Do You Have Love in Your Culture?

This is by Dahr Jamail. He's an American journalist who has reported on Iraq and the middle east without being "embedded" (read censored) by the US military. I've followed this guy for many years. He's good. Perhaps you might get acquainted now. Have a read.



Muhammad Omer and I jointly received the Martha Gellhorn
Prize for Journalism in London on 16 June (1). Omer is a
24-year-old Palestinian with whom I feel honoured to have
shared this award, as I told the audience at the prize-giving
ceremony. His work from his Gaza homeland has been a beacon
of humanitarian reportage; it is a model of peace, and an
attempt at reconciliation with Israel.

But Omer's journey to London to receive the award was almost
impossible. When I heard about the prize, I booked my flight
from San Francisco and boarded my plane. By contrast, Omer
struggled even to get an exit visa: his home has been crushed
by an Israeli bulldozer, and most of his seven siblings have
been killed or maimed by the Israeli army of occupation. The
veteran journalist John Pilger, who presented our awards,
described Omer's journey: "Getting Muhammad to London to
receive his prize was a major diplomatic operation. Israel
has a perfidious control over Gaza's borders, and he was only
allowed out with a Dutch embassy escort."

Then, after the ceremony, there were our even more different
return journeys. My biggest problem was an hour's delay for
the flight back to my home country, the United States, which
last year gave Israel $2.38bn in military aid, and will give
that amount in the coming fiscal year, along with an extra
$150m. (By July 2006 direct US aid to Israel had reached
$108bn according to conservative estimates.)

On his return home, Omer was badly beaten up and physically
and psychologically abused by Israel's security forces, Shin
Bet. At the Allenby Bridge crossing, from Jordan to the West
Bank, he was met by the Dutch official who was to ferry him
back into Gaza. The official waited outside as Omer entered
the Israeli building. Omer was told to turn off his mobile
phone and remove the battery. When he asked if he could call
his embassy escort, he was told sternly he was not allowed. A
Shin Bet officer searched his luggage and rifled through his
documents. "Where's the money?" he asked Omer. "Where are the
English pounds you have?" They wanted to confiscate his prize
money, which Omer was wise enough not to carry on his person.

Omer was surrounded by eight armed Shin Bet officers. This is
how he described what happened next. "A man called Avi
ordered me to take off my clothes. I had already been through
an x-ray machine. I stripped down to my underwear and was
told to take off everything. When I refused, Avi put his hand
on his gun. I began to cry: `Why are you treating me this
way? I am a human being.' He said: `This is nothing compared
with what you will see now.' He took his gun out, pressing it
to my head, and with his full body weight pinning me on my
side, he forcibly removed my underwear. He then made me do a
concocted sort of dance. Another man, who was laughing, said:
`Why are you bringing perfumes?' I replied: `They are gifts
for the people I love.' He said: `Oh, do you have love in
your culture?'

"I had now been without food and water and the toilet for
12 hours and, having been made to stand, my legs buckled. I
vomited and passed out. All I remember is one of them
gouging, scraping and clawing with his nails at the tender
flesh beneath my eyes. He scooped my head and dug his fingers
in near the auditory nerves between my head and eardrum. The
pain became sharper as he dug in two fingers at a time.
Another man had his combat boot on my neck, pressing it into
the hard floor. I lay there for over an hour. The room became
a menagerie of pain, sound and terror."

`Moderate physical pressure'

The Israeli Supreme Court has allowed the use of "moderate
physical pressure" in the questioning of prisoners. Israel
holds more than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of them
under administrative detention (no charges filed, detention
can be renewed every six months).

The fourth Geneva Convention (GC) (1949) states: (1) Persons
taking no active part in the hostilities, including members
of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those
placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any
other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely,
without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour,
religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar
criteria. To this end, the following acts are and shall
remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever
with respect to the above-mentioned persons: (a) violence to
life and person, in particular murder of all kinds,
mutilation, cruel treatment and torture (c) outrages upon
personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading
treatment."

The Israeli military regularly bombs and uses snipers to
attack Palestinian ambulances. Article 20 of the 1949 GC
states: "Persons regularly and solely engaged in the
operation and administration of civilian hospitals, including
the personnel engaged in the search for, removal and
transporting of and caring for wounded and sick civilians,
the infirm and maternity cases shall be respected and
protected."

Israel has blockaded Gaza, isolating and starving the
1.5 million Palestinians who live there. In 2006 Dov
Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud
Olmert, said: "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet,
but not to make them die of hunger."

Article 23 of the 1949 GC states: "Each High Contracting
Party shall allow the free passage of all consignments of
medical and hospital stores and objects necessary for
religious worship intended only for civilians of another High
Contracting Party, even if the latter is its adversary. It
shall likewise permit the free passage of all consignments of
essential foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for
children under 15, expectant mothers and maternity cases."

The Israeli government has threatened to close orphanages for
Palestinian children in Hebron, which would be another
violation of international law, for article 24 of the Geneva
Convention states clearly: "The Parties to the conflict shall
take the necessary measures to ensure that children under
fifteen, who are orphaned or are separated from their
families as a result of the war, are not left to their own
resources, and that their maintenance, the exercise of their
religion and their education are facilitated in all
circumstances. Their education shall, as far as possible, be
entrusted to persons of a similar cultural tradition."

The Shin Bet violated many GC principles in the way it
treated Omer. Part III of the 1949 GC, which covers the
status and treatment of protected persons, section I,
article 27, says: "Protected persons are entitled, in all
circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honour,
their family rights, their religious convictions and
practices, and their manners and customs. They shall at all
times be humanely treated, and shall be protected especially
against all acts of violence or threats thereof and against
insults and public curiosity." Article 29 of the same section
states: "The Party to the conflict in whose hands protected
persons may be, is responsible for the treatment accorded to
them by its agents, irrespective of any individual
responsibility which may be incurred."

The gross imbalance of power Israel enjoys, thanks to US
support, makes these atrocities possible. Absolute power
corrupts absolutely. According to Alison Weir, the executive
director of If Americans Knew, Palestinians receive 1/23rd of
the amount of aid the US provides to Israel.

According to Defence for Children International, Israel has
"engaged in gross violations of international human rights
and humanitarian law". Between 1967 and 2003, Israel
destroyed over 10,000 Palestinian homes, and that continues.

Attacking journalists is not new. On 16 April Fadel Shanaa, a
Palestinian cameraman working for the news agency Reuters,
was killed by a rocket fired during an Israeli military
incursion into the Gaza Strip. His assistant, Wafa Barbakh,
was seriously injured. Both were in vehicle clearly marked
"Press". This appears to be part of systematic targeting of
journalists by the Israeli military. Since the beginning of
the second intifada in September 2000, the Israeli military
has killed at least nine journalists, including an Italian
and a Briton. At least 170 other journalists have been
wounded by the Israeli military during this period.

Former Dutch ambassador Jan Wijenberg said of what happened
to Omer: "This is by no means an isolated incident, but part
of a long-term strategy to demolish Palestinian social,
economic and cultural life... I am aware of the possibility
that Mohammed Omer might be murdered by Israeli snipers or
bomb attack in the near future. . . [Omer] is a moderating
voice, urging Palestinian youth not to court hatred but seek
peace with Israel." Janet McMahon, managing editor of the
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, for which Omer
writes, says he is still in hospital. "He may go home, or
have an operation. He's still in a lot of pain, and it's hard
for him to swallow, or to breathe deeply. He's being fed
intravenously."

I cannot reconcile the disparity in our experiences. How can
we reconcile something that is irreconcilable in the absence
of all justice?
________________________________________________________

Dahr Jamail wrote Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an
Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, Haymarket Books,
Chicago, 2007, after eight months in Iraq as an independent
journalist. He also covered the 2006 war in Lebanon

(1) Dahr Jamail's award was for his work on Iraq. See "US
presidents-to-be in denial", Le Monde diplomatique, English
edition, May 2008.

Original text in English