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R A P E   I N   H E B R O N

THE TERRIBLE DOUBLE STANDARD CONTINUES

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MER - Washington - 31 August 1997:

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A Haitian immigrant in New York City is raped with a toilet plunger handle by cops; and the whole country is talking. It was "almost incomprehensible depravity" says U.S. Attorney Zachary Carter; and both the local and national governments are bringing charges against the New York police department "for a pattern of tolerating police brutality."

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An American Jew, Leon Klinghofer, is killed in a terrorist attack over a decade ago; and now, many years later, his family has reached a multi-million dollar settlement with the PLO.

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These are the kinds of things that happen in America.

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But there's a terrible double-standard alive in our hypocritical world; and it is this double-standard that also gives rise to those seeking revenge and those deciding to use what the West calls "terrorism" against those who oppress and torture them.

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Quite literally while the Haitian immigrant and the Klinghofer family were receiving one kind of justice in America, the following kinds of things were taking place in the Middle East without even a semblance of justice and without the newspapers and TV headlines:

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This month many Lebanese civilians have been killed and maimed in Sidon by bombs and rockets supplied by the Israelis to their local militia (Israel herself supplied by the Americans of course), but they receive hardly any attention, and certainly no compensation. Worst of all it goes on and on, year after year. Not far away from Sidon, just a little more than a year ago back in April 1996, the terrible Qana massacre took place. Israelis protestations it was a "mistake" ring miserably hollow after so many years of deception and lies by official Israeli sources. In this case both the U.N. and Amnesty International established "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the Israelis had done it on purpose; and there's even a video (that the Israelis didn't know about when they denied it all) showing an Israeli spotter plane overhead as the merciless shells drop on Qana! Where's the compensation for these people, all of whom were civilians, all of whom were under U.N. protection at the time? And almost unbelievable, a U.N. committee demanded compensation from the Israelis for U.N. property that was destroyed -- but nothing for the victims!

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And when it comes to brutal, unconscionable rape, while events were unfolding in New York, the following events were unfolding in Hebron, and we only know what happened because of the courageous presence and reporting of a group known as the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT).

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ISRAELIS BEAT AND RAPE PALESTINIAN YOUTH IN HEBRON

by Mark Frey*

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HEBRON, West Bank (15 August):

     According to local sources, a 17-year-old Palestinian youth was beaten and raped in the Hebron vegetable market by two Israel Defense Force (IDF) Border Police officers on Tuesday evening, 12 August, at 7 p.m.

     After taking tape-recorded testimony from Hebronite Walid Kafisha, a witness to the incident, a Hebron journalist reported the story to the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) in Hebron.

     On Tuesday evening, Abed (not his real name) was detained by a Border Police patrol in front of the Avraham Avinu settlement in the center of Hebron. Soldiers checked Abed's ID and physically searched his clothes, finding nothing. Among the patrol were two officers who then took Abed into a tunnel further inside the old market and barricaded the narrow tunnel with scraps of sheet metal, posting two Border Police at the entrance. One of the officers was approximately 165 cm (5' 5") tall and dark complected; the other was overweight, approximately 2 meters (6' 6") tall with two white stars on his uniform's shoulder, and light complected with light blond hair.

     Kafisha reported that he heard shouting from Abed for between 45-60 minutes, and that he sought out TIPH (Temporary International Presence - Hebron, international observers) but had difficulty communicating because he spoke no English and these TIPH personnel did not speak Arabic. Eventually, when TIPH observers approached the scene, the soldiers and officers stopped the assault and took Abed to a nearby checkpoint. Kafisha began to strongly argue with the chief officer involved while TIPH observed.

Abed was then released and he and Kafisha went to the DCO (a joint Israeli-Palestinian security force) to file a complaint. After quickly stating he had been beaten by the IDF officers, Abed left ahead of Kafisha. When Kafisha later found Abed, he lay on a street in the market near the CPT apartment and cried, "They raped me! They raped me! I couldn't move! I couldn't move!" Kafisha urged Abed to return to the DCO to file a statement regarding the rape, but Abed refused and returned to his home outside of Hebron.

     Later Palestinian Preventive Security questioned Abed, and he described the beating but not the rape. The journalist who interviewed Kafisha this morning also tried to interview Abed, but his family said he had run away, his whereabouts unknown.

     A lawyer who knows the family said they are very conservative and would not be supportive of a family member who had been raped because it shames the entire family; no woman would marry a man who had been raped. According to Palestinians CPT Hebron talked to, it is highly unlikely that a male in Palestinian culture would falsely claim to have been raped, since victims of rape are often ostracized by their family and society."

     This is but one story of many over a long period of time. Remember the scenes captured by CBS of Israeli soldiers using rocks to break the bones of helpless Palestinians kids held down by Israeli boots? Remember the Shinbet scandal from 1984 in which Palestinians in custody were mutilated and had their eyes gouged out? Remember the various reports of sadistic forms of torture used at the "Russian Compound" in Jerusalem not far from City Hall?

     As Dr. Eyad Sarraj from Gaza wrote recently, the wonder is we are all not suicide bombers (see -- http://www.MiddleEast.org/newslet1.htm).

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Mark Frey is a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams. CPT has maintained a violence reduction presence in Hebron since June of 1995 at the invitation of the Hebron Municipality. CPT is an initiative among Mennonite and Brethren congregations, and Friends meetings who support violence reduction Teams around the world. CPT, P.O. Box 6508 Chicago, IL 60680 USA; Tel: 312-455-1199; Fax: 312-666-2677; e-mail: CPT@igc.org.

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