NLG Free Palestine Subcommittee Letter to President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton & Other U.S. Government Officials
Re: Israel must free Abdallah Abu Rahmah, leader of the nonviolent resistance in Bil'in, Occupied Palestinian Territory
Dear Mr. President:
The National Lawyers Guild's Free Palestine Subcommittee supports the nonviolent popular resistance struggle by the Palestinian village of Bil'in and requests that you demand Israel free its leader, Abdallah Abu Rahmah.
In a recent nighttime raid by the Israeli army on his Ramallah home, Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a high school teacher and the Coordinator of Bil'in's Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, was seized (without charges) and detained in an attempt to silence a popular resistance movement gaining international attention and inspiring other Palestinian communities. This West Bank agricultural village, known for its weekly protests against the Israeli apartheid wall, has become a symbol for the Palestinian popular resistance to Israel's ongoing military occupation.
While many are quick to condemn Palestinians when they resort to armed resistance, Israel has been left free to harass, imprison and sometimes kill Palestinians who nonviolently resist the confiscation and destruction of their land in Bil'in and elsewhere.
Abu Rahmah is among the leaders of Bil'in's nearly five-year nonviolent struggle of protests, lawsuits, and boycotts aimed at saving the village's land from Israel's wall and expanding settlements. Abdallah Abu Rahmah joins Mohammed Othman from the village of Jayyous, Adeed Abu Rahmah from Bil'in, and many other Palestinians (most of them under 18) who are currently jailed by Israel for building the mass nonviolent struggle for justice.
As a statement issued by the Bil'in Popular Committee declared, these leaders of the Palestinian popular struggle "are being targeted because they mobilize Palestinians to resist nonviolently. Israel is stealing our land from us and then prosecuting us as criminals because we struggle nonviolently for justice."
In September 2007, after four years of Friday afternoon protests in Bil'in that underscored the violence and injustice of the Israeli occupation, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in favor of the village. Contrary to the opinion of the International Court of Justice, the Israeli Court did not find the apartheid wall was illegal. But it did find the wall's route through Bil'in was not designed to separate settlers from potential Palestinian terrorists; it was designed to make Mod'in Illit, the giant Orthodox Jewish settlement next to Bil'in, bigger by about 2,000 dunams of farmland owned by Bil'in villagers. The Court ordered the army to reroute the fence and give the people of Bil'in back at least part of the land taken from them. That has yet to happen.
The very next day, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled to legalize the Israeli settlement of Mattiyahu East (part of Modi'in Illit's expansion), built on Bil'in's land to the west of the wall, which separates the village from 60 percent of its farming land. The village of Bil'in vowed to continue its resistance against the wall and settlements on its land and hundreds of Bil'in villagers, other Palestinians, together with international and Israeli supporters, are still protesting every week, and Israeli soldiers are still injuring them every Friday afternoon with billy clubs, tear-gas canisters fired at close range, and rubber bullets. With no justice from Israeli courts, the villagers of Bil'in continue to protest and have turned to the international arena where, with the help of Canadian lawyers and backed by the Canadian solidarity movement, they have filed litigation in Canada.
At the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, which came hours after Abu Rahmah's arrest, President Obama said, "there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice ... the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened of cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women -- some known, some obscure to all but those they help -- to be far more deserving of this honor than I." Abdallah Abu Rahmah is one of those people.
In President Obama's June speech in Cairo, he called on Palestinians to resist nonviolently. In order for his words to have any meaning, the U.S. Government must intervene on behalf of Palestinians who do so are are wrongly harassed, beaten, and even killed.
Abu Rahmah has now joined an estimated 10,000 Palestinian prisoners -- including over 400 children -- detained by Israeli authorities, many without charge or trial. According to a recent report from Amnesty International, many Palestinian prisoners "face medical negligence, routine beatings, position torture, and strip searches by Israeli prison authorities." According to the Palestinian section of Defense for Children International, "each year, hundreds of Palestinian children are arrested, interrogated, abused, and imprisoned by the Israeli military authorities, and are subjected to acts often amounting to torture."
Abu Rahmah is likely to join Mohammad Othman, another leader of the nonviolent campaign to save Palestinian land from Israel and an advocate of the global boycott campaign against Israel, who has been held in administrative detention without charges since September 22nd. As of November 9, Israel held more than 322 Palestinians in administrative detention, 132 of them for more than a year, according to Human Rights Watch. International human rights law permits some limited use of administrative detention, but it must be in emergency situations. Moreover, the authorities are required to follow basic rules for detention, including a fair hearing at which the detainee can challenge the reasons for his or her detention. As the occupying power in the West Bank, Israel is also bound by the rules governing occupation, which require it to use administrative detention only for imperative reasons of security, not politically-motivated grounds.
Inspired by their commitment and dedication, the National Lawyers Guild will continue to support the Bil'in resistance movement and the Palestinian struggle for justice. Israel's efforts to crush all forms of Palestinian resistance and Israel's continued settlement construction stand as a direct challenge to the U.S. and to the entire international community. We request your urgent intervention by demanding that Israel immediately release Abdallah Abu Rahmah and abide by international standards of justice. We further request that the U.S. demand that Israel end all harassment -- including by the judiciary -- of Palestinian nonviolent resistance fighters and human rights defenders. More generally, we urge you to insist that Israel ensure in all circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, in accordance with international human rights instruments ratified by Israel, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights and the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Sincerely,
FPSC Co-Chairs