{"id":735,"date":"2013-04-05T21:12:50","date_gmt":"2013-04-05T21:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/?p=735"},"modified":"2013-06-19T06:57:48","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T13:57:48","slug":"ground-breaking-israeli-journalist-amira-hass-charged-with-incitement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/?p=735","title":{"rendered":"UPDATED (see italics): Ground-breaking Israeli journalist Amira Hass accused of incitement"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Amira Hass of Haaretz. The Israeli journalist lives in Ramallah. Photo reprinted from http:\/\/israelpalestine.blog.lemonde.fr\/<\/p><\/div>\n

NOTE, APRIL 10: \u00a0SEE ITALICS <\/em>FOR UPDATE. \u00a0In the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, stones have played a central role.\u00a0 The stone was the symbol of the first Palestinian\u00a0intifada<\/em> (1987-1993), as\u00a0children as young as eight years old <\/a>rained their projectiles down on the occupying Israeli army. Soldiers often responded with live ammunition,\u00a0killing more than 1,000 Palestinians<\/a>, about 200 of them children. Youths with stones confronting soldiers with Galils and M-16s:\u00a0 suddenly Palestinian children took center stage as David against the Israeli Goliath.\u00a0 The image pricked the conscence of \u00a0many Israelis, and citizens and governments around the world, and ultimately helped force Israeli leaders, including the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, to the negotiating table. (The Oslo agreement they forged with Palestinian negotiators proved to be disastrous; nevertheless, there was a palpable sense during the first\u00a0intifada<\/em> that the stone would lead to Palestinian liberation.)<\/p>\n

Today the stone remains a part of Palestinian resistance to Israel\u2019s occupation, which is\u00a0more entrenched than ever.<\/a> And while growing numbers of Palestinians\u00a0advocate nonviolent resistance<\/span> as the most promising path to a just peace, others strongly defend the right of Palestinians to throw stones as a legitimate act of political resistance against an illegal 47-year military occupation. \u00a0One of them is an Israeli journalist. Read more, on Truthdig…<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThrowing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule,\u201d wrote Amira Hass in an\u00a0April 3 article<\/a> in Haaretz. \u201cThrowing stones is an action as well as a metaphor of resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The article has\u00a0 generated a political firestorm<\/a> in Israel.\u00a0 Moshe Feiglin, a Knesset member from the Likud Party, said that \u201cHaas’ words are condemnable and are considered an expression of disloyalty to the state.\u201d\u00a0 The loyalty-baiting charges against Hass, daughter of Holocaust survivors, are nothing new, but now she and Haaretz must contend with something more serious:\u00a0 An incitement charge<\/a> brought by the Council of Settlements in the West Bank. “Hours after it was published,” reported the Times of Israel, “the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel and the Yesha Council \u2014 the umbrella organization of West Bank settlements \u2014 filed complaints with the police and Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, saying the piece incited violence.” \u00a0The organizations, backed by supporters in the Knesset, want Israel to prosecute Hass. \u00a0It\u2019s not clear that that would happen.\u00a0 In an email to me, Hass doubted that Israeli state prosecutors would accede to the wishes of the settlers’ council and prosecute her and Haaretz. However, given the increasing power of the settlers\u2019 movement in recent years, and of attempts to re-cast and normalize settlements in the public eye as \u201cneighborhoods,\u201d the mere fact that the organizations have acted against Hass is a clear sign of the sharp rightward movement in Israel.<\/em><\/p>\n

According to\u00a0israelnationalnews.com<\/a>:\u00a0“Attorney Hila Cohen, writing on behalf of the Legal Forum, wrote in the letter to Weinstein that Hass\u2019s comments were serious and constitute an incitement to violence and terrorism, while encouraging murderous terrorism.”\u00a0Knesset member Orit Strock declared that Hass had made a \u201cdangerous incitement toward violent acts against civilians and an encouragement to assault soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

This characterization is consistent with the Israeli military\u2019s attempts to re-cast the state in the implausible role as victim of Palestinian violence.\u00a0 Israeli Captain Eytan Buchman, in an email to me describing one such clash on March 19, labeled it a \u201cviolent riot.\u201d \u00a0This is a curious description for a clash between well-armed soldiers wearing helmets, face shields and body armor, who use live ammunition against stone-throwers.\u00a0 The action against Hass, then, seems in the same vein: to describe the soldiers, part of one of the world\u2019s most powerful armies, with its tanks, rockets, and helicopter gunships supplied by the top military power on earth, as victims of Palestinians who throw stones.<\/p>\n

In subsequent days, furious readers and columnists in Israel also attacked Hass.<\/em><\/p>\n

A\u00a0Maariv columnist\u00a0opined <\/a>that Hass\u2019s statements represent \u201cthe outpouring of a suppurating abscess of self-hatred, couched in hypocritical moral acrobatics. Her eyes are blind to Jewish suffering and are open only to her friends from Hamas, the champions of human rights.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Adva Bitton, the mother of a three-year-old who\u00a0remains in intensive care <\/a>following the stoning of her car in the occupied West Bank,\u00a0wrote<\/a> in\u00a0Ma’ariv: “I agree with you that everyone deserves their freedom. Arab and Jew alike. \u00a0I\u00a0agree with you that we all ought to aspire to liberty, but there isn’t a person on earth who will achieve freedom and liberty by means of an instrument of death. There’s no reason on earth that Adele, my three-year-old daughter, should have to lie in the intensive care unit now, connected to tubes and fighting for her life, and there is no reason, Amira, for you to encourage that.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Protestors then showed up<\/a> at the Haaretz offices in Tel Aviv, unfurling a banner that read,\u00a0“Amira Hass, look what a rock can do. Stop encouraging terrorists!”<\/em><\/p>\n

In her article, however, Hass was defending the right of Palestinians to resist the military occupation with stones, not to throw them at civilians.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hass, an Israeli who has lived in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for most of the last two decades, cited her fellow citizens’ “concept of eternal victimhood which allows them to be in a state of denial about how much violence is used on a daily basis against Palestinians,” according to\u00a0The Guardian<\/a>. “They don’t like to be told that someone has the right to resist their violence.”<\/em><\/p>\n

In an interview with\u00a0\u00a0The Observer<\/a>, Hass suggested her article was misunderstood.\u00a0“I\u2019m surprised that they don\u2019t read the whole text \u2013 and then I\u2019m surprised at myself for being surprised. \u00a0She pointed out that she had made \u201ca clear distinction between a citizen [as a target] and a soldier or someone who carries arms.\u201d \u00a0In an email to me, Hass added: \u00a0“Whoever reads the article \u00a0knows it talks against violence.”<\/em><\/p>\n

In her article Hass underscored the “right” and “duty” of Palestinians to resist the occupation in the face of “shooting, torture, land theft, restrictions on movement, and the unequal distribution of water sources.” \u00a0The Israeli journalist, who unlike nearly every Western correspondent lives in the occupied West Bank,\u00a0offered this resistance advice:<\/p>\n

“It would make sense for Palestinian schools to introduce basic classes in resistance: … how to behave when army troops enter your homes; comparing different struggles against colonialism in different countries; how to use a video camera to document the violence of the regime\u2019s representatives; methods to exhaust the military system and its representatives; a weekly day of work in the lands beyond the separation barrier; how to remember identifying details of soldiers who flung you handcuffed to the floor of the jeep, in order to submit a complaint; the rights of detainees and how to insist on them in real time; how to overcome fear of interrogators; and mass efforts to realize the right of movement.”<\/p>\n

Not least of these strategies, Hass asserted in the article that has drawn so much heat, is hurling stones at soldiers:\u00a0\u201cStone-throwing is the adjective attached to the subject of \u2018We\u2019ve had enough of you, occupiers.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOTE, APRIL 10: \u00a0SEE ITALICS FOR UPDATE. \u00a0In the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, stones have played a central role.\u00a0 The stone was the symbol of the first Palestinian\u00a0intifada (1987-1993), as\u00a0children as young as eight years old rained their projectiles down on the occupying Israeli army. Soldiers often responded with live ammunition,\u00a0killing more more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":738,"href":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions\/738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}