Civil Rights in Israel

This has become a very difficult issue for many of us. CIVIL RIGHTS IN ISRAEL. Who would have thought that the Jewish State of Israel would become one of the worst abusers in the 21st Century?

I'm including the AFSI Update about Moshe and Chaya Belogorodsky's visit to the USA. They are neighbors of mine. It's impossible to comprehend that the quiet shy, young girl I've seen walking their dog and helping to care for her baby sister can be so feared by the Israeli Government that she was jailed under the most restrictive conditions. And what did she do? She wouldn't listen to the policewoman. She wasn't violent or dangerous. and for that she spent over a month in prison.

But another little neighborhood girl has been in longer. The government considers her a real "danger." Why? Basically, she just doesn't respect the system. She's a high school student of high ideals. She demonstrated repeatedly to cancel Disengagement, and on a number of occasions the police picked her up, literally off the street.

Did you know that all sorts of Labor Unions have blocked traffic to demand more money, and none of them were jailed. The media was not full of dire warnings that their demonstrations would cause the deaths and needless suffering of ordinary citizens. No one was arrested when businesses lost enormous amounts of money, because their goods couldn't be released from port or sent to customers. They weren't' arrested when planes didn't take off or land causing losses to the tourist industry. Ambulances found alternative routes.

Unions demanded money, oh, that's the Israeli way...

But back to these young kids, like my neighbor's daughter, who kept going back to demonstrate to fight for Eretz Yisrael, like in the pre-State times. No passive sheep-like behavior for her. And she was thrown in jail and became totally disillusioned with the system. Being disillusioned with the system is now what's keeping her in jail. She just doesn't want to play their games.

There's nothing like a teenager for seeing through the lies and tricks. They're so pure. But that's not criminal, is it? It is in a totalitarian regime.

Laws are applied differently for different people. It's like in the United States and J.J. Pollard. He took the "law" into his own hands when he saw that his bosses weren't passing Israel information it should have had been receiving according to signed treaties. He than passed the information on himself. He was caught, and Israel didn't protect him. And now he's still in jail. His punishment was more severe and longer than anything given to enemy spies. And he didn't help any enemies. You can say that he was foolish, or you can say that he was too naive, but he was helping an ally. But---he is Jewish and helped Israel. American civil rights activists ignore him, or he would have been released years ago.

And international civil rights activists don't care that Israeli teenagers are being jailed for political dissent, for sitting down in the street, for talking back to policewomen. They're too busy defending the rights of Arab terrorists.

And nobody seems to think there's a civil rights issue in the fact that most of the Arab world is Judenrein--empty of Jews. What kind of peace is being brewed where Jews are forbidden to enter? where synagogues are destroyed? What about Jewish civil rights?

Here's the AFSI notice:
AMERICANS FOR A SAFE ISRAEL/AFSI; 1623 Third Ave., Suite 205, New York, N.Y. 10128; Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-828-1717; http://www.afsi.org/; http://us.f538.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=afsi@rcn.com; September 23, 2005
Contact: Helen Freedman, Executive Director
ALERTING THE U.S. CONGRESS TO JUDICIAL HUMAN & CIVIL RIGHTS ABUSES IN ISRAEL
On Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2005, Herbert Zweibon, Chairman of Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI, and Helen Freedman, AFSI Executive Director, escorted Chaya and Moshe Belogorodsky through the halls of Congress in Washington, DC. The two leaders of AFSI believed it was very important to introduce the Members of Congress to a father and daughter who have been victims of the “judicial imperialism” that exists today in the Israeli courts, encouraged by the Sharon government’s disregard for the will of the people. Robert Bork, American legal scholar, describes the Israeli Supreme Court as one that “is gradually producing an Israel that is neither Jewish nor democratic.” Chaya, 14 years old, was arrested by the Israeli police for standing on the sidelines in a protest against the expulsion, and then speaking rudely to a policewoman. She was kept in solitary confinement for five days, without permission to call her family or a lawyer, denied water and basic needs for periods of time. After the five days, she was moved out of solitary and kept in jail for an additional 35 days. All of this was prior to any trial, the date of which must still be set. At the trial, should she be found guilty of her “crime”, the penalty for this would be a monetary fine, without any jail time. But for this, she has already served 40 days in jail. Her father, Moshe, tried desperately to get her released, going from one court to another, until he reached the Supreme Court. There the judge ruled that Chaya was an “ideological criminal” and therefore more dangerous than drug dealers, murderers, rapists, and even terrorists, who are released as good will gestures to other terrorists. It was only public opinion pressure that finally secured her release.
As Chaya and Moshe told their stories to Congressman Jim Saxton, and aides for Senator Inhofe, Congressmen Mike Pence and Tom Tancredo, they received overwhelming interest and concern. It is expected that action will be taken on the part of those who heard the Belogorodsky story to inform Prime Minister Sharon that such civil disobedience actions as taking part in demonstrations is part and parcel of the democratic process, and jailing minors for long periods of time for such offenses is intolerable.
As Freedman, Zweibon, Chaya and Moshe spoke in the halls of Congress, they also told about the hundreds of other cases where minors are sitting in jail for similar offenses. The case of Shimshon Cytryn, presently being held for “attempted murder” in a clearly trumped up case, and eleven new cases of arrests of minors, illustrates that the “judicial imperialism,” producing egregious violations of human and civil rights in Israel, is running out of control. Honenu, an Israeli Jewish civil rights organization that defends the legal rights of minors and others caught in such cases needs the support of an informed public. Call AFSI, 212-828-2424, or write: http://us.f538.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=afsi@rcn.com, for additional information.