Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace

July 27, 2005
Witness Describes Life Under Israeli Military Occupation
TAMPA–

Dr. Sami Al-Arian’s trial entered its seventh week on July 25. Throughout the trial, many observers have noted that the government has been giving jurors a distorted, inaccurate and biased representation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, specifically excluding anything to do with the Palestinians’ suffering under Israeli military occupation (or their circumstances in general). In fact, Palestinians are only mentioned as perpetrators of violence or violent acts.

But on July 18, the courtroom finally got a glimpse of life under occupation, when the government brought Palestinian legislator and academic Ziad Abu-Amr to testify.

Dr. Abu-Amr was called to testify about an affidavit he wrote in 2000 for the case of Dr. Mazen Al-Najjar (Al-Arian’s brother-in-law), who was detained in the U.S. for nearly four years under the use of secret evidence. The government had hoped their witness would prove a charge of obstruction of justice against Dr. Al-Arian, but instead Dr. Abu-Amr said Dr. Al-Arian had not influenced him in any way when he drafted his affidavit as an expert witness.

Abu-Amr, a professor at Birzeit University who has published works on Islamic movements in Palestine, testified about the effects of Israel’s occupation on Palestinians, including the lack of academic freedom in the occupied territories. One example of this is the Israeli military’s ban on thousands of books from entering Palestinian territories.

Abu-Amr also explained that Israel’s decades-long economic strangulation of the West Bank and Gaza has left an enormous vacuum that must filled by local charities, which in turn must be approved by the Palestinian Authority to operate. Groups operating in the Palestinian territories offer a high number of social services, including clinics and kindergartens, he continued. He said the P.A., which is poor and inefficient, “could not deliver services to people all over the occupied territories.”

Under cross-examination, Abu-Amr said Israel periodically closes Palestinian universities. He recalled several occasions in which his own university was closed for months at a time, and classes were held in private homes, unions and churches. The ad-hoc university classes were “raided by the Israeli military,” he said.

With the Israeli forces carrying out arrests, deportations, home demolitions, curfews, school and university closings, travel restrictions, etc. against Palestinians, “not a Palestinian home [is] not influenced by the occupation,” Abu-Amr said, comparing the situation to Apartheid South Africa.

Clarifying a number of terms, concepts and figures that have been distorted thus far, Abu-Amr described the first Palestinian Intifada as “a popular, peaceful resistance to the Israeli occupation by the Palestinian population.” He said Palestinians use the term “martyr” to refer to those who sacrificed their lives for the sake of their country, including those who “die by stray bullets by Israelis.”

Also during cross-examination, Dr. Al-Arian’s attorney William Moffitt presented Abu-Amr with a flyer of a lecture in which he participated over 10 years ago, sponsored by the World and Islam Studies Enterprise, a think tank Dr. Al-Arian helped found. Abu-Amr recalled that the event, titled “Palestinian-Israeli Peace Negotiations: A Palestinian Perspective,” was well-attended and featured well-known, respected and moderate scholars.

During the rest of the week, the government entered evidence (namely faxes and transcripts of telephone calls acquired as a result of secret wiretaps on Dr. Al-Arian and several others) through three government translators. As they did the week before, prosecutors continued to introduce heavily redacted or edited videotapes and phone calls. One particularly startling example is a government-introduced videotape with a one-minute clip of Dr. Al-Arian speaking, taken from a speech that was originally 90 minutes long.

During cross-examination, many questions were raised about the accuracy of the translations and the circumstances under which they were prepared. Under questioning by Moffitt, FBI translator Camille Ghorra admitted that the FBI pays him over $90,000 a year, and that he was employed as a taxicab driver before becoming a translator for the agency in 1997. Furthermore, Moffitt asked Ghorra why he failed to indicate that Qur’anic verses written on faxes or spoken were in fact verses from the Qur’an.

Read more about Ziad Abu-Amr’s testimony: “Witness is Defense’s Friend,” St. Petersburg Times, July 19, 2005