Serraj Arrested and Jailed by PNA

Prominent Palestinian human rights activist Dr. Eyad R. Serraj was arrested twice in as many months by the Palestinian National Authority on charges of slander, assaulting a police officer and possession of narcotics. All but the assault charges have been dropped against Serraj, whose arrests are attributed to his criticism of the PNA’s human rights record.

In the latest incident on June 9, Dr. Serraj was held for four days before he was charged with a crime, according to the human rights group Land and Water Establishment (LAWE), which is helping to represent Dr. Serraj in his legal battles. The Gazan psychiatrist, who heads the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens Rights, eventually was brought before the Palestinian Magisterial Court in Gaza on June 13. There he was accused of possessing 95 grams of hashish and hitting a police officer while in custody. Serraj’s lawyers, who were not allowed to contact their client until June 13, said Dr. Serraj was in very poor condition, both physically and mentally. Dr. Serraj confirmed reports that he had been severely beaten during interrogation, according to reports from human rights groups in Gaza.

Citing a lack of evidence and police failure to follow proper legal procedures, the magistrate dismissed the drug charges but allowed the assault charges to stand. According to his lawyers, Raji Sourani and Khader Shkirat, Dr. Serraj is being detained in isolation in a cell measuring 2 by 1.5 meters. He is permitted to leave his cell only to wash and use the toilet and he has not yet been allowed to see a doctor.

Dr. Serraj told his lawyers that, during his interrogation, he was not asked about drugs or drug dealing. His questioning centered around a letter he sent to PNA President Yasser Arafat after an earlier arrest on May 18. In this letter, Dr. Serraj stated that he did not retract any criticisms of the PNA but he sought to establish a new relationship with the Authority if they began respecting basic human rights and ended their campaign against him.

Dr. Serraj’s earlier arrest for slander came on May 18 after an interview he gave to The New York Times, in which he was quoted as calling the Palestinian government “corrupt, dictatorial and repressive.” In the view of his lawyers and various human rights groups, the charges against Dr. Serraj have been fabricated and are merely an attempt by the PNA to squelch criticism of its practices. “In fact, the Authority has made little effort to make the charges and the legal process against Dr. Serraj appear legitimate,” said LAWE in a dispatch from Gaza.

—Geoff Lumetta

Raji Sourani on Gaza Human Rights

Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and 1991 recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, spoke to an audience of human rights activists at a June 5 breakfast hosted by the RFK Foundation in Washington, DC.

The attorney for Dr. Eyad Serraj, the Gazan psychiatrist and human rights activist who recently was jailed by the PNA, Sourani was himself detained by the PNA in 1995 after he criticized the establishment of the secret state security courts, and subsequently was dismissed as director of the Gaza Center for Rights and Law when he failed to heed advice to “keep a low profile with the media.” In the 1970s and early 1980s, Sourani also was imprisoned for three years by the Israeli government and twice held under administrative detention.

Sourani opened his discussion of the current situation and prospects for human rights in Palestine by noting that “the Oslo agreement mentioned nothing about human rights” but did stipulate that the Palestinians should have a “strong police force.” The agreement did not end the Israeli occupation, he argued, but has caused human rights advocates to be considered “enemies of peace.”

This is the result, he said, of Israeli and U.S. pressure, adding, “It is as though they are encouraging the violation of human rights. This makes our mission much more difficult.”

The devastating economic situation has left Gazans feeling that they have “nothing to lose,” Sourani said. He recalled the outrage Palestinians felt and expressed when, two days after the PNA took power, Islamic Jihad assassinated two Israeli soldiers. Now the typical response—whether to suicide bombings or the Israeli election—is “So what?” The feeling in Gaza, Sourani observed, is the same as existed prior to the outbreak of the intifada.

Noting that the “PLO has no democratic heritage”—rather it is a “factional democracy”—Sourani said that the newly elected Palestinian National Council needs a healthy environment in which to flourish. Instead the environment is a “poisoned” one which fails to provide even the minimum of credibility: “Each time the council convenes,” Sourani pointed out, “they have to have permission from the Israelis. It’s an attempt to make them look silly, and that’s intentional.”

Nevertheless, Sourani did attend a day-long meeting with members of the council as well as the heads of the legal, human rights, and security committees. “This is a long process,” he explained, and one to which he clearly is committed.

—Janet McMahon

Palestinian Scholars Predict Peace Process Breakdown

Palestinian scholars held a major conference on the peace process at Georgetown University May 9 as part of an ongoing effort to take a fresh look at the entire process. At the conference, held before the triumph of Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu in Israel’s May 29 national elections, key speakers described the process as brittle and likely eventually to break down.

“A silicon process designed to exact a humiliating surrender from the Palestinian people” was the description offered by Georgetown University Professor Hisham Sharabi of the Jerusalem Fund and the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine. The latter, a Washington, DC-based think tank, sponsored the May 5 conference which focused on the final-status negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Jan de Jong of the St. Yves Legal Resource and Development Center in Jerusalem addressed the issue of land use. Using maps as visual aids, his conclusion was that there will be a so-called independent Palestinian state, but that it will be fragmented and disconnected, with Bantustan-like components consisting of areas with neither geographic nor economic links. Control of the state would remain in Israel’s hands, and its Palestinian inhabitants would live under a “camouflaged” occupation by Israel. Some Palestinians at the conference referred to the state as “our Bantustan.”

Sharif Elmusa, senior research fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, addressed the issue of water. He concluded that an equitable plan would give the Palestinians a share of Jordan River waters (of which they are currently getting none) and a priority of access to the mountain aquifer in the West Bank. Elmusa said Israel can afford such an equitable solution, but questioned Israeli willingness to do so. He suggested Israel may instead try to sell water to the Palestinians, as has recently happened in Bethlehem, where 150,000 residents have permission to use only one well which produces only 130 cubic meters of water, far short of total need. Palestinian residents therefore must purchase the rest of the rich water supply from the Israeli water company.

The plight of the Palestinian refugees, and their right to return and to compensation, also was on the agenda of the conference. (What was not discussed at Georgetown was “restitution,” that is the physical return of their property, parallel to what some Jewish groups are demanding for lost property in Eastern Europe, particularly Poland and Hungary.)

The refugees’ right to compensation was discussed by Atif Kubursi, professor of economics at McMaster University in Ontario and founder and president of Econimetric Research Limited.

In tallying Palestinian losses since 1948, Kubursi prefaced his speech by saying that “There is no amount of money that can compensate for the loss of a homeland.” He acknowledged that moral, political, social and humanitarian obligations come into play when an invader, and later an occupier, systematically uproots families from their homes and lands and deprives them of their livelihoods.

His painstakingly meticulous tally of Palestinian losses since 1948 totaled $199 billion in 1994. He expressed his hope that President Yasser Arafat will recognize that this compensation belongs to Palestinians both as a collective and as individuals. The Palestinian National Authority should not limit itself to fight for a collective share only, Professor Kubursi said. Each and every Palestinian has a legitimate right to his personal share of compensation and reparation.

Geoffrey Aronson, associate director of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, discussed the issue of the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories by addressing the question of whether these settlements are an obstacle to peace. One of Israel’s greatest achievements in the Oslo agreement, he said, was to “win over the Palestinian leadership to a view of settlements not unlike its own,” which is that the settlements are not an “insurmountable impediment to the Israeli-Palestinian agreement.”

Aronson pointed out that the United States was “quick to pick up on this historic change,” and began to view the settlements no longer as “an obstacle to peace,” but rather a “complicating factor.” However, the semantic word-play addresses the wrong question, Aronson concluded. What should have been asked is: “What kind of peace can be established without removing the settlements?”

—Lama Habal