Dirar Abu Sisi was kidnapped by Israeli agents in Ukraine. He is charged with developing rockets, missiles and mortar shells for Hamas
Israel has kidnapped, apparently with the Ukrainian authorities turning a blind eye, a Gazan engineer named Dirar Abu Sisi. He was detained for several weeks under the usual schtick of a double gag order: one gag order preventing making public the fact that he is held, another denying the public the right to know there is a gag order. This buys the GSS (Internal Security Service) precious torture time, and allows him to present the prisoner to the press after he has confessed, which is as it likes it. Yesterday, the veil of secrecy was lifted as Abu Sisi was indicted, confessions and all. His lawyers say they have been tortured out of him, which is a reasonable claim.
The GSS claims Abu Sisi provided Hamas with weapons technology and developed rockets, missiles and mortar shells for it. Which is where it all turns to farce. Abu Sisi, who is not an Israeli citizen, is charged with violations of Israeli law, which has no standing either in the Gaza Strip or in Ukraine, where he was kidnapped. Specifically (Hebrew), the charges are: Membership in a terror organization (residing outside the borders of Israel), contact with a foreign agent (again, this law is invalid in Gaza), conspiracy to commit crimes (likewise), an attempted murder (likewise), and manufacturing of arms.
The last charge is particularly twisted. As far as the Israeli authorities are concerned, the manufacture of any weapon – including the anti-tank rockets Abu Sisi allegedly developed – is a felony. In the hugely asymmetrical armed struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians, a Palestinian who produces weapons is ipso facto a criminal.
Once again, Israel plays at its favorite double game: When it wants to, the struggle with the Palestinians is a war, which allows it to use the laws of war; when the mood fits her, it is crime suppression. Enemy fighters are never considered to be soldiers, when they are caught; they are always criminals. They don’t get the protections enjoyed by soldiers, even if all they did was resist the Israeli army, but are tried as common criminals. So, on the one hand Israel holds the West Bank under “wartime powers”; on the other hand, anyone objecting to this military occupation is a felon = according to Israeli law, which has no validity in the territories.
The injustice in Abu Sisi’s case is particularly striking: Israel, after all, keeps claiming she does not control the Gaza Strip any longer. And yet, it dares to try a Gazan according to Israeli law, something it did not do when it occupied the place (then, Palestinians were subject to military law). Abu Sisi’s kidnapping highlights the fact that the Israeli occupation in the Strip did not end; it was just mutated.
The kidnapping also sheds an unusually ironic light on one of Israel’s regular claims: That courts in other countries are disbarred from extending their jurisdiction to visiting IDF gunmen. Israel itself, of course, thinks it has precisely this right, and that it extends not just to visitors but to people it brought over by force.
These contradictions are simply not seen by most Israelis. They consider Israel to be the eternal victim, and hence as a country to whom normal rules do not apply. Later, they are puzzled – if they stop at that station at all, before arriving at their final destination of whiny victimhood – when the rest of the world considers Israel to be the neighbourhood bully.
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Jack
FREE ABU SISI FROM THE APARTHEID REGIME!!!!!
pabelmont
Best analysis of this I’ve seen. OTOH, Israel routinely imprisons Palestinians for “terrorism”. How is this different (apart from some wires-crossed illogic, apparently, about charging a foreigner under Israeli law, when he was not under Israeli jurisdiction at the time of the alleged actions)?
Clif Brown
Once again you hit the mark. Bully is the word, and the free pass that Israel gets from the United States for any and all behavior (though sometimes those powerful words “unfortunate” or “disappointing” are used) means there is no need to justify anything – everything is permitted and it may be couched in whatever legal or diplomatic terms desired. Israel is a rogue state with a stamp of approval from the very country that claims to revile rogue states, supposedly standing for law and order!
My hope rests with the increasing number of Jews who are outraged that Netanyahu and the gang presume to speak for all Jewry. What the world is coming to realize is that Jews are not some special strain of humanity, but people like everyone else – capable of behavior ranging from the saintly to the fiendish. But, oh my goodness, this process is taking so very very long to overcome the playing of the Holocaust card by Zionists.
The Holocaust card – on its face it says “entitles the bearer to several decades of unregulated behavior and self-righteousness” but on the opposite side is an hour-glass.
Danny
Israelis can pretty much forget about Gilad Shalit. Their government not only has given up on ever getting him back, but is doing everything in its power to ensure that he NEVER comes back. This kidnapping is especially heinous because it happened in another country altogether, showing that Israel doesn’t even respect Palestinian human rights outside of the occupied territories. Israel is a criminal state, not unlike Kaddafi’s Libiya which hunted down dissidents in foreign countries and either kidnapped or executed them. If Israelis would just stop and look at their country with objective eyes, they would be horrified at its vile and despicable behavior!
Borg
Charges against Eichmann show Argentina is still occupied
guess thats why Argentine foreign minister Hector Timmermannn is trying to make a deal with Iran in exchange for dropping the investigation into the anti_Jewish bombings in Buenos Aires. Incidentally, Timmermanns father Jacobo was saved by Israel in the 1970s during the Argentine dirty wars. Perhaps the elder Timmermann should have received refuge in Sudan instead
directrob
Borg,
It never came to you that they even might have the wrong guy and he is no Eichmann? See Tikun Olam site by Richard Silverstein about Dirar Abu Sisi.
Elan Miller
Would you prefer that the IDF kills terrorists on site or takes them to a fair trial?