The usual suspects
Anat Cygielman
Haaretz, 20 March 2002
In a reality of almost daily terror attacks, Israel's Arab citizens find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Like all other Israelis, they are afraid of terrorism. But they also feel that as far as the security forces are concerned, they are "the usual suspects," and increasingly Jewish citizens have marked them as suspects.
After the terrorist shooting at the Seafood Market restaurant in Tel Aviv, one of the diners, William Hazan, related with a sense of shock how he nearly shot Salim Barakat, the Druze policeman who was wrestling with the terrorist. Hazan made an assumption because Barakat looked "Middle Eastern."
Police Commissioner Shlomo Aharonisky, speaking to the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee last week, objected to a proposal to drop the "nationality" clause on identity cards because it is "an important tool for foiling hostile terrorist activity."
Arab Israelis report that in the past few months they have been afraid to enter Jewish cities, and have tried not to travel if they can help it, due to the hostility directed at them. "I'm afraid of walking around in western Jerusalem," says Sami, a 24-year-old Arab Israeli student at Hebrew University. "Last week, when I walked out of the student dorms, a civilian who saw me carrying a case called the police. I don't go out into the street unless I need something urgently, and I group all of my errands together to do them on a single day of the week. I don't take buses in the city, I take cabs, even though I'm a student and have to support myself."
Sami says that whenever they go home, Arab students "calculates which route will expose them to less degradation. We know we will always be stopped at central bus stations, have all of our things removed from our bags, have our dirty laundry spread out on the floor. People gather round, watch the show, smile to themselves. ID card, driver's license - I always have them ready."
"We try not to take the bus routes that stop at Ben-Gurion Airport. The security man gets on the bus at the entrance to the airport and walks up and down the aisle. They almost always take the Arab Israelis off the bus, which then picks them up on its way out of the airport. Can you imagine how it is to get back on the bus, in front of all the passengers?"
Attorney Jamil Dakwar, of Adalah, the Legal Center for the Rights of the Arab Minority in Israel, is also familiar with the problem at the airport.
Two months ago, on Id al-Adha (festival of the sacrifice), Sami traveled to his home up north. "I took a small bag, because I knew I would have to pass through two central bus stations, and that each one would be a nightmare. I took one shirt, one pair of pants and a toothbrush, to save the security people from having to work too hard. They searched my bag four times."
"The suspicions are nothing new," Sami emphasizes. "My brother has a Ph.D. in chemistry. Three times in the course of his studies he was called in for an investigation to ask why he was studying chemistry. That has always been the attitude, but since the terrorist attacks began, it has been happening much more often, and has become more disgusting. I can't wait for the day I complete my degree, when I can leave Israel. Here we have no chance of being accepted by society."
Wisam Abu Mansour, 20, of Umm al-Fahm, is a first-year student of Hebrew literature and language at Tel Aviv University. He works and goes out in Tel Aviv, and says he feels much more comfortable there than in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, last Tuesday Abu Mansour underwent a traumatic experience in Tel Aviv. He had gone to a relative's place of work to pick up a parcel with food and clothes that his mother in Umm al-Fahm had sent him. His relative is employed in a workshop on Derech Begin, right across from Seafood Market.
"As I was walking to the No. 27 bus stop to go back to university, a civilian grabbed me from behind in the middle of a crosswalk, asked what I had in the case, and demanded that I produce my identity card. I told him to first show me his police ID. He pushed me up against a fence and would not leave me until policemen arrived on the scene. I showed them my identity card and my student ID. The cop asked what I had in the case. I said food and clothes. He asked me to describe them. I said I didn't know, because I had asked my mother to send me the case and still hadn't opened it."
Abu Mansour recounts that a police sapper then arrived, and asked him how it was that he didn't know what was in the case. "I said that I knew, but not exactly." After 10 minutes, he says, he was handcuffed and taken to a police station. "At no point was I told that I was under arrest. The case was left on the sidewalk. The police made the people keep their distance, and stopped the traffic. I suggested that they move away and let me open the case and take out my things. They told me to shut my mouth.
"At the police station, they sat me in the corner. A cop wearing a skullcap told me, `put your head down.' He told the other policemen `don't let him raise his head.' One cop walked up, I think he was a Druze, and asked me what was in the case, and then cursed me and hit me. He asked me why I was trembling, and said that if I were sure of myself, I wouldn't be trembling, and slapped me."
At this stage, Abu Mansour, who originally told the policemen that his family did not have a telephone at home because he did not want to worry his mother, now gave them the number. Through the speakerphone, his mother gave a detailed description of what she had packed in the case, including a finjan and razor blades.
Abu Mansour is convinced that the sappers knew exactly what was in the case before they blew it up with the police robot. He was given a form that confirms that case was damaged, which enables him to apply to the Property Tax authorities for compensation. He reclaimed the remains of his case at the Givatayim police station. But the clothes were torn to shreds, having been shot through by the robot's bullets.
"From now on, I will go only where I must go, and holding nothing in my hands," says Abu Mansour. "They are entitled to check - I can understand that, I'm afraid of terrorist attacks, too - but they went too far." With Adalah's help, he plans to submit a complaint to the Police Investigations Unit in the Ministry of Justice.
The Tel Aviv police district spokesman responded that Abu Mansour was "arrested on suspicion of possessing explosives in his case. After the case was examined, and the suspect was questioned, he was released." The police deny that Abu Mansour was beaten at the police station.
Human-rights organizations report that there has been a sharp increase over the past few months in the volume of complaints they are receiving on this matter. "The fact that Arabs prefer not to go to Jewish cities has become characteristic of the past few months. The problem is that even after they show their ID cards, when asked to produce them, it doesn't end there," says attorney Auni Bana, of the Haifa branch of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel. "They keep on interrogating them. By virtue of their being Arab citizens, they are considered potential terrorists. My own brother-in-law was recently attacked by teenagers in a cafe in Haifa after they heard him speaking Arabic with a friend."
Dakwar, the attorney for Adalah: "There are increasingly more instances of verbal and physical violence against Arab Israelis. It started with the police, and is now spreading to the civilian population. The test of a real democracy is at times of emergency."
Who, us prejudiced?
The Airports Authority preferred not to address the claim that Arab Israelis are removed from Egged buses at the entrance to Ben-Gurion Airport. The only response was that, "The IAA's security array operates in accordance with the directives of state security authorities, which are responsible for securing Israeli aviation. The security measures are conducted in accordance with a complex set of operational procedures. By the nature of things, we do not divulge operational procedures for the prevention and foiling of terrorism attempts by the adversary."
The response of the spokesman of the Israel Police: "It is the duty and function of police officers entrusted with public safety and security to do all that is needed and expected of us in this realm, and especially at a time when we find ourselves under threat of terrorist attack. One must bear in mind that this in this situation, it is possible that innocent people, without regard for their religion or nationality, will be examined due to some suspicion or another that arises. The Israel Police will continue to perform its work, while maintaining the dignity of each and every individual, even at the cost of insult to an individual by virtue of being suspected and examined." As for what indications might make an individual a suspect, "the police do not wish to go into detail."
