Day 10—October 22
Palestinian Center for Human Rights
Our first meeting of the day was in Gaza City with the director, Raji Sourani, and assistant director, Jabr Wishah, of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Mr. Sourani had just returned from a 23-day fundraising trip to Europe (where I later learned he had also been presented with a human rights award) and seemed extremely tired, but neverthless spoke to us for probably close to two hours. He explained that the mission of his organization is to promote human rights and the rule of law in the occupied territories, based substantially on the edicts of the Fourth Geneva Convention. PCHR monitors and documents human rights violations on the ground and provides legal aid to victims of the violations. They have seven lawyers on their staff, but are not able to represent Palestinian prisoners within Israel, due to Israeli policy as of January 1996, so they must often work with Israeli lawyers. While the PCHR lawyers work pro-bono, the Israeli lawyers do not, so PCHR pays their fees—a heavy financial burden for them. PCHR funding comes from European governments and various private organizations, such as Grassroots International in the US. Dr. Sourani says he prefers to receive funding from private organizations rather than governments.
The PCHR has tense relations with both the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority over human rights abuses. Prior to the second intifada, half their work was investigating and defending against human rights violations of the PA, and half those of the Israelis. Mr. Sourani says that they’re not about to wait for the establishment of a Palestinian State before working to ensure that human rights are respected in the territories. They want to lay the groundwork for human rights now, as they do not wish to get stuck with yet another repressive Arab state.
Mr. Sourani says that neither human rights nor the Fourth Geneva Convention are mentioned anywhere in the Oslo Accords. The Israelis have always claimed that such laws do not apply to them.
8000 Palestinians have been arrested in the West Bank since April, and 2000 of these were Gazans (mostly students and workers). There are three main prisons in the West Bank, which in reality function as military detention centers. PCHR lawyers are not able to travel there to represent the prisoners due to the Israeli travel restrictions on Palestinians.
The PCHR handles cases involving home demolitions, deportations, and torture, in addition to detentions. Out of 11,000 cases fought in Israeli courts, they have won only 18, and even these are not considered real victories by the PCHR because they were dependent on the actions of a few isolated Israeli judges and lawyers.
While many governments are putting pressure on the PA to reform, Mr. Sourani doesn’t see how this is possible in the current environment of closures, curfews, and travel restrictions. He considers it ridiculous to speak of implementing such things as separation of government powers, or holding elections, when Arafat is in isolation, the other members of government cannot move about freely, and the Palestinian Legislative Council has not been able to meet.
The Palestinians have a desperate need and desire for democracy, but the US wants only a Banana Republic-type government in Palestine that can be easily controlled. Indeed, says Mr. Sourani, Israel and the US have encouraged much of the corruption and human rights abuses by the PA over the years. He believes the 1994 Paris Economic Accords, signed by the PA and Israel, were more damaging to the Palestinians than Oslo, since the accords have contributed to and largely institutionalized the corrupt business practices. PA officials and shady Israeli businessmen both make fortunes on monopolies and other dubious business practices that result in massive overcharging on Palestinian imports, which are required by the Paris Accords to come through Israel. Yossi Gosani, formerly of the Israeli Shin Bet security services, has been implicated in some of these corrupt business schemes.
Mr. Sourani went on to discuss the double standards of the international community when it comes to the Palestinians. He says the Europeans are generally sympathetic, but are reluctant to criticize Sharon or the Israelis. When Austria elected a war criminal for a leader, the EU imposed sanctions on it, but won’t do the same to Israel for electing Sharon, who is widely regarded as a war criminal as well. President Clinton once made the statement that both Bosnian and Palestinian refugees have the legal right to return to their homes, but then later retracted it for the Palestinians. Mr. Sourani talked a lot about Mary Robinson, former U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, whom he “adores” and who gave a lot of weight to the Palestinian cause, but who in the end buckled to US pressure and refused to stand up to Israel. He himself eventually called openly for her resignation, which she told him “broke her heart”. But he says her successor at the UN has done more to hold Israel accountable for its actions, once even summoning the Israeli ambassador to demand an investigation into human rights abuses by members of the IDF.
Mr. Sourani thinks Human Rights Watch is a wonderful and effective organization … except when Israel is concerned. The HRW legal advisor refuses to apply the same legal standards to Palestinian refugees as to other refugees. HRW sent a researcher to Gaza who wrote a very good report on the effects of closures and home demolitions on the population, but the report was suppressed and never published. The same researcher was actually back in Gaza to “update” the never-published report, and some of our group met her at Marna House. Mr. Sourani says that other human rights organizations—he mentioned Amnesty International specifically—are much more consistent and effective when dealing with Israel. As an Amnesty International member and volunteer, I was rather surprised to hear this, as I, and others as well, consider AI’s work on Israel to be quite feeble and inadequate.
Mr. Sourani believes Sharon is attempting to create conditions favorable to the “willing transfer” of Palestinians; to make life so miserable for Palestinians that they will decide on their own to emigrate. Ominously, a December 2000 conference of Israeli officials concluded that the greatest danger to the Jewish state was the demographic growth of Israel’s own Palestinian Arab population. However, there seems to be a new determination on the part of many Palestinians to stay and fight for their rights—to the point where many won’t even leave the country for vacations to avoid the impression that they are abandoning Palestine.
Mr. Sourani says he doesn’t believe Israel can succeed at confiscating all the land and removing all the Palestinians because this will only lead to the creation of a “new Taliban” out of the ensuing desperation and despair. However, he thinks the worst is yet to come, as Sharon is being emboldened by the US’s ever stronger political, economic, and military support. He foresees a major catastrophe, but believes that the Palestinians will ultimately prevail. He wonders why Israel and its supporters can’t, or won’t, see that Israelis are treating Palestinians the way the Jews were once treated in Europe. Related photos
Gaza Community Mental Health Program, Gaza City
Our final meeting in the Gaza Strip was with the staff at the main office of the GCMHP in Gaza City. We were unable to meet with the director, Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj, during our stay in Gaza, as he was away and unable to return in time, but we were able to meet with other staff members, including Dr. Taysir Diab, a psychiatrist, and Abdel Hamid Afana, a psychotherapist.
The staff members discussed the various programs and treatments offered by GCMHP, which include family counseling, individual treatment, public awareness efforts, and human rights training for Palestinian police and security forces. They say the human rights abuses committed by Palestinian forces are not a matter of official policy, but are carried out by individuals acting out their own experiences in Israeli custody. The Palestinian authorities are opposed to the abuses and are very supportive of the training efforts by GCMHP.
Children in Gaza suffer a great deal from the violence taking place around them, with many experiencing thumb sucking, bed-wetting, aggressive behaviors, and PTSD. As an example of the scope of the problem, the staff believes that virtually all the children in Rafah have had at least one traumatic experience related to violence. Many children with resulting psychiatric problems don’t attend school, or do poorly there. GCMHP has training programs for schoolteachers that try to provide them with counseling skills to deal with the enormous number of mental health problems among their students.
The staff fears that Palestinian children are learning that violence is the only way to resolve conflict, and since they are the future citizens and leaders of Palestine, it is very important to break the cycle of violence for them. GCMHP offers training programs that teach children conflict resolution and alternatives to violent punishment and retribution. The GCMHP staff also believes that Israeli children are in as much need of nonviolence training as Palestinian children.
Seventy percent of the Palestinians in Gaza are refugees. The GCMHP estimates that only 11-12% of Gazans in need of mental health services are being reached. Related photos
We cancelled our scheduled (and final) meeting that was to be held in Ramallah with Ghassan al-Khatib, Minister of Labor in the Palestinian Authority. We were afraid we would not have time to pack, organize our things, and possibly ship some items home if necessary. But it turned out that Mr. Al-Khatib had already cancelled our meeting. We speculated that the PA cabinet was busy considering the possible consequences of the suicide bombing.
We drove to the Erez checkpoint and went through the security checks. The guards asked us to open some bags, and also looked at some posters we had been given by the Gaza Community Mental Health people that prominently displayed the word “apartheid”. One of the guards motioned excitedly to his coworkers, saying “Propaganda! Propaganda!”, but some in the group heard another guard say, “They're Americans, they’re our friends”, and he returned the posters. We got through security and were on our way.
We walked over to where Issa was waiting in his van on the other side of the checkpoint. He’d apparently been waiting for a couple of hours, as we were behind schedule. We drove back to St. George’s, where we had rented rooms for the night even though we were to leave for the airport at midnight to catch our early-morning flight back to Boston.
Several of us walked the short distance from St. George’s to the American Colony Hotel for snacks. It is a very historic and elegant-looking establishment, and is apparently a favorite haunt of many journalists.
Back at the guesthouse, we had a light supper and then
retired to our rooms to catch a few hours of sleep before the flight home. Related
photos