Palestine: The essence of discrimination

Yesterday I was described as a foreign troublemaker and hooligan - someone who had come to Palestine to throw stones at demonstrations. Not by an extremist settler, an Israeli soldier or the Daily Mail, but in fact by the very lawyer who got me freed after I was arrested at Kufr Qaddoum. Why on earth would he be so mean?

Well. It was all for the acceptably important aim of freedom for Abdelateef Obeid, who had a court hearing to determine whether his detention could continue or whether Israel should set him free. His brother Majd's case is still pending. The hearing was at Ofer military court, where we spent hours being told that we had to wait, and then were shouted at at the last minute because this had made us late for the hearing.*eye roll*

Queues at Ofer

Having eventually made it into the court, we found Neri, the Israeli lawyer who had represented us in the civilian court in the middle of the night four weeks ago, managing to get us released without conditions after our house arrest. This time, rather than defending us, he was telling the court that we were foreign agitators, and that in their eyes, our "crimes" were infinitely worse than Abed and Majd's.

He argued that:

• We had gone to great lengths to come to Palestine to cause trouble - flying from our home countries, paying out of our own pockets, travelling to the village etc. 
• They had been in their home village - they don't have a choice but to live here.

• We had stronger evidence against us - two soldiers "saw" us throw stones* and then arrested us.
• They had allegedly been seen by one soldier, from the top of a hill, through binoculars. This soldier then sent some other guys to arrest Majd and Abed. They went into a house and pulled them out. The soldier who "saw" them through the binoculars IDed them HOURS later as the same men he had glimpsed. Yeahhh, sounds plausible.

• We had no alibi. I was totally at the demonstration, wooh!
• They have a full alibi - their father says that he won't allow them to attend the Friday demonstrations because it is too dangerous. Their whoooole family say that Majd and Abed were at home, Majd asleep and Abed eating lunch.

• We are not involved directly in this struggle. Our lives are not affected - so throwing stones would be baseless.
• They have VERY legitimate grievances against the Israelis - so throwing stones is part of their right to resist.

So, pointing at us, the lawyer argued that despite the weight of evidence against us, we were brazenly continuing our EVIL WRONGDOING, while Majd and Abed are still in prison. He said that to allow this situation continue would be "the essence of discrimination". 

All the prosecutor could come up with to counter this was clutching at a straws - he said that the three internationals sitting in the court (GB, Lauren and I) might in fact be other IMPOSTER internationals, and that maybe actually the real internationals had been given life imprisonment or some other appropriate punishment, considering the weight of the evidence against us.

The judge looked sceptical but decided to give the prosecution another day to investigate this possibility...the court was supposed to deliver a judgement  today at 5pm, but of course, they did not.

More limbo for the Obeid family - it's now another day since the hearing and there has still been no verdict.


*I can't be bothered to say this every time...I didn't throw stones. I've been doing a lot of olive picking, but it still hasn't increased my arm strength so that I could throw more than about a metre.