The campaign against Ezra Nawi by the state of Israel is heating up. There have been articles in the international press and Israeli press about Ezra. The most recent by Ta’ayush member David Shulman. My friend Jesse has complied some thoughts and reflections about Ezra at his blog. Ezra’s sentencing will be on 1 July 2009. Now is the time to make your voice heard in his support. Everything counts!

I just got an email from a friend who is involved in the Jewish blog world in the United States. The friend received a letter from the Israeli Ministry of Justice regarding their thoughts on Ezra. The letter is a telling example of Israeli hasbara (propaganda) and should be distributed widely along with the video evidence on youtube discrediting the government’s viewpoint. The international campaign to support Ezra is making waves. Please go to Support Ezra and see how you can help.

Click Here for the Letter

Read his verdict here in English

Mairav and I want to unpack this letter point by point:

Mr. Nawi arrives every week to southern mount Hebron area and recently also to
Etzion area and joins Palestinian residents there. Together with these Palestinian
residents he knowingly enters areas in close vicinity of Israeli settlements that are
closed military areas.

Israeli citizens are, by law, free to travel in Area C of the West Bank. We are also allowed to meet with Palestinians in those areas. It is ridiculous to state that Ezra “knowingly enters areas in close vicinity of Israeli settlements” since the reality of the settlement project is that they are purposely built in the midst of Palestinian villages –visiting and assisting Palestinians thus necessarily means being in close vicinity of settlements. Furthermore areas Ezra and Ta’ayush travel to are not closed military zones until we arrive, and there is plentiful video evidence demonstrating that the areas are declared closed military zones strictly in order to remove us from the area. To make matters worse, often times this order is not applied to the settler (essentially trespassing on Palestinian land!), thereby creating a situation in which the IDF is operating outside the boundaries of law.

During these weekly occurrences, Mr. Nawi provokes the local residents.
Subsequently, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and the Israeli Police arrive, and are
confronted by Mr. Nawi who has often uses insults and sometimes even force
against members of the security forces.

The provocation comes from the settlers who would prefer to attack and pillage without the documenting eyes of Israeli citizens. But there is something more to this statement. Ezra is a citizen that is persistent in maintaining relationships with Palestinians and working with them against the occupation in nonviolent ways. The IDF and government consider this to be a provocation since it challenges their role as occupiers. The fact that Israelis would attempt this is considered a crime in the eyes of the government and this document is a testament to this alarming trend. Lastly, omitted here are the vociferous insults on Ezra by the Israeli military, army and by settlers as well as constant police harassment. I have heard commanders of the Israel Police in Hebron refer to Ezra as a transvestite pedophile to which Ezra replied “you are stupid.” Calling someone stupid is apparently a major insult that could land one in jail in Israel. As for the accusation of force, I can say that in all our time going out with Ezra to the West Bank, he has never used force against anyone, despite being verbally and sometimes physically abused. If you read the testimony of the IDF officer accusing Ezra of force you can easily see that the officer is lying and that his story does not make any sense.

Mr. Nawi was detained, arrested and investigated several times for his behavior and
on March 19, 2009 was convicted of participating in a riot and assaulting two
Police officers (Cr.C. (Jerusalem) 3246/07 The State of Israel v. Ezra Nawi). His
case is scheduled for sentencing on July 1, 2009.
Note that Mr. Nawi is represented throughout these court proceeding by legal
counsel.

Please read the verdict, available here in English, and see for yourself how the line that the government takes does not add up and amounts to aggression against a citizen who refuses to accept the party line of the country. Finally, it is nice that Israeli officials are insecure enough in the quality of the justice system here that they feel the need to remind us that Ezra was granted the basic right to legal counsel. What it does not say is that Ezra, a Jewish, Israeli-born citizen, is provided an Arabic translator in the courtroom (his family is of Iraqi descent and he speaks fluent Arabic) despite the fact that he speaks fluent Hebrew. Another form of the underlying yet blatant racism that is rampant in the Israeli system.