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How Israel Targets and Suppresses Opposition to Its Annexation Wall - by Stephen Lendman
Established in 1992, the Addameer (Arabic for conscience) Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association helps Palestinian prisoners, and works to end torture, arbitrary arrests and detentions, other forms of abuse, and unjust, unequal treatment in Israel's criminal justice system that handles Jews one way and Palestinians another.
In July 2009, in cooperation with the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall) and the Palestinian Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association, Addameer published a report titled "Repression allowed, Resistance denied" that documents resistance to Israel's apartheid wall and the "staggering level of repression, arrests and violence" by Israeli authorities.
On July 9, 2004 in a unanimous decision, the International Court of Justice (IJC) ruled that "the construction of the Wall being built by Israel, and its associated regime, are contrary to international law...." It said construction on it must cease. Built sections must be dismantled, Palestinian land returned, and compensation paid for property destroyed. The UN General Assembly endorsed the decision. Israel rejected it out of hand, keeps seizing Palestinian land, continues the wall's construction, and ruthlessly suppresses efforts to halt it.
In defiance of international law, Israel's High Court ruled that erection of a "barrier" may continue for security reasons even though its purpose is solely to steal resources and land that will include over 12% of the West Bank when completed.
The consequences for Palestinians have been devastating. Communities have been divided, isolated and ghettoized. Farmers have been separated from their land and water sources. Militarized control is repressive, and free movement is more restricted than ever.
The ICRC called the Wall contrary to international humanitarian law and repeatedly urged Israel to halt it. Article 2(c) of the Apartheid Convention says the Wall and checkpoints are key to maintaining apartheid in the West Bank. Article 2(d) adds that "the Wall and its infrastructure of gates and permanent checkpoints suggest a (permanent) policy....to divide the West Bank into racial cantons," and the South African Human Sciences Council stated:
"Restrictions on the Palestinian right to freedom of movement are endemic in the West Bank, stemming from Israel's control of checkpoints and crossings, impediments created by the Wall and its crossing points." They constitute an illegal matrix of control affecting all aspects of Palestinians' lives.
Popular non-violent, direct action resistance emerged in self-defense as well as lobbying through the courts and national and international media campaigns. It was entirely blacked out in the major media.
Most visible are weekly demonstrations, protests and marches involving Palestinians, Israelis, other Jews, and international human rights activists - in defiance of Israeli military orders that call these activities and all organized resistance "criminal offenses," punishable by arbitrary arrests, targeted killings, brutal repression, disproportionate violence, and collective punishment in violation of international law, including Fourth Geneva protections.
Addameer "provide(s documented) evidence to show that injuries and deaths inflicted by the Israeli military at protests and activity surrounding them are intentional, not accidental." Indiscriminate arrests are made, family members threatened, including children, and many are tried, convicted, imprisoned, fined, and ruthlessly punished for defending their rights. Israel wages low intensity warfare against a popular resistance in a futile effort to break an indomitable spirit, at a cost that includes:
-- premeditated, systematic punitive attacks and collective punishment;
-- entire communities targeted by state-sponsored terror;
-- mass arrests, killings, beatings, torture and other abuses;
-- children imprisoned or shot for throwing stones or being in the wrong place at the wrong time; and
-- Palestinians victimized by decades of unremitting, systemic violence and repression, and in Gaza under siege and attack, of course, it's much worse.
