Maan News Agency, August 20, 2010
Alarms sounded through Israel’s leftist camps recently when Jewish-Israeli activist Yonatan Shapira was summoned for an interview with General Security Services, also known by the Hebrew acronym Shabak.
The interrogation came in the wake of the May detention and arrest of Ameer Makhoul, Palestinian-Israeli director of Ittijah—a platform for local Arab NGOs and an organization dedicated to empowering Palestinian-Israelis. During his detainment, Makhoul was allegedly subjected to illegal interrogation methods by Shabak including sleep deprivation and being bound to a chair in an extremely painful position. According to Adalah, a human rights organization that aims to promote and protect Palestinian citizens of Israel, Makhoul also suffered psychological torture.
Along with Dr. Omar Said, a respected political activist who runs a natural medicine company, Makhoul was accused with spying for Hezbollah. The two were indicted for espionage, amongst other crimes—charges both deny. The Palestinian-Israeli community decried the arrests as political persecution.
Adding to the evidence that Israel is bent on silencing dissent, Maan News Agency has learned that the Shabak is paying increasing attention to Palestinian-Israelis who seem to be unlikely candidates for interviews. A middle-aged Arabic teacher, a religious leader, and a teenage drop-out—none of whom are involved in political activities—have all been questioned in recent months.
Abeer Baker, an attorney with Adalah, remarks that the phenomenon is not uncommon. Such interrogations serve different purposes. “[Interviews can be] an attempt to recruit people and [gather] information, even if it’s not secret information,” Baker says. Interviewees might be asked “If you hear anything about your neighbors, if there has been any sort of political activity [in the area].”
One Yafo man was questioned about the mood in Ajami, a neighborhood that is struggling with an influx of settlers, some of whom have attempted to intimidate Palestinian-Israeli residents.
It is difficult to assess exactly how many such interviews are conducted in a given year. “The Shabak will refuse to tell us because, according to the Freedom of Information Act, this can be classified as security,” Baker explains. “[Adalah] is considering challenging this because giving this data to us is transparency and it has nothing to do with security. The only way we can prove this phenomenon is by data and numbers.”
A wall of silence, built by fear, surrounds the topic. “Many people prefer not to tell us that they have been called [for an interview],” Baker says. “[They believe] it’s better not to share with anybody. [They’re] afraid that if the Shabak knows [they told] it will make trouble.”
But, in some cases, interviews are a violation of civil rights.
Shabak sets up its “conversations” by calling the interviewee and asking them to meet. If the interviewee requests that the Shabak send an order, the police do so. This is illegal. For the police to send an order, Baker explains, “You should be either a witness or a suspect [in a crime]. But they’re not. So this is an illegal thing they’re doing and they’re giving themselves a legal cover, [creating] an illusion of legality.”
And there’s another problem. Interviewees, having received a police order to come to the “chat”, are usually unaware of the fact that they don’t have to cooperate, Baker adds. Adalah feels that the Shabak has an obligation to inform interviewees of their right to choose.
“Another kind of interview that we are worried [about] are warning investigations with political activists,” Baker says, explaining that the purpose of such meetings—which the Shabak sometimes calls “conversations” or “chats”—is to “warn [activists] that they are being watched.”
“The beginning [of the interview] is calm and peaceful,” Baker says. “But soon after the person asks the nature of the interview, once they show awareness of rights, it takes another shape.” The interviewee is often intimidated to the point of being terrified.
Shabak “chats” with Palestinian-Israelis who are not politically active are also extremely frightening. And purposefully so, Baker explains. Sometimes Shabak interviews loved ones of political activists, she says, “to send a message to the activist—‘Your family members are under stress, watch it.”
“I would not be surprised if my father is called by the Shabak, by the way,” Baker adds. “He’s not an activist at all… but they can use him to put pressure on me.”
While political activists might be the intended target, such methods have a ripple effect, amounting to psychological warfare on the Palestinian-Israeli community.
Daniel Monterescu, a professor in Central Europe University’s Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, located in Budapest, explains, “[Yafo] has always posed a problem of the security services and their attempt to establish full closure and surveillance over the Arab population. In the aftermath of the 1948 war military rule was imposed for a year. It ended in June 49 and was substituted by a civil administration. Unlike villages in Galilee and the Triangle, which suffered under Martial Law until 1966, such measures could not be enforced in mixed towns.”
In Yafo, Monterescu explains, Israel had to employ a “more subtle mechanism of control and containment, which sought to limit political activity and to produce ‘obedient subjects.’ The myth of the all-knowing, omnipresent Shabak and police forces was a powerful tool.”
And it continues to be so.
“Shabak is well aware of the impact the fear of the Big Brother has on most people,” Monterescu comments.
“The educational system became a major site to monitor nationalistic teachers and potential “uprising”. There was a few years ago a public debate about the role the Shabak has in approving teachers appointments,” Monterescu says, adding that he knows personally an instructor who was fired “because someone in the system didn’t like his attitude.”
“Religious figures are targeted because the Shabak is guided by the Orientalist assumption that Islamic Movement activists are always nationalist and potentially dangerous,” Monterescu continues, adding that, in reality, most religious leaders are “pretty docile.” But sometimes, the state’s harassment becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, creating “alienation and anger,” Monterescu says.
Not only do interviews create a general environment of fear, “chats” can have a lasting impact on the interviewees. Some Palestinian-Israelis have suffered from depression following a Shabak interview, Monterescu reports.
Shabak usually intensifies its activity—putting stress on the Palestinian-Israeli community—during times of political turmoil. The recent spike in interviews could reflect Israel’s march right. Critics say that the increasing hostility to dissent—on both the state level and public level—is a symptom of the erosion of democracy in Israel.
Photo: Maan News Agency