Palestinian asks for help, saying his life is in
danger for selling land to a private person and his claims are verified,
he would receive “temporary assistance,” although this would be an
exception.
Despite
COGAT’s assertion that private real estate deals are not within its
jurisdiction, Attorney Michael Teplow, who represents Palestinians in
such cases for more than 20 years, said that in requests by land traders
COGAT has never distinguished between private deals and sales to state
institutions.
“In
cases I have handled there were suspicions of cooperation with the
security forces, but they always involved land sales as well, so the
argument that they don’t handle private deals is new to me. It sounds
like part of a move to reduce authority, which has been happening in the
committee [dealing with threatened Palestinians] for years,” he said.
Attorney
Ronen Cohen, who deals with numerous petitions like this, said COGAT
has recently changed its policy. “Since September, four Palestinians I’m
representing were told that land sales isn’t within the committee’s
authority and it’s dealing only with those threatened for cooperation
with Israel. In the past they did deal with these cases. Saying that
land trade isn’t cooperation with Israel is simply groundless,” he
added.
Cohen
appealed to the High Court of Justice against the committee's decision
not to discuss the requests, and the state has yet to answer the appeal.
In a similar past petition, the prosecution put forward a document that
stated that the committee must deal with requests relating to land
trade. In 2014, as part of an appeal by a Palestinian who argued that
his life is in danger because of his sexual orientation in the West
Bank, the state enclosed a report submitted by an inter-ministerial team
headed by an official from the Prime Minister's Office that was
required to deal with handling claims of threats by Palestinians that
were not related to cooperation with Israel.
Among
other things, it said that already at the beginning of its work, "it
was clarified to the team that claims of threats relating to selling
lands to Jews are being checked and discussed by the committee because
of the security aspect deriving from claims of cooperation with Israeli
elements." The report also said that "the attitude of Palestinian
society toward those who sell land to Jews is one of severe and
degrading treatment, since selling lands is seen as damaging the
Palestinian national effort to create an independent country. The
[Palestinian] Authority investigates and brings to trial those suspected
of such things, and the accepted punishment is prolonged incarceration…
the maximum penalty is the death penalty, but in practice, according to
information provided to the team, it isn’t implemented."
Attorney
Yadin Elam, who also represented Palestinians who claimed that they
were being threatened, told Haaretz that "if the state does believe that
the lives of people suspected of trading lands with Jews in the
territories are in danger, then it's only right that it gives those
people protection in Israel. In practice, as far as I can see, on the
one hand the state doesn’t protect them, and on the other, when claims
of a man who turned in a land seller surface, it asserts that he turned
him in to a place where he faces torture and death. This is not
consistent with one another."
Indeed,
despite the fact that the state acknowledges the hostile attitude of
the Palestinian Authority toward people who sell land to Jews, in recent
years the bar that the committee put in place to receive a permit was
very high. This, for example, can be seen in the tale of a Palestinian
who doesn’t have a record of criminal or security offenses and who was
arrested a few years ago by the security services on suspicion of
trading properties with Jews. After being questioned, and according to
him also tortured, he was indicted. He was incarcerated for two years
until he was released on bail, and then he fled to Israel. The committee
rejected his request for a permit to stay in Israel, and determined
that "there is no indication of current threats." He has since returned
to the West Bank, where he says a few attempts to capture him were
carried out and an arrest warrant without the possibility of release was
issued against him.
In
a different case, the committee used the same justification when it
determined there was no reason to extend the residency permit given in
the past to a Palestinian who had been sentenced to death and two
15-year prison sentences with hard labor for selling land to Jews and
for collaboration. This man cooperated with the Shin Bet security
service and the IDF's Civil Administration, and for that reason he was
arrested and served six years in prison in the Palestinian Authority. He
escaped from prison when IDF soldiers raided the facility where he was
held, and two weeks later
he was shot in at the entrance to his home by armed men. A family
member was murdered because of suspicions he collaborated with Israel;
another relative of the plaintiff, who was not accused of similar
crimes, was also arrested, and claimed he was harshly tortured during
interrogation and one of his eyes was pulled out. While the plaintiff
resided in Israel, he was convicted in absentia in a Palestinian court
and sentenced to death. But after receiving a number of short term
residency permits and being asked to provide the committee with a long
list of documents, it was decided not to extend his residency permit
again because there was no threat to his life in the PA.
The
committee's justifications are not available to the public, but they
are given to the lawyers for those who apply to the committee. This is
how the requests for recognition as "being under threat" were rejected,
with the explanation that the person filing the request travels every
day between the West Bank and Israel and does not act like someone who
is in danger in the territory of the PA. The committee examines the
criminal past of those filing requests too in order to determine if his
entry into Israel would endanger public safety. In the past, a request
was rejected even though the Palestinian was determined to be in danger
when it was found out that he had raped mentally disabled people. The
committee even asks to examine, using intelligence means, the
Palestinian court decisions and sentences concerning those who apply to
the committee. In a number of cases, they brought such intelligence
assessments to reject requests for safe haven, explaining that the PA
does not carry out these sentences in practice.
"I
can come with a case of a collaborator who was arrested in the PA, and
they will say - and it has happened many times - that there is a
suspicion of collaboration but his life is not in danger," said Teplow.
"I cannot understand the logic behind such a sentence. We are in fact
saying that if a person is jailed for five or 10 years, that is okay,
because they are not killed. There is an attempt to find reasons not to
grant the permit, and they also make mistakes. I had clients who they
determined they were not under threat and were killed in the
territories, there were assassinations of people who they said there was
no danger to their lives. So what can we do? It's too late."
COGAT
said in response: "So far, we do not know of requests of those claiming
they are threatened because of the sale of land to private Israelis. If
another need arises, it will be provided with a response through the
use of the toolboxes at our disposal. When a request is received from
someone who claims they are threatened, it is passed on for comment to
the professionals who sit on the committee, and include among them
security officials. The committee meets every month and discusses all
the requests, and following the committee's decision a letter is sent to
the claimant with the decision and its reasoning. We would like to
emphasize that until the committee convenes, the person claiming to be
under threat is provided with a solution on the part of the authorized
bodies."
$m.stack.
Sharon Pulwer
No comments:
Post a Comment