#AntiOccupationDelegation Day 3: The Beating Heart of the Occupation
The octopus is one of the smartest animals in the sea. Highly intelligent, it has the cognitive ability to solve problems and navigate complex mazes. It can alter its shape, fitting its body into even the narrowest spaces, and can use camouflage to blend into its surroundings. It moves quickly and with great force — a master at defending itself. Multi-pronged, highly intelligent, and able to hide in plain sight, the Occupation is an octopus. Its tentacles reach into every corner of Palestinian life: checkpoints, demolitions, permit systems, military violence, settlements, the separation barrier… It is simultaneously fully integrated into and completely separated from Israeli life, making it both invisible and inevitable. It is camouflaged, but able to insert itself into every crack and crevice. The Occupation is highly complex and deeply intelligent.
If the Occupation is an octopus, then the legal system is its beating heart. It powers the entire system, granting legitimacy and enabling it to continue. Every aspect of the Occupation is justified through its alleged legality. When the military is the state, then everything it does can be legal. And if it’s legal, then it’s just — or at the very least, justified. Every action and system in the Occupation is subject to judicial review, and thus receives the cover of legality. The permit system and checkpoints legally constrain Palestinian movement. Buffer zones and training facilities legally seize Palestinian land. Concurrent jurisdiction legally grants Israeli settlers immunity from the military courts. The legal system flows through every vein of the Occupation, replacing morality with law. Justice is that which can be justified.
The law is the blood that flows through the body of the Occupation, and closer inspection reveals that its source — its heart — is diseased. Functionally, it is in perfect working order. In fact, as it ages, the organ strengthens with each heartbeat. However, a visit to the Ofer military court and detention facility made it profoundly clear that the legal system of the Occupation has been stripped of any justice. Over 100,000 Palestinians have been arrested under the Occupation. 700 children are arrested, detained, and prosecuted by the Israeli military courts each year. 80% of these children are blindfolded upon arrest. It will be up to 96 hours before they see a lawyer. 71% of them will be denied bail, 95% will be convicted, and 50% of them will be transferred to Israeli prisons upon conviction. Of course, none of these children are Israeli settlers who live in the Occupied Territories — settlers are not subject to Israeli military law. Palestinians are the only civilians in the Occupied Territories subject to Israeli military courts, often overseen by judges who are themselves settlers.
At Ofer military court, harried defense attorneys shuffle from courtroom to courtroom, speaking rapid-fire legalese to their clients that would be incomprehensible even if it were in their native language of Arabic. An interpreter, although legally mandated, is somehow nowhere to be found. The two family members who are allowed into the court for this surreal family reunion are lost in a sea of Hebrew they cannot understand. These courtrooms — essentially air conditioned trailers with the scales of justice and Israeli flag hanging proudly over the judge’s chair — may be the only place where mothers will see their sons, or husbands their wives, for months on end. A prosecutor will go through 40 cases a day, providing an endless stream of plea deals and trial extensions, mechanisms of “justice” that are conveniently the quickest ways to keep the system moving. Grief-stricken family members, still traumatized from the violent 3am arrest a few nights before, will leave with the date for the next hearing and a bill for the fines incurred. There are always fines, regardless of conviction.
In one of the courtrooms, an eighteen year old is on trial for attempting to purchase a gun. (Although he returned the gun due to lack of funds, it is illegal for Palestinians to own weapons in the Occupied Territories.) He has already been detained for 10 months awaiting trial, and ultimately receives a 15 month sentence. This is 6 months longer than the time Elor Azaria will serve, an IDF soldier who shot and killed Abdel Fattah al-Sharrif while he lay wounded on the ground in Hebron in 2016. There are countless cases like this — where the same military legal system is applied differently to Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. At best, the courts are a farce. At worst, they are a part of the Occupation’s camouflage — a way of erasing violence by hiding in plain sight.
Under the cover of legality, the Occupation is able to reach its tentacles into every area of Palestinian life. As long as its heart keeps pumping, everything it does can be justified. But what if the blood that runs through this system is toxic? How long can a body survive on poison?
