A bold gesture

It was gratifying to learn this week that 43 veterans of an elite secretive Israeli intelligence unit of the Israeli military have publicly declared that they would no longer participate in surveillance activities against the Palestinians.

The reason for this unprecedented action by the would-be whistle blowers is their concern about the mistreatment of Palestinians under occupation.

They explained that they would not want to “continue serving as tools in deepening the (Israeli) military control over the (Palestinian) Occupied Territories”, adding that the surveillance work they had been required to perform made ”no distinction between Palestinians who are and are not involved in violence” and information collected ”harms innocent people” and ”is used for political persecution”.

The letter further said: “The Palestinian population under military rule is completely exposed to espionage and surveillance by Israeli intelligence. It is used for political persecution and to create divisions within Palestinian society by recruiting collaborators and driving parts of Palestinian society against itself. In many cases, intelligence prevents defendants from receiving a fair trial in military courts, as the evidence against them is not revealed.”

These shocking revelations drew a typically exaggerated response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who declared that the Israeli army “including all of its units is the most moral army in the world”.

He argued that Israel owes a debt of gratitude to Unit 8200 soldiers for their “continuing work that is so important for the security of Israeli citizens”.

This group protest has been described as “rare” and comes at a time, reported Bloomberg News in The Washington Post, “when Israel has been criticised internationally over its recent military operation” in the besieged Gaza Strip where more than 2,100 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed.

Israeli military losses stood at around 70.

The New York Times added that the protest “was the first by intelligence officers and the largest among soldiers in years”.

The protest letter was published simultaneously in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot and in the British liberal daily, The Guardian.

No reason was offered for the failure of any American publication to run it.

The news story appeared in the lower section of an inside page in both the Times and the Post.

At least 200 unidentified reservists subscribed to the letter and only less than a quarter, whose names were not included but were described, chose “the path of political insubordination”.

What disciplinary action the Israeli military may take against the protesters remains to be seen.

This incident, however, highlights the local and international misgivings prompted by Israel’s genocidal 51-day war on the Gaza Strip, which is still besieged and with no hope of any international intervention to relieve its disastrous experience.

Several news features, especially in The New York Times, detailed the extent of the devastation in many quarters of Gaza, underlining the “lost homes and dreams”.

Another gratifying gesture came in an ”open letter” to President Barack Obama from seven organisations, which was advertised last Tuesday on a full-page of The New York Times, the first from supporters of the Palestinian position, in contrast with several recent others from pro-Israel groups in the United States.

The letter, which could serve as a first-class historical document, highlights shocking measures Israel took against the Palestinian people, measures that “continue virtually unopposed” by the United States despite the fact that “another peace process has failed”. 

The organisations that endorsed the advertisement are: Deir Yassin Remembered, Americans for a Just Peace in the Middle East, Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends, RighteousJews.org, If Americans Knew, the Council for the National Interest and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

The ad reminded Obama that “this human rights crisis worsens in the evening of your presidency” and wondered what will be his “legacy in this matter “and whether he feels he did “everything possible to oppose Israel’s restrictions of Palestinian rights, or will you regret failing to have done so?”

Obama was reminded that he “still ha[s] time to take meaningful action” and was urged to “please begin by suspending aid to Israel — and, if appropriate, to Palestinian security forces — until these shameful human rights violations cease”. 

Israel needs to wake up and take courageous steps, much like the several Arab countries that this week joined the US-led international campaign against IS.

The writer is a Washington-based columnist.