Israeli Fascist State: Unjust Justice System

By Khalid Amayreh

PIC, February 22, 2008

Occupied East Jerusalem

 

Israel’s unjust justice system

Israel claims ad nauseam that it is a democratic state where the rule of law is supreme. However, upon a closer scrutiny, it is abundantly clear that Israel is a state where the law is utilized, often scandalously, to serve Israeli fascism, which what Israel is all about.

Abraham Burg, the former Speaker of the Israeli Knesset noted that “today’s Israel rests on foundations of oppression and injustice.”

In his recent book, Defeating Hitler,” Burg argues that Germany in the 1930s was ripe for fascism because of its social paranoia and its social philosophy. And both of these conditions, he says, are present in Israel.

But if Israel is a Nazi state “in the making” or going through the penultimate step of becoming a fully-fledged Nazi entity, then its justice system, an inherent oxymoron in itself,  should be viewed as at least a quasi Nazi Justice system.

There is indeed monumental evidence one can easily cite to underscore the fascistic nature of the Israeli justice system. It is a system that is inherently devoid of justice if non-Jews are involved. In the final analysis, fascist states, including ethnic nationalist states such as Nazi German, apartheid South Africa and Israel,  don’t and can’t produce  egalitarian justice systems

Let us take,  for example,  the continued harsh incarceration of hundreds  of Palestinian lawmakers, mayors and other elected officials now languishing in Israeli dungeons and detention camps.

These people committed no violations, threw no stones, and engaged in no violence. Their only “crime” is that they had decided to contend legislative and municipal elections that Israel itself and her guardian-ally, the United States, approved.

Needless to say, many of these virtual hostages are professionals, intellectuals, and university professors. They are the crème de le crème of the Palestinian society.

Take for example Professor Aziz Duwaik, the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

This man  has an extensive educational background. He holds three Master’s degrees (in Education, City planning and Regional Planning), in addition to  his Ph.D. in Regional and Architecture Planning  which he obtained from the University of Pennsylvania. Upon his return from the United States in the late 1970s, he founded the Geography Department at Najah University in Nablus where he served as the department’s head. He was the head of the Higher Education Committee and a member of the Scientific Research Committee at Najah University.

Mr. Duwaik has been imprisoned several times by Israel. In 1992, he was one of 416  Islamic activists deported to Lebanon. During his exile, he served as the English language spokesperson for the deportees. Mr. Duwaik has authored several books.

I had the honor to meet  Mr. Duwaik both before and after he won a seat at the Palestinian legislative council.

In one of our encounters at his Hebron home in February 2006, I remember him telling me that “I have no hard feeling toward Jews as Jews.”  The problem, he said, was that our oppressors and grave-diggers happen to people claiming to adhere to the Jewish faith.

Duwaik was abducted from his home in Ramallah nearly 17 months ago and has ever since been detained, mostly in solitary confinement, without charge or trial.

During his initial arraignment, Duwaik confronted the Israeli judge, eye to eye,  telling him that “you are walking in footsteps of your former tormentors. And you will eventually meet the same fate.”

Duwaik added: “In any democratic and free country,  a person is not punished, let alone imprisoned, for his thought. But, you who claim to be a democratic state, are punishing and persecuting people for their thoughts. I challenge you and challenge your court to uphold the universal standards of justice. I challenge you to uphold the universal standards of humanity.

“I am not a terrorist. I am the elected Speaker of the Palestinian Parliament. My people elected me in an election that Israel and the United States as well as the rest of the international community approved. So, why are you holding us? What crime have we committed? Or do you consider our being non-Jews a grand felony?  Shame on your justice system. Shame on your court. Shame on your country.”

Obviously, Duwaik has much more to say about a state which calls itself democratic while in truth it has the morality of a thief, the mentality of a murderer and the face of evil.

On Wednesday, 20 February, Duwaik’s incarceration was extended on instructions from Israel’s main domestic security agency, the Shin Beth, which argued that Duwaik constituted a threat to the survival and security of Israel.

Well, the last time this logic was heard was in Nazi Germany prior to and during the Second World War. Then the gurus of Nazism also argued that Jews constituted an existential threat to the security and survival of the motherland.

Is history reproducing itself?