"Foreigner" reports : Israel's immigration police cracks down on pro-Palestinian foreigners(Haaretz)

galway | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Monday February 01, 2010 18:10

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign

"A new policy of ethnic cleansing of internationals and NGO's from the West Bank has been initiated.?"

Israel's Haaretz newspaper is reporting that: Israel's new immigration police has joined security forces in cracking down on foreign activists residing in the Palestinian West Bank ... The Oz Unit participated last week in the attempted arrest of a number of activists in the West Bank town of Bil'in, and also in the raid that nabbed leading Palestinian militants Mohammed Hatib that same night. Two weeks ago, the unit took part in the arrest of a Czech activist in Ramallah.

A fact I can attest to as I was one of the "foreigners" and videoographer of the night's brutal proceedings in Bil'in before I had to exit the West Bank at the weekend.

Eva Nováková (holding placard) doing her stuff in the Bil'in demonstration

Another fact I can attest to is that Mohammed Khatib ("Mohammed Hatib") is a prominent useful idiot of the PA doing untold damage to the nonviolent resistance in the West Bank and specifically the struggle in Bil'in who prior to his arrest was activily undermining the leadership and authority of the obdurate Iyad Burnat, head of the Popular Committee and who was probable behind the intimidatory mobile phone call to Iyad from Abbas's and US Gen. Keith Dayton hired thugs, the PA's torturing and murdering Preventivive Security - this followed hard on the heels of Khatib's suppression of a protest in Bil'in against Mubarak's Wall of Death between Egypt and Gaza.

Khatib's detention is bizarre in that he was ostensibly arrested for failing to sign on at an Israeli police station for more "militancy" PA style, no doubt,? instead, he signed on at a PA police station, a Jesuitical distinction that somehow escaped the attention of the invading IOF/Oz Unit as when it comes to "security" the PA is assiduous in its duties to please its masters - there are 400 to 500 Hamas prisoners in PA prisons at the moment and three of them were tortured to death last year alone.

On 11th December last, Eva Nováková, 28, the International Solidarity Movement's media coordinator, was arrested, taken from her Ramallah, Manara square apartment at 3am and then deported to the Czech Republic. Maan News Agency reported at the time that: her attorney, Omer Shatz, said Israel's alleged use of its special "Oz" unit was illegal. "This arrest is part of the continued and illegal use of the immigration police against activists, for political purposes," Shatz said in an ISM statement. Immigration police, in general, work under the explicit authority of the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, Shatz added, and thus would have no business operating in Palestinian cities http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=253512

Israel has recently refused to issue working visas to members of humanitarian aid NGO's such as Oxfam - only non working tourist visas - coupled with the Ramallah and Bil'in night raids, it's now clear that a new policy of ethical cleansing of internationals and NGO's from the West Bank has been initiated.?