Chicago Palestinian-American Describes 36 Days of Israeli Detention After He Tried to Visit West Bank

By Raeed N. Tayeh

Yousif Marei is a man who has dedicated his life to helping his community. He arrived in the United States in 1978 seeking, like so many other Palestinians, educational opportunities not available to them at home.

He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Islamic studies and comparative religions from the American Islamic College in Chicago. Ever since then, Yousif has been working to help the Muslim youth of his community learn about their religion and heritage. He helped found a weekend school at the Muslim Community Center on the north side of Chicago.

His most recent project has been to help raise funds to purchase land and build a major Islamic center able to accommodate the large and rapidly growing Muslim community in Chicago, particularly the youth.

In January 1997 Marei was married, and on March 18th, 1998, he and his expectant wife set off for Mecca to perform the hajj, the pilgrimage that all Muslims who can afford it must make at least once in their lifetimes.

This journey was particularly important for Yousif because, after completing the hajj, they planned to travel to his home in Maithalun, Palestine, where he would introduce his wife to his ailing parents, who are in their 80s, and whom he hadn’t seen in six years.

From Saudi Arabia the Mareis went to Jordan, where they stayed briefly with relatives. Then, at 7 a.m. on April 26, they proceeded to the Allenby Bridge in order to enter Palestine.

At the border Yousif, an American citizen, was sent into one building, while his wife, who was not yet a citizen, was sent into another building for processing. But after he entered the building, Yousif was separated from the other visitors. He spent the next 14 hours waiting, without any explanation as to why he was being detained. Meanwhile he was refused permission to communicate with his wife.

Then, at 9 p.m., the officer in charge ordered Yousif handcuffed. He was informed that he was under investigation, and that he was being transferred to the Kishon prison in Haifa for interrogation. Yousif arrived at Kishon at around 4 a.m. He was late due to the fact that the teenage soldiers transporting him got lost on the way.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Marei had crossed the border without any problems. She waited for her husband to show up. When he did not, Israeli officials denied any knowledge of his whereabouts. Finally she found her way to her husband’s family, who were waiting in Jericho to meet the Mareis, and informed them, erroneously as it turned out, that Yousif apparently had not yet crossed.

Upon his arrival at the prison, Yousif was thrown into a very small, unventilated cell whose walls were painted a menacing bluish-black, and from whose ceiling shown bright, non-stop illumination. “It was like a living grave,” Yousif told the Washington Report, as he recalled the circumstances of his imprisonment.

The next day, Yousif was bound and hooded, and taken to the interrogation room. He was told to describe his involvement in Hamas, a charge that he repeatedly denied.

He was then told to describe his activities within the Arab and Muslim communities in Chicago. He submitted a hand-written life history detailing everything from his birth in Jenin on the West Bank to his current employment as executive director of the Islamic Community Center of Illinois (ICCI).

“I had nothing to hide,” says Yousif. “All of my activities in Chicago are well known.” His interrogator became angry, however, and ordered the guards to strap Yousif into the dreaded “Shabah,” a device that is used to torture prisoners.

“The chair was very low, and it was tilted forward,” Yousif recalls. “They placed a hood over my head and handcuffed my hands and feet to the floor. The worst part of it was the blaring noise that was coming out of loudspeakers. It was like what the Nazis did to the Jews in the concentration camps. Some of the other prisoners who were there went mad from the psychological torture.”

A few days after that, Yousif was visited by Todd Hascal, the officer in charge of U.S. citizen protection services at the American Embassy in Tel Aviv. Hascal expressed concern about Yousif’s treatment, and he gave assurances that he would do everything in his power to help Yousif.

“I appreciated his presence so much,” says Yousif, “I cannot thank him enough for his help, I really feel that the conditions of my captivity improved after Todd got involved.”

For the first 22 days of his detention, Yousif was isolated. He survived on plain bread and tomatoes, the only two things served to him that weren’t spoiled. The guards confiscated his copy of the Qur’an, so the only thing he had to read were two magazines that Hascal gave him during their visit. “I think I memorized them from cover to cover,” recalls Marei.

Yousif says he had trouble sleeping in his cell. “The lights were always in my face, and the blanket smelled like it hadn’t been washed in 20 years.” He developed back pains and finally got the guard to take him to see the doctor.

The doctor examined Yousif and then wrote what appeared to be a prescription for medication in Hebrew and handed it to the guard. But, Yousif says, he was returned to his cell and never received any kind of medicine.

The Marei family in Maithalun retained an attorney to help free Yousif. In Chicago, the Arab and Muslim communities put pressure on the U.S. State Department to bring this American citizen home.

These efforts were led by the Chicago chapter of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), a nationwide membership group. The IAP organized a campaign to help the man who was always helping everyone else. Meanwhile, the news of his detention shocked the entire Muslim community and, in particular, the 400 students to whom he was teaching Arabic and religion at the Muslim Community Center’s weekend school.

After spending three weeks in what he called “the living grave,” Yousif was taken to a holding area where he was told he would remain pending the results of the Israeli investigation. Then, on June 1, 1998, he was transferred to the Russian Compound jail in Jerusalem.

The following day he was loaded into a military vehicle and driven back to the bridge that he crossed from Jordan 36 days earlier. An Israeli officer handed Yousif’s passport to the Jordanian bus driver at the bridge, and then informed Yousif, “You are unwanted in Israel.”

Yousif spent a week recovering from his ordeal in Jordan, where he hoped his elderly parents might be able to visit him.When his father, despite ill health, tried to do so, Israeli authorities turned him back at the bridge, saying he would not be permitted to leave the occupied territories.

So on June 10 Yousif Marei arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport where he was welcomed by his wife and family, along with dozens of well-wishers.

Although he arrived home safely after 36 days in Israeli detention without charges being filed or any court hearings, Yousif feels that in a sense he remains in captivity. More than a year later, he still has not seen his beloved parents. “All I wanted to do was see the two most important people in the world to me,” he explains. “They are old, and I don’t know if I will ever get a chance to see them again.”

Raeed N. Tayeh is a Palestinian-American journalism student. He can be reached at kasper49@hotmail.com