Harassment as a military duty
By Amira Hass

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/490930.html

Every day soldiers confiscate the identity cards of
West Bank Palestinians even though this is prohibited
by the law - even by military orders, except under
very specific conditions.

It looks like a concentrated mass violation of army
instructions. Every day soldiers confiscate the
identity cards of West Bank Palestinians even though
this is prohibited by the law - even by military
orders, except under very specific conditions.

In the best cases, people are delayed for five, six,
or seven hours - far more than any reasonable security
check - and then they get their cards back at the end
of the day. In the worst cases the ID cards get lost
in the shuffle between soldiers' shifts. Often, the
soldiers tell people "come tomorrow" to some place
where they will get their ID card back - the district
coordination office, another checkpoint. The West
Bankers show up the next day and are greeted by
apathetic shrugs.

In the narrow columns rationed out in the media for
reports about the occupation, the confiscation of ID
cards cannot compete with the killing of children, the
obstruction of olive harvests, the demolition of
homes. But the confiscation of documents, like the
hours of delays at the checkpoints using "security
checks" as an excuse, are some of the most common
harassment measures that define the Israeli to
Palestinians - arbitrary, malicious, negligent,
arrogant, brutal.

And it's not only ID cards that the soldiers
confiscate - every few days there are more cases of
cars being seized. In August, the army completed a
legal process that allows soldiers to confiscate cars
that get past checkpoints using the prohibited routes
through groves, valleys and orchards.

Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski of the Central Command
signed the order that should be considered a mere
laundering of a practice whose existence officials
denied. But it can also be seen as an attempt to
constrain liberties taken by soldiers who just want to
prove who's the boss. Soldiers at checkpoints
"besieging" Nablus - Hawara and Beit Iba - violated
the orders at least twice this past week, confiscating
taxis at the checkpoint and not on roads forbidden to
Palestinians.

At various checkpoints there are lines beyond which
only pedestrians are allowed, up to the place where
they are checked. In effect, when many drivers are
competing for every passenger, they cross the line, by
a meter, a meter and a half, perhaps. Soldiers at
Hawara last Wednesday considered that was enough to
delay five drivers more than six hours, and then to
order the confiscation of their taxis for a week.

When the women from MachsomWatch made many phone calls
to IDF officers they heard chanted like a refrain -
"indeed, that is a disproportional punishment." But
that didn't help anyone. At Beit Iba last Sunday,
phone calls from MachsomWatch women to the army
prevented a similar punishment being imposed on some
drivers.

As for Hawara, the IDF Spokesman's Office gave Haaretz
the official version, that the confiscation was
"according to the amended law." In other words, the
Kaplinski orders instruct soldiers to punish people
with families by denying them their livelihood for a
week because the taxis crossed a line by a meter and a
half.

There's a clear division of labor at work here. Senior
commanders document their instructions as if they are
considerate of the people and the law, devising rules
disguised as enlightened. This is what they show the
Judge Advocate General's office, if someone gets
annoying about it, or to some international tribunal,
when the day comes. For example, a military source
promised Haaretz the rules prohibiting confiscation of
ID cards will be "refreshed."

The soldiers on the ground, however, are too young to
be hypocritical and self-righteous. They know that
hundreds of appeals by the Center for the Protection
of the Individual om the matter of confiscated
documents don't threaten them. They understand,
without any orders, that instilling fear of harassment
and complications like lost time, livelihood and
money, in tens of thousands of Palestinians every day,
is a weapon as effective as the rifle they carry.

They know that the daily "little" harassments are an
integral part of their duty. That duty is to enforce
the control of one nation over another.






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