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CounterPunch
Israeli
officials have been regularly strip-searching children for decades,
some of them American citizens.
While organizations that focus on Israel-Palestine have long been aware
that Israeli border officials regularly strip search men and women,
If Americans Knew appears to be the first organization that has
specifically investigated the policy of strip searching women. In
the course of its investigation, If Americans Knew was astonished to
learn that Israeli officials have also been strip searching young
girls as young as seven and below..
According to interviews with women in the United States, Israel, the West
Bank and Gaza, Israeli border officials periodically force Christian
and Muslim females of all ages to remove their clothing and submit
to searches. In some cases the children are then "felt" by Israeli
officials.
Sometimes mothers and children are strip-searched together, at other
times little girls are taken from their parents and strip-searched
alone. Women are required to remove sanitary napkins, sometimes with
small daughters at their side. Sometimes women are strip searched in
the presence of their young sons.
All report deep feelings of humiliation. Many describe weeping at the
degradation they felt.
"I remember crying and pleading with my mother," Gaza journalist Laila
El-Haddad recalls of an experience when she was 12-years-old, hoping
that her mother could convince the Israeli official to allow her to
keep her undershirt on. But parents are unable to shield their
children, El-Haddad and others report.
"They had machine guns," El-Haddad explains. "We just had to submit."
El-Haddad, who holds a Masters degree in Public Policy from
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, believes that the intention
of the strip searches is to humiliate Palestinians so that they
won't return to Palestine.
Oregon attorney
Hala Gores remembers being strip-searched at the age of 10. Her
family, Palestinian Christians from Nazareth, were leaving Israel
because of Israeli discrimination against Christians. Gores has
never returned to her family's ancestral home in Nazareth, she says,
in part because she does not want to repeat the experience of having
no control over what is done to her.
The Israeli policy appears to target only Christian and Muslim children,
and is equally applied to those with Israeli citizenship and
citizenship in other countries, including native-born Americans.
There are no reports of Jewish children being strip-searched.
New Jersey stand-up
comedian Maysoon Zayid describes being strip-searched at Ben Gurion
Airport when she was "seven, eight, nine years old" on family trips
to visit her parents' original home in Palestine. On her most recent
trip in July 2006, Maysoon, an American citizen, had her sanitary
pad taken by officials in Ben Gurion Airport. When the search was
completed, she says, the Israeli official in charge, Inbal Sharon,
then refused to return her pad or allow her to get another.
Zayid, who has cerebral palsy and was sitting in a wheelchair, was then
forced to bleed publicly for hours while she waited for her flight.
Zayid, a former class president and yearbook editor at New Jersey's
Cliffside Park High School known for her irreverent comedy routines
and strong personality, describes sobbing uncontrollably. "No one
spoke up," she remembers. "There were several women, including the
woman who was pushing my wheelchair, none of whom said a word."
When she boarded her flight, Zayid recalls, "The flight attendants looked
at me in disgust." She told them what had happened, and the
attendants then gave her some of their own clothing to use.
In addition to taking her sanitary napkin, Israeli officials also
confiscated medication that Zayid is required to take when flying.
As a result, she vomited repeatedly throughout the 12-hour flight.
Zayid, who founded a program for newly disabled Palestinian youths many
of them permanently disabled from attacks by Israeli forces was so
depressed by her treatment that she determined never to return. "But
that's what they want," she says, "They want us to get to the point
where we don't go back." She says that she is already planning to
return to her volunteer work in the West Bank.
Israeli practices vary and seem to be applied randomly, from elderly
women to small children. In some instances women are taken into a
room alone and are left sitting naked for hours. At other times they
are strip-searched in groups, their clothes thrown in a pile. When
they are finally allowed to get dressed, they describe having to
rummage through the heap of clothing, naked and barefoot, to find
their own garments.
Jewish Holocaust Survivor
While these policies largely target Palestinian and Palestinian-American
women and children, some non-Palestinian Americans also report being
subjected to strip searches by Israeli officials.
St. Louis resident Hedy Epstein, whose parents and extended family
perished in Nazi camps, and whose story is featured in the Academy
Award winning documentary "Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of
the Kindertransport," reports being strip searched three years ago
following her participation in nonviolent protests in the West Bank.
Epstein, who was 79 at the time, describes being forced to bend over
for an Israeli official to search her internally.
The strip searches appear to be illegal under numerous statutes. The
Geneva Conventions, to which Israel is a signatory, prohibit:
"Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and
degrading treatment" and specifically emphasize: "Women shall be
especially protected against any attack on their honour"
Article 2 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child states: "No child
shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or
her privacy"
In the US, such policies would appear to violate child abuse statutes.
The state of Utah, for example, defines Child Abuse as: "Any form of
cruelty to a child's physical, moral or mental well-being." The
Encarta Encyclopedia defines child abuse as "Intentional acts that
result in physical or emotional harm to children."
While the If Americans Knew investigation focused on practices concerning
women, many interviewees reported frequent random strip-searching of
males as well; including American citizens, children, and the
elderly.
While the practice is widely applied, many people find it too humiliating
to speak of. One 68-year-old Christian businessman, who had been
stripped naked at Ben Gurion airport in 2006 before being allowed to
board his flight to return home, had never revealed his experience
to his family until he learned of the If Americans Knew
investigation. He then explained to his daughter why he had
previously told her that he might never return to his original home,
now in the state of Israel.
Christians, a thriving community that made up approximately 15 percent of
Palestine's population before Zionist immigration and the creation
of Israel (Muslims were 80 percent and Jews 5 percent), have now
dwindled under Israeli occupation to approximately two percent of
the total population.
Israeli spokespeople and sympathizers have bristled in recent months at
the title of a book by former President Jimmy Carter, "Palestine
Peace Not Apartheid." In reply, Carter has emphasized that the
Israeli "apartheid" he is describing is limited to the West Bank and
Gaza. Many analysts have disagreed with Carter, providing evidence
of pervasive discrimination within Israel itself. The If Americans
Knew finding that Israel has been routinely strip-searching
non-Jewish citizens of Israel would also indicate a wider policy of
Israeli discrimination.
Since American taxpayers give Israel over $8 million per day, the Council
for the National Interest, a Washington DC-based lobbying
organization, is organizing a campaign to call on Congress to demand
that Israel end these policies.
"We are extremely upset to learn that Israel is using American tax money
in ways that degrade and humiliate women and children," says CNI
President Eugene Bird. "We call on all Americans to help us on this
campaign."
The organization
urges people to begin contacting their Congressional representatives
immediately, and to disseminate
the video report by If Americans Knew as widely as possible.
Alison Weirr is executive director of
If Americans Knew. She can be reached at:
alisonweir@yahoo.com
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