It shouldn’t have to be said that every human being, no matter their ethnicity or political status is entitled to human rights, but it was literally declared by the U.N. in 1948 to remind those who think otherwise.

U.S. Consul Philip Wilcox, is one of those who think otherwise. On July 23, 1990, U.S. Consul Wilcox, met with American-Israeli Jewish residents of Judea-Samaria (israelinsider, David Bedein, June 13, 2005, www.israelinsider.com). When the question of their human rights in Judea-Samaria was brought up, U.S. Consul Wilcox plainly said: ’’If you live where you live, you have no human rights and no civil liberties’’. Wilcox statement, not only violated Article 2, but the U.N. Declaration as a whole and even more specifically, Article 7:’’All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.’’ Wilcox’s words of, ‘’no human rights and no civil liberties’’, most definitely incites such discrimination. Wilcox’s incitement is difficult to fathom, when history has shown that similar incitements led to unthinkable atrocities. Still, a difficult question remains: Does Wilcox’s words just end at incitement or do they verbalize U.S. policy?

Wilcox’s statement was virtually repeated word for word by the Israeli High Court of Justice’s 2005 ruling on the Disengagement, which the U.S. strongly supported. Israelinsider, printed the Voice of Israel’s radio broadcast on the court’s ruling, which said: ’’[The Disengagement], while violating human rights and civil liberties, was legal. Israeli human rights and civil liberties law simply do not apply to Israeli taxpayers and law-abiding citizens who live in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, the court said, since Israel has not yet annexed these areas’’ (israelinsider, David Bedein, June 13, 2005, www.israelinsider.com). From this ruling by the High Court of Justice, Wilcox’s words seem to be legalized, and thus making his words a policy.

Civil rights and human rights go hand in hand. Most often, when civil rights are violated, human rights are violated. This parallel proved correct during the anti-Disengagement protests. As made evident earlier, the Israeli authorities, used various tactics to ‘’block the rise’’ in anti-Disengagement protests; such as the ISA secret police unit, the secret guidelines for prosecution, outdated laws and administrative orders that were reinforced from the pre-state British Mandate. Israeli judges played a major rule in violating, not only civil rights, but human rights as well. The Israeli Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz, articulated this fact to the Israel Bar Association in May 2005: ‘’The courts have demonstrated a stern approach [emphasis added] and approved most of our requests for arrests, including arrests until the end of judicial proceedings'' (Israeljustice.com, Knesset Approves Draconian Regulations Without Right of Perusal, 12/27/2006 ).

Chaya Belogoradsky , a 14-year-old girl was arrested while attending a anti-Disengagement protest on June 29, 2005, with her two friends, aged 13 and 16, reported Israeljustice.com (Israeljustice.com, 9/7/2006, http://www.israeljustice.com/newss2.asp?key=78). She faced charges of disturbing and insulting the police and violating a previous court order.. Chaya testified that she saw her two friends dragged into a police van. She said:’ I wanted to see that they were ok, I was worried about them.’’ Chaya also testified that she didn’t leave the demonstration when police told her twice. She said: ‘’I didn’t do anything wrong standing on the sidewalk. I didn’t bother them [the police].’’ Israeljustice.com continued to report, ‘’Authorities said Chaya violated an order of house arrest to attend the demonstration [on June 29, 2005]. In January 2005, she had been arrested in another anti-withdrawal protest.’’ The judge sentenced Chaya and her two friends to 40 days in prison. Chaya said they ere hungry in prison, they were not allowed to have books or packages from home and were never visited by social workers. Chaya’s father, Moshe Belogorodsky said: ‘’What goes on here reminds me very much of what happened in Russia. If you’re a rapist or a drug addict, the court will give you every chance in the world, But if you’re an ideological criminal, you’re lost.’’ Indeed, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, told the Israel Bar Association: ''A fight that is ideologically motivated causes all parties involved to become more radical’’(Israeljustice.com). In this statement, Mazuz isn’t saying the peaceful protestors are radical, he’s admitting that all parties, such as himself, the police, the prosecutors and judges have become radical. Mazuz has become so radical, that he took the liberty of going behind the Knesset Constitution and Law Committee’s back, in using the secret Disengagement guidelines before the committee approved it. Mazuz’s so called ‘’fight’’ against anti-Disengagement protestors, to bend their political opinion to his, violates human rights, by fear, intimidation and physical abuse. This ‘’fight’’ of fear, intimidation and abuse is evident in the sentencing of minors as adults, based on a lack of evidence or no evidence at all.

Prof. David Kretzmer, professor emeritus of international law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said, ‘’It seems to be a recurrent theme among law officials that they either exaggerate or sometimes invent claims that demonstrators were using violence or disturbing the police to justify their own behavior’’ (Israeljustice.com). An example of this, is Oriya Shirel, a 15-year-old girl, who Israeljustice.com reported, was one of 19 girls arrested during a protest of a the closure of a Hebron [in Judea] kindergarten on June 13, 2006. Oriya’s father, David, said, ‘’this is her backyard she was walking past’’. On her initial hearing, Oriya refused a 5,000 shekel bail, saying the police presented no evidence of wrong doing and she refused to recognize the authority of the court. The judge ordered her to be detained for a week and she was placed in solitary confinement at Neve Tirza prison for adults. On June 20, Judge Rachel Shalev kept Oriya in prison despite the fact that a police representative said the teenager was seen on video throwing rocks during the Hebron protest but failed to produce the video. Judge Gertal, another judge, waited for two hours for the video that never showed up and said to the police officer: ‘’You swore in court that you would have the material , how could you do this? On July 24, Oriya saw Judge Uri Ben-Dor and again refused the 5,000 shekel bail for her release as she admitted to no wrong doing the fact that there was zero evidence or rock throwing. Israeljustice.com continued to report, ‘’During one of the hearings, Oriya’s father asked of Judge Ben-Dor, ‘’Are you trying to educate my kid?’’ ‘’Yes’’, judge replied. ‘’The court is a place for education’’. Judge Ben-Dor’s way of re-educating 15-yr-old girls who have a difference of political opinions, is to lock them up and put them in solitary confinement, a known form of torture? Re-education by torture is a tactic used by brutal regimes.

Israeli Parliamentarian, Shelly Yechimovitz wrote a letter concerning the physical abuse of imprisonment, to Justice Minister Haim Ramon and Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi: ‘’The tool of custody is not an educational tool, neither is it a punishment tool, nor is it a tool for a power struggle, and it is certainly not a means of forcing the girls to comply. I call upon you to act immediately to release them from custody. Every minute that they sit in jail is a disgrace for all of us’’ (Israeljustice.com).

Judge Ben-Dor, rather have an under-aged girl behind metal bars and chains instead of receiving a real education in school. How many boys and girls, fathers and mothers, sat in a cold cell, staring at the four walls towering over them, having their names called out minutes before dawn from a long list of criminals names’? How many girls and mothers endured full body searches and chained hand and foot like drug traffickers, for attending a peaceful protest?

‘’An ideological war is being waged against 15-year-olds’’, said Ettie Medad (IsraelNN.com). Ettie Medad, wife of Honenu legal rights organization founder, was referring to the prison treatment of minors who are arrested for opposing the government’s withdrawal policy. Israelnationalnews reported that 7 teenage girls were arrested at the site known as Givat Ha’Or (Hill of Light) in the Judea-Samaria region. Ettie continued: ‘’For instance, the three times that they brought them for extension of their custody, the girls didn’t receive food or the right to go to the bathroom the whole morning until the afternoon…the Prison Service is not allowing any educational materials to be brought to them.’’ Ettie, herself was placed in prison on charges against her that were dropped two years ago for attending a protest. She experienced the discrimination in prison that is reserved for opponents of the govt.’s withdrawal policy. Israelnationalnews reported, Ettie Medad was held in the Disengagement Wing of the Massiayahu Prison in Ramle’’ with the 7 girls and her baby daughter. These girls were placed in the Disengagement Wing because they demonstrated their opposition to the Disengagement, not for dealing drugs. Ettie explained the discrimination further: ’’There is no reason that a young girl must be subjected to such an intimate search time after time, when there is no real suspicion that she is bringing in drugs…a male jailer comes to physically check women prisoner in the middle of the night, to see if they are breathing. In fact, the girl who proposed the alternative to being physically checked at night was placed in isolation…They don’t give us plates…it’s a daily struggle.’’ If these girls don’t have a medical history of upper respiratory problems, then why would they need to be woken up in the middle of the night by some man physically checking to see if their breathing? This is a form of sexual intimidation. The girls are being even treated lower than dogs, by not providing plates for them to eat off of. Are they supposed to eat off the floor?

Israelnationalnews printed a letter from Attorney Irving Gendelman, a noted civil rights and legal expert, to State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, regarding the mistreatment of another case of young incarcerated girls. ‘’The imprisonment of these juvenile girls,’’ Gendelman wrote, ‘’whose alleged acts relate to their concern for the welfare of their country is clearly unprecedented in a democratic society and would be violative of at least [the United Nations] Human Rights Documents. This imprisonment is no less a governmental intimidation because these girls, represent a political thought opposed to governmental policies. Their imprisonment is degrading, and it is an absence of dignity.’’

Along with taking away the anti-withdrawal protestors’ civil rights, their human rights are taken away just the same. The teenagers are not allowed to see their parents. They are not allowed to continue their school education and they are traumatized from imprisonment.     
    This is real physical abuse. 
    Sometimes, the physical abuse begins before they get to the prison. Akiva, at age 19, was attending a demonstration against the Disengagement from Gaza in June 2005. He was arrested and severely beaten at a police station by two policemen while other officers stood by and watched. Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, reported: ‘’A police officer and his deputy were convicted of assaulting Akiva…Officer Eran Naim testified in Tel Aviv Magistrates Court that he inserted his fingers into Akiva’s nostril’s and used them to pull his head over backwards in order to cause pain and neutralize him. Naim said that this was legitimate police practice…Vitkin was handcuffed and seated on a table with his back against the wall. Eliran [Naim’s deputy] struck him in the face and stomach , saying ‘’we will get you in the end’’ [referring to the protestors]. Eliran slapped him and punched him several times, including head budding him while there were other officers in the room. Officer Naim’s attorney, Lior Epstein, Haaretz reported, ‘’stressed that this is a legal method police learned during specialized hand to hand combat training.’’ Judge Chanan Efrati, in his ruling, said that [the demonstration] was non-violent and that [Akiva] Vitkin did not resist when police forced him to lie down, Haaretz reported. This case shows radical behavior by police officer, Eran Naim. Officer Naim, enforced his own punishment upon his own judgment for Ak iva’s ‘’ideological crime’. Akiva was one of many who were wrongfully arrested for non-violent opposition to the Disengagement.

Although peaceful, although non-violent, the central theme was to assume the protestors were guilty until proven innocent, by police, prosecutors and judges as evident through Attorney General Menachem Mazuz’s Disengagement guidelines. The guidelines for prosecution were in reality, [and still are] used as guidelines for persecution. This persecution transfers from violation of civil rights to violation of human rights. The transfer begins when civil rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of press and freedom of assembly, are violated and become reasons for arrest. The transfer into human rights violations, then occurs when those arrested, are kept from their home and job from administrative orders and incarcerations throughout lengthy trials that go on for months. Attorney Gadi Tal, testifies to this violation of rights: ’’They arrested people collectively. No judge checked to see the evidence up front. The worst cases were during the Disengagement. On the face of it, there was no evidence. From the outset, they shouldn’t have been jailed.’’

Tzviyah Sariel, barely 18-years-old, is a perfect example of this. Tzviyah spent more than three months in prison, out of school and away from her family, for a crime she did not commit. She was accused of physically assaulting two Arabs during a small protest in her town of Elon Moreh [in Samaria]. The two Arab witnesses that Tzviyah had allegedly assaulted, Abdel Karim Hussein, age 36 and Abdel Baki Shahada Amar, aged 81, testified that Tzviyah did not touch them or assault them. Israeljustice.com printed their testimonies: ’’I’m surprised that the girl who made all the problems is not here,’’ [Abdel Karim] Hussein said. ’’It was the other girl.’’ Hussein said that Tzviyah had yelled at him to leave but she had not cursed him. Abdel Baki Shahada] Amar, who addressed the court through a translator, then testified that Tzviyah had cursed him, but when pressed, he retracted the accusation. He said that she only spoke Hebrew and that he did not understand Hebrew and that she had no cursed him. Amar…denied that Tzviyah had either pushed him or threatened him. [State prosecutor], Shir Laufer read Arams accusations in Arabic but Aram denied writing the statement. He testified that he barely knew how to read Arabic and that the police officer just told him to sign. ‘’When the police wrote, I don’t know what they wrote,’’ Amar said. ‘’I just signed. They told me to bring my identity card and to sign. The person who wrote my statement in Arabic spoke in Hebrew.’’ [Judge] Bechor then asked Aram if he had been threatened to change his testimony and Aram said …he refused to lie under oath. Hussein also said, ‘’We are not interested in the accused being incarcerated, because she is a young girl…’’ Throughout the three and a half month hearings, innocent Tzviyah was put in prison on false charges and kept in prison as punishment even before the verdict. She was treated as guilty until proven innocent, instead of innocent until proven guilty, which is a central theme in any democratic society.

Pre-state British Mandatory administrative orders, while violating civil rights, also transfer into violating human rights. Israelnationalnews reported on the case of Yekutiel Ben-Yaakov, a political activist known for his outspoken views on the govt.’s withdrawal policy. ‘’Fifteen soldiers and police officers woke him at night with an administration order, forbidding him to enter Judea and Samaria, where he lives and works.’’ The civil rights violated, was a ‘’…total lack of due process which would otherwise be required in a democratic constitutional country,’’ said Jerusalem-based Human Rights Activist Attorney Irving Gendelman. Attorney Gendelman has also said; ‘’usage of the law ‘’lends itself’’ to a totalitarian state whereby the government may incarcerate an individual because that individual opposed government polices or is thought to commit a crime in the future (INN).’’ Yaakov’s administrative order was for three months. Attorney Gendelman explained that: ‘’The legality of this law is questioned. It is a dinosaur-carryover of the British Mandatory Period whose implementation in a democratic society is bereft of human rights norms. It provides an avenue for the government to suppress freedom of expression and dissent against government policies…it serves to break the spirit of the individual without recourse and concomitantly exposes his family to deprivation and loss of support.’’ Israelnationalnews reported that Akiva Leibovich, was arrested and incarcerated for disobeying an administrative order by returning to his home and family. Concerned neighbors, asked police, ‘’If he has committed a crime, why not prosecute him in a court of law?’’ The neighbors ask this question, because when an individual is given a administrative order, there is no trial or judge. The individual is simply given a piece of paper, keeping them from their home, with no explanation.

A neighbor, Arieh Bramson, added ‘’The children suffer greatly from the separation, the family is hit hard financially by the arrest, and worst of all-the wife and children are exposed to great physical danger.’’ The danger that this neighbor is referring to, is the common break-ins from Arab terrorist in the Judea-Samaria region.

Blocking a father or mother from their children will cause psychological damage, anxiety, and enormous stress. The individual who is kept from his/her home and family is essentially forced into homelessness. The family, without the responsible breadwinner can no longer provide as that individual’s employment is most often in the administrative order’s restricted area. The family is forcibly left destitute, unable to sustain normal living conditions or standards. The administrative orders, which are made in collaboration with military authorities and the Defense Ministry, can last for months and even up to a year or perhaps longer. Israeljustice.com reported that: ‘’Recently, there have been more than 30 administrative orders sent to individuals opposed to the ‘’withdrawal policy’’, even though Knesset Member Uri Ariel said ‘’the issuing of administrative orders violates a Knesset decision condemning previous use of the orders,’’ quoted Israelnationalnews. Israeljustice.com reported that Boaz Albert, father of five children and married, was also arrested at his home in Judea-Samaria and incarcerated without a warrant or entry permit for disobeying a one-year administrative order.

It is utterly impossible to expect a father and husband to stay away from his children and wife for a whole year. It is criminal to demand he do so, especially when there is no legitimate court order. Albert said, ‘’This is an order without justice, without a trial…’’ These orders set a trap as it turns these individuals into prisoners and refugees in their own country. If they speak up to voice their opposition to the govt.’s withdrawal policy, then they are barred from their home and family. If they visit their home and family out of natural desperation, then they are arrested and incarcerated. Israeljustice.com reported on the following cases:

Meir Brettler, violated the administrative restraining order and was arrested in his home. He started a hunger strike in jail.

Elad Keller, violated the administrative order and told the authorities that he had no place to live other than his home and was sent to prison.

Neriyah Ofan, a father of five spent four months in jail during the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005 was given and administrative order. Ofan said, ‘’You can’t fight administrative orders [in court] because it’s all secret. Even the best Attorney can’t win your freedom. He can only get better terms.’’

Gillad Pollack, spent one month in jail during the disengagement, was given an administrative order. Pollack said, ‘’I don’t know what to do. I’m going to disobey the order. Two weeks after I got married, they took me without anything from my backyard…they told me that I’m not allowed to leave for three months.’’

Can the discrimination against anti-withdrawal opponents be justified or can the violation of their human rights be justified? The Israeli General Security Service officials, have said yes, its justified. Israelnationalnews quoted a GSS official as saying that ‘’the restricted and incarcerated withdrawal opponents represent a grave threat to society at large leaving no choice but to take such grave measures.’’ These officials justifications’ are that an individual, without a criminal record, but with an independent political mind, is a grave threat to society? These officials are gravely mistaken. Having an independent political mind, does not justify human rights violations. Independent political thinkers make up the fabric of a democratic society.

As Israel is a democratic society, how did this ’justification theory' originate from that allows the human rights violations of those who oppose the govt.’s withdrawal policy? This theory was planted by the seed of U.S. Consul Wilcox’s words to the Jewish residents of Judea-Samaria in 1990: ''If you live where you live, you have no human rights and no civil liberties.’’ These words were planted, they took root, and in due time, became a flourishing policy.