Reporting of Federici Studies Center
The case of Ahed Tamimi, a sixteen year old Palestinian girl tried for beating an Israeli soldier. For the same crimes, Israelis and Palestinians suffer different punishments.
On January 1st the Israeli military court of Ofer, West Bank, filed twelve different charges against Ahed Tamimi. Sixteen years old, resident in Nabi Saleh village, known for the long popular resistance against the wall and the expansion of Jewish settlements, Ahed is known to everyone who has spent any time in the Occupied Territories: since she was a child she has occupied the front rows of Friday protest marches, together with the women and children of Nabi Saleh, in his hand a camera or a red card to show to the Israeli soldiers.
Now it has become a symbol even outside the Palestinian borders. Dal 19 December is in prison, arrested in a night raid by the army on charges of kicking a soldier during a raid in which her cousin 14 years old Mohammed was seriously injured in the head.
Together with her, behind bars, mother Nariman and cousin Nour also ended up, released on bail on 4 January. Serious charges are pending against Ahed, also relating to previous episodes: attack on soldiers, incitement to revolt, stone throwing, interference with army duties. Take a risk, come on 12 ai 14 years in prison, according to the "estimates" of those who understand the Israeli legal system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
A particular system because it distinguishes between residents: Military law applies to Palestinians, to the colonists (circa 600 thousand between the settlements of East Jerusalem and those in the West Bank) civil law applies. Different courts and different punishments. In the case of Ahed Tamimi, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz compares the crime of which she is accused - kicking a soldier - with the same crime committed by Yifat Alkobi., Israeli settler from Hebron, known to both the army and the Palestinians for its frequent attacks.
Unlike young Tamimi, who has an unblemished criminal record, «Alkobi has already been convicted five times for stone throwing, assault on a police officer and disorderly conduct, but she was never detained". Despite that, adds Haaretz, when the 2 July 2010 kicked a soldier - just like Ahed - was stopped for a few hours and immediately released.
Double standards that Israeli human rights organizations have been monitoring and fighting for years. In May 2016 one of the best-known Israeli NGOs, B’Tselem, announced his surrender: he would no longer file complaints against settlers and soldiers in the Israeli justice system, because they are useless (in the vast majority of cases not even examined) and because they were exploited by the Israeli authorities to demonstrate the existence of a rule of law.
The numbers speak for themselves: if in front of an Israeli military court the 99,74 percent of Palestinian defendants are convicted, in the case of violence by settlers the percentage drops below 2 percent (data from the Israeli association Yesh Din: More than 85 percent of crimes committed by Israelis against Palestinians are closed without investigation, 1.9 percent with a penalty for the person responsible). Nevertheless, says the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), settler violence is constantly growing: in the first six months of 2017 three Palestinian deaths were recorded and 48 injured, 2.700 damaged olive trees, 52 cars destroyed. That is, 86 percent more cases than in the same period of 2016.
Upstream is what the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (Acre), defines "institutionalized discrimination", that is, the creation of two different justice systems, separated. Military law applies to Palestinians, military orders (circa 2.500 issued by 1967), the army decrees; Jurisdiction is civil over settlers even though they reside in the same territory. A violation of international law and also of the rulings of the Israeli Supreme Court itself which considers the dual legal system to be in contradiction with the fundamental principles of modern law.
The effects are concrete: Under the military system, acts such as stone-throwing and assaults on troops are considered serious crimes, punishable with a minimum of 5 years in prison; crimes such as manslaughter are punishable by life in prison (against a maximum of 20 years in the civil system). The case of Corporal Elor Azaria is emblematic, that in 2016 in Hebron he killed a wounded Palestinian on the ground and motionless in cold blood – after attacking, wounding him, a soldier – and sentenced to alone 18 months in prison). The military trial cannot last longer than 18 months, against i 9 of the civil system; Palestinians are considered minors until 16 years of age, the Israelis until 18; the accused can remain in detention without seeing a judge for a maximum of 18 days (against them 24 hours of the civil system) 90 days without seeing a lawyer (against 48 ore) and an unlimited period of time before knowing the crime of which he is accused (against 30 days).
