La Vignetterie.

Who are you, officer?

From pp 105 ff., Chacham.

Yuval Lotem, a 45-year old filmmaker and father of one, lives in Kfar Shmaryahu, an affluent town north of Tel Aviv. …Yuval has refused to serve in Israeli-occupied territory many times. Twice, he has been imprisoned for doing so. …During the first Intifada, Yuval refused to serve in Gaza, and he was finally sentenced to 28 days in a military prison. Several years later, he refused a tour of duty in the Megiddo prison. Though Megiddo is inside the Green Line, Yuval did not feel he could serve because Palestinian administrative detainees were held there. Again, he found himself sentenced to 28 days in the brig.

Upon his release from military lockup in July 1997, Yuval Lotem received a letter from Megiddo Prison. It was written, in English, by an administrative detainee. The script was so small that it had to be magnified in order to be deciphered:

a letter to an anonymous soldier

A small item in the Al-Quds newspaper dated July 8, 1997 read: ‘Israeli soldier who refused to serve in Megiddo Prison sentenced to military lockup.’ The item, which totaled eight lines, reported that an officer with the rank of lieutenant said: ‘I prefer to to be a prisoner in jail than the jailer of political prisoners incarcerated without a trial.’

Who are you?

Who are you, officer?

I want to write to you, but first I need to know who you are. I need to know what motivated you to do what you did. I need to know how you arrived at this principled, conscientious decision. How is it that you opted to rebel in this most unique, unexpected way?

Who are you?

What’s your name? Where do you live? What do you do? How old are you? Do you have children? Do you love the sea/ What books do you read? And what are you doing this very moment in the cell in which you are imprisoned? Do you have enough cigarettes? Does anyone there identify with you? Are you asking yourself, ‘Was it worth it?’ What feelings fill your soul, trapped between the bare walls closing in around you? Do I know you? Have we ever met? Can you see the moon and the stars from your cell window? Have your ears adjusted to the clanging of heavy keys, the screeching of locks, the banging of metal doors? What did they tell you in your court martial, and what did you reply?

Do you see fields of wheat and oat swaying in the wind in your sleep? Do you see plains of sunflowers that feast your eyes with shades of yellow, green, and black, and the sun tans you, and you smile in your sleep, and the walls come tumbling down, and an anonymous man waves to you from afar?

Who are you, lieutenant?

Why do you attribute so much importance to the issue of administrative detainees?

Do you really hold my freedom so dear?

Would the role of jailer have broken you? Just a week, or two, or three at the most, and you would have finished your reserve duty, and returned to your civilian life.

Indeed, you could have kept silent, conquered your anger, kept your feelings to yourself. You could have been a polite jailer, treated the detainees with courtesy, and been humane? What would have happened to you had you done so?

So who are you?

How do the wardens treat you? Does your wife visit you, maybe your girlfriend, your mother, or your children? Do you write letters? To whom? How do you begin a letter to a woman you love? Do you think about me? What does my freedom to you? What, in your eyes, is the meaning of freedom in general? Isn’t ‘sate security’ important to you? And what if I’m a real terrorist? What would you say then?

Aren’t you regretful? Didn’t some doubt creep in when they said, ‘They’re dangerous, they belong to Hamas, to Islamic Jihad, to the Popular Front? Don’t you trust our security services? Do you really think we’d throw innocent people into jail?’

So who are you?

Are you asleep now? Or are you lying on your back, staring at the ceiling, deep in thought? What color are your eyes? Are you short or tall? What makes you happy and what makes you angry? Do theyallow you to have books? Do they give you the daily paper? What do you see in your jailer’s eyes? Do you smile often? Do you hear the birds singing at dawn? Do the army blankets irritate you? Will peace ever come? Will Oslo bring peace? Is the Likud interested in peace? Is the Labor party interested in peace?

Anonymous lieutenant, be your name what it may, sleep well. The peaceful sleep of a man with a clean conscience. I will soon know your name, and then I will write you a long letter, a letter from one prisoner to another. I will open my with ‘Hello, dear’, and end it with ‘Yours, truly,’

Imad Saba

July 13, 1997.

Imad Sabba was detained on December 12, 1995, with no charges brought against him, without standing trial, and with no limitations on the length of his arrest. The authorities’ claim against him was that he was active with teh Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a militant Palestinian resistance group, and therefore posed a threat to regional security. In May 1997, while Saba was in detention,…B’Tselem reported that 249 Palestinian administrative detainees were being held in degraded, camp-like conditions, forced to sleep in tents, and exposed to the elements. Until his arrest, Saba had been director general of the Bisan Institute for Research and Development in Ramallah and a lecturer at Bir Zeit University.

Saba, an intellectual who wrote prolifically from prison about the likes of Paul Auster and Noam Chomsky, was awarded a graduate fellowship at a research institute in The Hague. He asked the army to release him from administrative detention so he could pursue his studies. His request was denied. Finally, after many months of negotiation, Saba was released in a deal worked out between his lawyer and the General Security Services [Shin Bet]. The night of his release, he was deported to Holland, despite the fact that he was never charged with a crime.

…Following his release from military lockup, Yuval Lotem contacted Imad Saba, and they formed an acquaintanceship that continues to this day.

Chacham, Ronit, Breaking ranks: refusing to serve in the West Bank and Gaza strip, New York: Other Press, 2005.

À propos.

Étiquettes.

Palestine, Israel, administrative detention, Imad Saba, Yuval Lotem, Megiddo prison.

Mises à jour.