American-Palestinian Jailed by Israel. Does it Matter?

Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel Ezekiel 37:11

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By RoyTov.com

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On April 5, 2013, a 14-year-old boy with American and Palestinian citizenship was arrested by Israel; on April 11 he reached the military court at the Ofer Prison. It was an event which this website wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to comment on it; yet, that didn’t happen. Three days afterwards, Al Jazeera came out with the story, titling it “Israel arrests 14-year-old US citizen.”
Another four days passed, and I got from a good friend an email with the article. Seconds afterwards, I found the story all over the web; Google reported four million results on a search with the article’s title. I had missed the opportunity; in such cases I keep the information and later on use it to add depth to subsequent analyses; I knew for sure that this wouldn’t be the last Israeli crime.
“You put things into a wider sociological context,” he wrote; hinting that he expected an article on the topic from me. My having missed the item was not casual. The arrest of Mohammad Khaleq, born in New Orleans, had not been reported by the Hebrew media.
Writing under harassment, my missing an important item published by international media is understandable and actually even functional since it provides an awesome example of Israeli censorship (this is not the word because Hebrew media cooperates willingly in such actions). Let me rephrase, it was a formidable example of Israeli Orwellian reality. 1984 is here; 1984 is now.
Mohammad Khaleq 1984
Ahmed Abu-Ramaylah, 8 Declared Enemy by Israel Rock the Casbah
Yet, there is another reason for my being exonerated. On March 30, in Land Day Looting, I commented on the arrest by Israel of Ahmed Abu-Ramaylah, an 8-year-old boy, in Hebron.
An indefatigable enemy of the Zionist State, he is ridiculously dangerous while not playing with his Mickey Mouse toys. The problem is that Israel jails 700 children every year. It is clearly legal, but utterly illegitimate.
Most children prosecuted in Israeli military courts are charged with throwing stones. This is an offence under Section 212 of Military Order 1651. It says: (i) Throwing an object, including a stone, at a person or property with the intent to harm the person or property carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment.
On March 6, UNICEF published Children in Israeli Military detention—Observations and Recommendations. The report defines the reality in the West Bank as a large torture camp, in which Israel is torturing Palestinian children.
UNICEF is so aware that the Israeli Administration is unable to comprehend the topic, even to differentiate between good and evil, that it added the following “The prohibition against torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment is universal and absolute.
It can be found in both customary international law and in a number of treaties and conventions (see table 1). There are no exceptional circumstances in which torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment are permitted, not even security considerations or the threat of acts endangering the security of a State or its population. The prohibition is absolute.”

IDF Civil Administration Ages Table Extreme Evil
Is Israel Auschwitz? Israel’s hateful reaction to the unwelcomed report was to arrest almost 30 children in Hebron, the abovementioned Ahmed Abu-Ramaylah was among them. Such laws and regulations are illegitimate, rejecting and opposing them is an obligation, as Israel teaches regarding the laws of the Nazi Regime.
Crimes Against Humanity
The jailing of children and other crimes committed by Israel and regularly condemned by the UN and other international organizations are crimes against humanity to the extent that Israel was defined as “terror-inflicting” by the UN Human Rights Council. Israel cannot judge itself. An international court, like the one that judged Nazis in Nuremberg, must be created for the task.
While reading a few of the reports on the American-Palestinian arrested by Israel it was difficult to ignore that most reporters were distressed by the fact that an American-Palestinian had been arrested by Israel, with the stress on the American side of the story. If the arrested were an Uzbekistani-Mongolian would Israel had been more righteous? The State of Israel committed a crime; why people stress the identity of the victim? Violence against a Palestinian-Palestinian is acceptable, but against an American-Palestinian is not?
Did the Americans who are so distressed right now, feel the same outrage when their president signed an illegitimate assassination order against a 16-year-old American citizen? The kid was attacked secretly and cowardly, and even denied an opportunity to defend himself. Do they think that their country is even one ounce more righteous than the criminal State of Israel?
“I have been to Palestine where I’ve witnessed the racially segregated housing and the humiliation of Palestinians at military roadblocks. I can’t help but remember the conditions we experienced in South Africa under apartheid. We could not have achieved our freedom without the help of people around the world using the nonviolent means of boycotts and divestment to compel governments and institutions to withdraw their support for the apartheid regime.” —Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Roi Tov

Roi Tov is a graduate—among others—of Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science. In addition to his memoir, Tov is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Molecular Physics and other scientific journals. He won various travel writing and photography awards.

In his writings, he tries to reveal life in Israel as a Christian Israel Defense Force (IDF) officer—from human rights violations to the use of an extensive network of underground agents. He was recognized first as a refugee and subsequently as political prisoner of Bolivia.