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The Slow Hand of Justice at The Apartheid Wall
by Eileen Fleming
[Jerusalem]–After nearly five years since a rubber bullet fired by an Israeli border policeman killed 10 year Abir Aramin, her family was awarded $430,000 by an Israeli court.
The Israeli authorities initially insisted that a stone thrown by Palestinian protesters caused her fatal injury, but the Jerusalem district court finally ruled on the 25th of September that the state of Israel was responsible for the child’s death and Judge Orit Efal-Gabai said there was no doubt that the bullet, which struck Abir was fired in violation of orders.
Abir’s father, Bassam Aramin, never blamed the “18-year-old boy for shooting an innocent 10-year-old girl”, but always held Israeli government policies to blame.
On 16 January 2007, Abir Aramin, her sister and two friends were on their way to buy sweets after school in the Anata refugee camp, which is near Jerusalem on the West Bank side of the apartheid wall when she was shot in the head with a rubber bullet by the Israeli Border Police.
After three days on life support Abir’s struggle ended- but not the struggle for justice her parents have been seeking ever since. Although awarded monetary compensation for “lost years” and for burial expenses, the recognition by the Israeli court perhaps maybe the justice they have sought.
In 2007, Avichay Sharon, of Combatants for Peace stated, “Over the past two years, the Israeli Border Police and IDF forces have been creating provocations near the school district of Anata [which] has become a part of the daily routine for the children. Ever since construction started on the separation barrier surrounding Anata, the jeeps have been roaming the streets especially near the schools and shooting grenades and tear gas along with rubber bullets.
“Many children have been injured in the past by these brutal actions of the soldiers and on January 16th it became deadly. As in many other cases the police replied that the soldiers were shooting in response to stones thrown at them by children. Even though all the evidence and witnesses stated that no stones were thrown that day” the prosecution initially dismissed the Aramin family’s case, claiming lack of evidence.
Bassam Aramin, Abir’s father and co-founder of Combatants for Peace said, “I’m not going to lose my common sense, my direction, only because I’ve lost my heart, my child. I will do all I can to protect her friends, both Palestinian and Israeli. They are all our children.”
When Abir’s father, Bassam Aramin was seventeen he was sentenced to seven years in an Israeli prison for belonging to the then-outlawed Fatah movement. Although soldiers in prison had beaten him, he decided that he would not become a prisoner of hatred.
The “Combatants for Peace” are Palestinians and Israelis, who had once all been involved in perpetuating the cycle of violence-Israelis as soldiers in the Israeli army and Palestinians as part of the violent struggle to end the occupation of their homeland. All decided to put down their guns and instead work together in the good fight for justice that can bring peace through nonviolent actions by raising voices of conscience and seeking to create political pressure on both Governments to end the violence and end the military occupation of Palestine.
Eileen Fleming at The Apartheid Wall in Bethlehem, Nov. 2007, photo copyright Meir Vanunu
On one of my seven trips to Israel Palestine, in March of 2006, I visited the Anata refugee camp and saw the thirty-foot high concrete apartheid Wall at the boy’s high school that fences in around 800 Palestinian adolescents, whose only playground is a slab of cement about the square footage of a basketball court.
A resident refugee informed me that on a daily basis, “The Israeli Occupation Forces show up when the children gather in the morning or after classes. They throw percussion bombs or gas bombs into the school nearly every day! The world is sleeping; the world is hibernating and is allowing this misery to continue.”
A moment later, a teenage boy approached me as I was taking photos and asked me my name and where I was from. I cringed admitting I was American for I knew that “financed with U.S. aid at a cost of $1.5 million per mile, the Israeli wall prevents residents from receiving health care and emergency medical services. In other areas, the barrier separates farmers from their olive groves which have been their families’ sole livelihood for generations.” [1]
On 9 July 2004, the International Court of Justice/ICJ, ruled that The Wall was illegal that it must come down and also that compensation should be paid to all who have been affected.
The ICJ Judges also decided 13-2 that signatories to the Geneva Convention were obliged to enforce “compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law” and the U.N. General Assembly also passed a resolution 150-6 supporting the ICJ’s call to dismantle the wall.” [2]
Less than a five-minute car drive from Anata, I entered into an Orwellian Disney Land Colony of lush green grounds called the Pizgat Ze’ev settlement.
All the settlements/colonies in the West Bank are illegal under international law.
I was sick at heart as I traveled through the colony and counted three playgrounds and a swimming pool and wondered how many USA tax dollars helped to build them.
Within fifteen minutes after leaving Anata, as I stood next to a playground in Pizgat Ze’ev, a barrage of gunshots issued from the refugee camp and my guide informed me that the Israeli soldiers were showering the refugees with gunfire and terror, which is a ‘normal’ daily occurrence for them.
I lost it completely and sobbed uncontrollably, as I imagined the Magdalena did when she could not find her Lord.
And then I thought how Jesus cried buckets of tears over Jerusalem when he “saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you had only known what would bring you peace but it is hidden from your eyes.’”- Luke 19:42
Lady Justice, the Roman Goddess of Justice, an allegorical personification of the moral force who is depicted wearing a blindfold to indicate that justice should be meted out objectively, not based in favor of- or against- ethnicity, power, or weakness, but on blind impartiality.
Following Sunday’s court ruling, the Aramin family’s lawyer told the Ynet news website: “We are happy that justice has come to light and are still working to award the family compensation for all the suffering it has gone through. [Aramin] is a peace activist whose attitude has not changed since the incident. That is one positive aspect of this story.”
Another positive aspect of this story is that the state of Israel has admitted responsibility.
- Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Jan/Feb. 2007
- Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 2009
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=145046
Posted by Eileen Fleming on Sep 27 2011, With 0 Reads, Filed under WarZone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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We can do our part here in the United States to protect the children. We can start by investigating the Child Protective Services of Texas, which is connected with the Mormons, which is funded by the most powerful and wealthy, therefore unmentionable, family in the United States. Look it up. CPS of Texas has a website where you can see all of the children that they have up for adoption, many of them are entire families of siblings.
But when I went to fill out the form, a very long, complicated form, I recieved an error message, over and over again over a couple of weeks. My emails weren’t answered, nor my phone calls. I was trying to adopt someone’s child who had her son taken away from her after Katrina, due to a hair test that proved positive for marijuana. There being no appeals process, and being penniless at the time, she fell into a deep depression. She doesn’t smoke marijuana. The child was given to the old grandmother, but he then was taken away from her by CPS for the reason that he was climbing a tree in the back yard.
When I learned that the child had been handed over to the Mormon church by CPS I panicked, because I have been researching the child abduction connections to the Mormons and our government officials. A subject too horrible to write about here.
It would be a good thing for other VT readers to look at the CPS Texas website, and attempt to begin the process of, not so much adopting, but simply inquiring about adopting one of these children, and see for yourselves if you can get a response from CPS.
In my case, I was finally able to get a response due to a letter being sent on law firm letterhead. The child luckily has a relative who is a lawyer, who happens to be aware also of the danger and who has agreed to adopt the child. I think that many, many children are suffering greatly right now, and that if we ignore this, then we are guilty. Maybe one person alone doesn’t have sufficient power to oppose and reveal these crimes, but if a bunch of people learn the truth, then light shines into this creepy, dark corner of our nation.
I am often amazed at the enormous funds and efforts that go into protection of animals, while so many children suffer, in many cases at the hands of the very government agencies that are set up ostensibly to ‘protect’ them. I think that it would be a good thing to turn our attention to the children now.
So the family has been “reimbursed” for the loss of their child… how much money was the love of that child worth to them?
An Israeli court has set a price… is this the new monetary standard for the love and affection of a child?
Did the family of the child call this “Justice.”
Only in Israel!
And, who will pay the fine? “Remind the US Congress to send an extra $430,000 this year, we’ve had a minor unexpected expense here.”
So, an Israeli court has acknowledged responsibility on the part of Israel for this crime. Who will go to the gallows for this crime? Who is going to do the time?
Saying “shanah toya” may sound like remorse, but Allah is all-knowing, and cannot be deceived.
Atonement and apology without remorse and sincere repentance are hypocrisy. Even graver sins than the original.
So, don’t piss on my leg, Eileen, and tell me it is raining.
Earlaiman
,
“Atonement and apology without remorse and sincere repentance are hypocrisy. Even graver sins than the original.”
Or, maybe there just ain’t no Jews who feel remorse or repentance about the Palestinians in the Jewish State. Where are the anti-Zionists demonstrations ? One of His names is “The All merciful.” and that is damned magnanimous of Him, considering some of the cruelty which these people have pulled just in one lifetime!. But, with regard to these bastardly Zionists, I ain’t accepting any excuses, and “forgiveness?” I’ll leave that one entirely up to Him, He can do as he pleases on that one with them and I won’t interfere. Just don’t give any of them land rights anywhere on this planet.