Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2000, Pages 96-99

Human Rights

Partners for Peace Says Israel Detained and Tortured Four American Victims

They looked like four ordinary American men wearing business attire, but in the National Press Club, in Washington, DC, on Sept. 11, each testified to torture and false imprisonment in Israel. All four were Arab-American.

Jerri Bird, president of Partners for Peace, opened the press conference with a declaration: “We are here today to make public our protest of the silence of the U.S. government in the cases of American citizens who, over a period of at least 21 years, have been tortured in Israel. Specifically, we protest the fact that the U.S. government has not effectively and publicly protested the detention, interrogation and torture of Americans.

“Can torture ever be justified?” Bird asked. “Is the Israeli ‘necessary defense’ justified? The Supreme Court of Israel in September 1999 concluded that it is not. Yet the United States still tolerates these actions by our ally, Israel, even when American citizens are tortured. Israel holds 1,500 political prisoners seven years after the Oslo peace agreement was signed on the White House lawn, 10 of whom are American.”

Bird emphasized that the U.S. consular officers in Israel have detailed procedures outlined in the Foreign Affairs Manual that describe the actions to be taken in the event an American is detained in a foreign country. “These guidelines are largely ignored, however, if the victim is an Arab American in Israel.” This statement was proven at the press conference when the four men stepped to the microphone to tell their stories.

First to speak was Mike Mansour. In 1984, he went to the West Bank to visit his elderly mother. Suddenly he was picked up by the Israeli Shin Bet forces, held without charge, interrogated and tortured for more than 21 days. It was not until he had a heart attack—his captors waited four hours to bring help—that he was released. At the time of his detention he was deputy sheriff of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and when he returned to the United States he felt fortunate that he could take his complaint to friends in the State Department. He gave credit to Richard Murphy, then deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, and to some senators for making an effort to help, but in the end he was told that nothing could be done.

Mansour feels let down by his government’s complicity. “Mr. President, State Department, where is the issue of human rights?” he asked. “When we talk about China, when we talk about Egypt, when we talk about Syria, when we talk about Libya, when we talk about any part of the world, we always bring up human rights. Why is it that Israel is the exception to the rule?”

Anwar Mohamad, whose detention was the focus of a CNN/TIME feature aired Sept. 10, was visiting an aunt and some cousins on the West Bank when he was “kidnapped” and accused of being a terrorist. His captors attempted to force him to sign papers written in Hebrew, which Mohamad could not read. When he asked what the documents meant, they told him it was a confession; he found out later that had he signed them, he would have been sentenced automatically to three years in prison. Mohamad noted that there are Americans still in Israeli jails today who were forced to sign such false confessions.

Mohamad described looking down on his handcuffs and reading the words, “Made in USA.” He said, “There are no words to describe the feeling I had at that moment.” He suffered 40 days of “hell,” he said. “I was between life and death, I endured all kinds of impossible torture.” He was finally released with no apology, no explanation, and no charges, but with the warning, “Don’t cause us any trouble.”

Mohamad has yet to be acknowledged by the United States as a victim of wrongful imprisonment. “Since I got back three years ago, I have been trying, with the help of Partners for Peace, to find answers out of this nightmare. I understand that, as an American citizen, whenever we travel abroad we are subject to the laws of the country we are visiting. But what’s happening when you are wrongfully detained, you are innocent, there are no charges made against you, no evidence of any crime? In this situation can the U.S. government do something about it?” He concluded that perhaps there are second-class citizens in America: Arab-Americans.

Besides monetary reparations for the physical and emotional damage incurred during his ordeal, Mohamad, like the others, protested the indifference of the American consulate in Jerusalem to his condition. “They did nothing to prevent it, and ignored the physical evidence of my mistreatment,” he said. “They did not attend the Israeli court.”

Yousuf Marei came to the United States in 1978 and obtained his American citizenship. In 1999 he and his wife took a trip to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, and planned a stopover in the West Bank for a few days to visit his aged parents. Mr. Marei was detained and tortured for five weeks; like the others, he was finally released with no charges filed against him and no explanation or apology. “I came here to tell the American people…why when it comes to me as an Arab-American is the law blind? Where is justice in our American law?” He held up his U.S. passport, reading the statement of protection it describes for citizens traveling abroad.

He still is asking why the Israelis suspected him. “Because I am serving my community in Chicago-land?” he speculated. “I do, I graduated from the American Islamic College. I work with the Muslim community and the Arab community and the American community in Chicago. I teach children. I wash the deceased, I officiate marriages, and I work as a manager for the Islamic community in Chicago. I’ve been in America more than 22 years!”

Marei reminded the audience that every human law, “the laws of Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and the United Nations,” uphold human rights and justice.

Bashir Saidi, an engineer from Detroit, Michigan, was visiting his Israeli wife’s parents in Galilee for Christmas vacation in 1997. During Christmas dinner, 20 Israeli security service men stormed the house. He spent the next 18 months in Israeli custody. He was severely tortured, denied medical attention, and was not allowed to have a Bible. He was never provided due process of law. “My wife was pregnant at the time. They threatened to abort her baby if I didn’t confess to whatever they were asking me,” he said He describes the “mockery trial” that resulted in his prison sentence, and the tortures that followed.

In September 1999, the Israeli Supreme Court banned torture in prisons. But the U.S. Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices acknowledges that interrogation facilities continue to practice torture.

When the four speakers opened the floor to questions, someone asked why no attention is being paid in Washington, DC to this issue. Jerri Bird explained that the president has to make it a news item before any attention will be paid. For example, she explained, when American relatives of 10 Iranian Jews being held captive made an appointment with the president to hear the case, that was news.

Partners for Peace, and the victims themselves, have written many letters protesting the U.S. government’s silence. The official responses “say all the right things,” but imply a low-level approach, Bird said. She cited the example of a government requesting a “letter of inquiry,” which is not public, so does not make news, and may not receive a response for months. The response usually is “incomplete,” and more information is requested, but no action is demanded.

A Jewish American told Bird that when he was detained for demonstrating against a home demolition, the American consul obtained his release within three hours. The consul told him, “If you are Jewish American I can get you out in a few hours, if you are a ‘regular’ American it might take a day or two, and if you are an Arab American, forget it.”

Partners for Peace said the following four actions should be taken:

1. “President Clinton should publicly protest Israeli torture of American citizens.

2. “The ‘warning’ buried in the Consular Information Sheet issued by the Department of State is both inaccurate and inadequate. A Travel Warning should be issued, warning Americans against travel to Israel. If it is unsafe for Arab Americans it should be barred to all. Americans are Americans.

3. “Consular officials should be required to follow the Foreign Affairs Manual to the letter in ALL cases of Americans detained in Israel.

4. “Congress should implement a ban on aid to Israel, since legislation requires that no aid can go to a country that violates human rights of its own citizens or others.

—Elizabeth Neal

Lawmakers on the Hill Challenge Clinton’s Iran Policy

At an Oct. 11 Capitol Hill news conference lawmakers released a Statement on Iranian Policy, signed by 228 members of Congress, listing human rights abuses under the current Iranian government and calling for a firm policy against the Tehran regime. The statement declares that the U.S. should change its policy to support the desires of the Iranian people, and not the government of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. Speakers also declared support for a resolution to denounce Khatami as a “false” moderate and to urge support and recognition of the National Council of Resistance.

U.S. lawmakers, including Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Gary L. Ackerman (D-NY), Ed Towns (D-NY), Dan Burton (R-IN), and James A. Traficant, Jr., criticized Iran for its Sept. 21 Revolutionary Court ruling that only slightly shortened the sentences against the 10 Iranian Jews convicted of spying in July. The lawmakers went on to cite Tehran’s support for international terrorism and its opposition to the U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace process.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Mordechai Is my Brother

Political analyst and activist Daniel Ellsberg gave the keynote address at the Sept. 26 conference of the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu. The conference, held in St. Aloysius Church in Washington, DC, kicked off three days of speeches, demonstrations, lobbying and a vigil for Israel’s nuclear whistle-blower. People and organizations around the world have lobbied for Vanunu’s release, including Amnesty International, the European Parliament, the Federation of American Scientists, the Jewish and Episcopal peace fellowships, former President Jimmy Carter and 36 members of Congress.

Among the approximately 80 participants in the evening’s activities was long-time activist Louise Franklin-Ramirez, who celebrated her 95th birthday on Sept. 28. Ellsberg affectionately recognized her when he took the podium, recalling that Ramirez had inspired him to civil disobedience when he witnessed her arrest during a demonstration at the Capitol.

Preceding Ellsberg’s talk, conference participants heard a wide range of people speak in support of Vanunu, from Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, archbishop of the diocese of Detroit, Michigan, to Rabbi Phillip J. Bentley, honorary president of the Jewish Peace Fellowship. Other speakers included Mordechai’s adoptive parents, Mary and Nicholas Eoloff, executive secretary of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship Mary Miller, and Jonah House co-founder Elizabeth McAlister. Jewish peace activist Ken Giles, former musician with Bright Morning Star, led a sing-along of familiar civil rights melodies in the evening.

A former technician at the Dimona nuclear “research center,” Vanunu was kidnapped and brought to Israel in 1986, after disclosing Israel’s nuclear weapons program to the London Sunday Times. He spent the first 11 and a half years of his 18-year sentence in solitary confinement. Israeli authorities claim Vanunu’s release would threaten the security of the state. However, Livermore laboratory’s expert nuclear weapons designer Ray E. Kidder conducted a four-month study of the case, and certified in an affidavit to the Israeli judiciary that he is “prepared to challenge any official assertion that Mr. Vanunu possesses any technical nuclear information not already made public.”

Sam Day, American campaign coordinator for Vanunu’s plight, described the parallels between Daniel Ellsberg and Mordechai Vanunu in his introduction to Ellsberg’s talk, “Mordechai is my Brother.” Both men worked for their governments and believed in the ideas they were working for, and both had “a change of heart” and “decided to do something about it,” namely, offering to the public the covert actions of their governments, in Ellsberg’s case The Pentagon Papers, detailing U.S. involvement in Vietnem.

For many, the risks Ellsberg and Vanunu accepted in challenging their governments seem honorable but idealistic. “What do you say to people when they ask you, ‘why are you doing this?’” Ellsberg recalled asking a man who was marching across the country with him in support of the abolition of nuclear weapons. “I want to participate in a miracle,” the man replied. Ellsberg acknowledged that it will indeed take a miracle to disarm the United States and the rest of the world’s nuclear powers, but “fortunately, miracles are possible.” Miracles need human participation, he noted, citing the crumbling of the Berlin Wall as an example, and lamenting that the world did not seize that moment to begin nuclear disarmament.

Ellsberg said the vast majority of people today who have complacently watched their countries build a nuclear weapons arsenal are following one kind of loyalty—to the state. But he believes that people who are calling Mordechai Vanunu a hero, prophet, or saint are pointing to a higher loyalty. “Vanunu needs to be—not for his sake, but for the world’s sake—honored…for our benefit, the world’s benefit, to establish a norm, a new standard of what it means to be a citizen of humanity, a citizen of the world, a citizen of any given country,” Ellsberg concluded. “He is setting a new standard for patriotism, and loyalty to his own country-people, to the world, and humanity.”

—Elizabeth Neal