Up until a few months ago, I lived in a Jaffan cubicle, for which I shelled out a large sum to a blackguard who shall remain unnamed. One day, I heard a ring at the door. I opened it with some trepidation, only to be informed by a municipal inspector that my neighbors next door were asking permission to do some remodeling. Wondering what this had to with me, as I was only a lowly renter, the inspector made it clear to me that I had the right to oppose the construction, and that it was his job to inform me of this right.
This is how things are carried out in a law-abiding region. The West Bank is famously not such a region. If any more proof is necessary, please look at the pictures on the next page. The first is a seizure order signed by Brigadier General Binyamin Eliezer, July 18, 1979; the second is a map of the seized land, taken from the lands of the village Dura Al Qara; the third is a document issued by Major Amnon Shasha a day later.
Paragraph 6a in Shasha’s document stipulates that the “seizure order is not to be published to the locals”; paragraph 8 stipulates that “no publicity is to be given to the order.” Why am I boring you with paperwork from 1979, a time so unenlightened that its favorite music was disco? Because it shows how the system of theft works in the West Bank.
Shasha was basically ordering confiscation of private, registered land, ostensibly for security reasons. In fact this land was confiscated for the purpose of building a settlement, and that fact was hidden from the village’s Palestinian residents. By doing so, Shasha deprived them of their right to protect themselves from the order by appealing to the High Court of Justice.
Such an act, the High Court ruled in 2005, is reserved for totalitarian states: “Secret legislation, kept in hidden archives, is one of the signs of a totalitarian regime and contradicts the rule of law.” Now we expect the court to follow its own ruling.
Attorneys Michael Sfard, Muhammad Shaqir, Shlomy Zachary and Anu Lusky recently petitioned the High Court on behalf of Yesh Din, in the name of Abd-Al-Rahman Ahmed Abd-Al-Rahman Qassem, a resident of Dura Al Qara whose land was confiscated under Shasha’s order.
It is important to note that since the land was confiscated —thirty-four years ago— no military use has been made of Qassem’s land. Seizure orders, according to international law and the judgments of the High Court, allow the seizure of lands only for pressing military needs.
How did a major allow himself to openly, in writing, defy an order signed by a general, and a prominent one, at that? Perhaps because, even then, IDF officers knew which way “the Commander’s Spirit” points: actions promoting effective annexation. And they knew that even if Ben Eliezer himself wouldn’t like what was done to his order, his seniors in the army or government would. And that’s another way the occupation corrupts the army.