Democratic Palestine : 29 (ص 20)
غرض
- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 29 (ص 20)
- المحتوى
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important to work for our cause. This was the start of my
commitment to my country and people, to fighting the oc-
cupation. My engagement in the national struggle led the oc-
cupation authorities to arrest me several times. I was first ar-
rested on September 17, 1967, and detained for a hundred
days. I was arrested again on February 26, 1969, and jailed for
15 years. Then I was put under administrative detention in
January 1987, for 5 months, and arrested once more on
December 27, 1987, then deported on January 13, 1988.
In fact, what one can conclude after the years of occupation
is that there is no possibility for coexistance between us, the
Palestinian people and liberation movement, and the Zionist
entity. The conflict is one of existence, not borders. Being a
lawyer, I joined the majority of Palestinian lawyers in boycot-
ting the Zionist courts after the 1967 occupation. Our boycott
had many reasons, chiefly denouncing the occupation, the an-
nexation of East Jerusalem and forming what they called
«unified Jerusalem,» the transfer of the appeal court from its
headquarters in Jerusalem to Ramallah, the alteration of laws
by implementing Zionist military laws and a number of other
illegal acts. We considered that all of these acts violate the 4th
Geneva Convention of 1949. The Palestinian lawyers’ strike
continued until my deportation in 1988. There are still about
350 Palestinian lawyers who do not appear before Zionist
courts.
I was deported after my arrest on December 27, 1987, under
brutal conditions. They raided and searched my house. They
took me outside and searched me. Afterwards they chained my
hands and feet, covered my eyes and put me in a truck. I was
taken to the military command center. There I saw a line of the
Zionist army’s executioners waiting for me. They started hit-
ting, kicking and swearing at me. After about six hours of this
savage torture, they transfered me to Atlit military prison. This
prison could easily be equated with a death camp. Every day
from 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning until 12 midnight, we were
under constant torture. Living conditions were so bad that
even animals wouldn’t be able to survive. After 6 days I was
transfered to Jnaid prison in Nablus, together with other na-
tionalist prisoners, such as Husam Khadr, Jebril Rojub and
Jamal Jbara. There an officer came to us, presenting himself
as the representative of the general commander in the West
Bank. He read an order to deport us from Palestine, and
demanded that we sign it. Of course, we refused. We all con-
sidered this order as a death sentence. He said that we could
appear before a military consultive committee which would
look into this order and approve it.
We contacted a number of lawyers, and after three days a
team of lawyers came to defend us. Initially, we appeared
before the court. The accusations consisted of two parts, stated
and secret. The stated part didn’t contain any accusation, but
was rather a document of occurrences: that I was arrested in
1967; imprisoned in 1969 for 15 years and administratively de-
tained for 5 months; that in 1970, the PFLP had demanded my
release, along with others, when highjacking planes that had
Zionists among the passengers. They considered this also as an
accusation against me. They also said that in 1986 I was under
town arrest, but I proved that they were lying. They also said
that I was called to the military governor’s office in Ramallah,
and warned to stop my political activities. All this was false
also. The rest of the file was secret, and they refused to reveal
any part of it to me or the lawyers. I demanded that either they
reveal the secret file, and if there were any accusations, I be
20
tried; or I would refuse to give them the honor of trying me, or
of appearing before this military committee which doesn’t have
any power but certifying the decisions of the higher bodies.
After they refused to reveal the secret file, I dismissed the
‘defense lawyers’ team and said that the committee had no legal
basis and I wouldn’t recognize it or its decisions. I assured
them that we would come back to our land, either by hang-
gliders or other operations. I had the opportunity to appeal,
but I refused it, since I consider the Zionist court illegal and
based on an illegal authority. I was not ready to give it legality
by appearing.
What were the events that led up to the uprising?
The uprising was a result of a series of preceding events
which can be summed up under one title, namely, the Zionist
conspiracy against our people and the PLO. I want to name a
few of these developments. One was the Zionist aggression
against Islamic and Christian holy places under the pretext of
searching for ancient Hebrew remains. The real reason was to
empty Jerusalem in particular of its Arab inhabitants. In the
process of searching for these remains, tools were used whose
vibration cracked the surrounding buildings, especially in the
Old City in Jerusalem. Thus, the real inhabitants of the area
would be forced to evacuate, leaving it empty for the hoardes
of settlers to move in. Our people reacted sharply and started
to confront these diggings in great numbers.
Another development concerned the appointed municipal
councils. Before, there were elected mayors who represented
the line of the PLO. The Zionist forces resorted to eliminating
them and appointing collaborator-types to these posts. There
was of course a political meaning behind such actions. The
Zionists aimed at liquidating the pro-PLO trend and building
an alternative in the occupied territories, so that they could use
these people in conspiratorial projects in the future. Our peo-
ple confronted this by mass demonstrations, particularly in the
spring of 1982, when 23 Palestinians were martyred, hundreds
injured and hundreds more arrested.
The third point was the new Zionist restrictions on con-
struction in the Palestinian cities and villages aimed at keeping
them from expanding. Thus the occupation forces would be
able to confiscate the unused areas. There was mass denuncia-
tion of this project, in defense of the remaining Palestinian
land. To stop this project, the masses confronted the Zionist - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 29
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- يونيو ١٩٨٨
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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