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TechnoratiIsraeli Peace Activist Nawi to Be Sentenced Today
ISRAELI PEACE activist Ezra Nawi, who will be sentenced in the Jerusalem magistrate's court this morning, hopes the massive show of support he has received from left-wing and gay activists worldwide, will persuade the judges not to impose the maximum two-year prison term.
![[(Ezra Nawi)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/ezranawi.jpg "ezranawi.jpg")
Mr Nawi (57), the former partner of Senator David Norris, was found guilty at the Jerusalem magistrate's court in March of disturbing the peace and attacking two border policemen during a protest against the destruction of Palestinian homes in the West Bank two years ago.
Activists claim that more than 100,000 people worldwide, including many from Ireland, have signed a petition in defence of Mr Nawi, who has maintained his innocence throughout.
Speaking to The Irish Times ahead of the sentencing, Mr Nawi described himself as a thorn in the side of the Israeli authorities, who don't know how to deal with a working-class, openly-gay activist who speaks fluent Arabic, learned from his parents who immigrated to Israel from Iraq.
"It's not about me, it's about what I stand for," he said.
"It's all about revenge. The authorities are out to get me to stop my political activism, so they made up allegations and portrayed me as a criminal. But they can't stop the opposition to the occupation."
Ezra Nawi, who earns his living as a plumber in Jerusalem, has spent most of the last decade fighting for the rights of Palestinian villagers in the Hebron hills, in the south of the occupied West Bank.
He has helped organise dozens of campaigns against house demolitions and land confiscations, defending the property of Bedouin villagers against the Israeli civil administration and militant Jewish settlers in the area.
At one such protest, in the Palestinian Bedouin village of Um El Hir, in February 2007, Mr Nawi was arrested after an altercation between border policemen and villagers and activists.
The protesters were trying to stop a bulldozer which was destroying Bedouin huts that had been erected without the relevant permits from the Israeli authorities.
Mr Nawi admitted to shouting and swearing at the Israeli forces and sitting down in front of the bulldozer.
He denied the charges that he struck two border policemen.
The Jerusalem court opted for the word of a police officer, and convicted Nawi of assault.
In any event, Mr Nawi says he will appeal to the district court against any jail term handed down today, and plans to continue with his political activism come what may.
He said he was encouraged, but not surprised by the wave of international support he has received, and the fact that his trial has turned into a showcase.
"I'm not just another activist. Over the years I've come into contact with dozens of supporters from all over the world," he said.
"The fact that in Ireland and Europe they care about me - this is our strongest weapon."
17 Comments so far
Show AllIn most countries it's illegal to strike other people, even if you are a peace activist.
Based on the article, it is not clear if Ezra Nawi struck the two border police officers or not. (The Israeli court, based on police officers testimony, claims that he did. Ezra claims that he didn’t.)
If he struck them, then broke the law and he should be punished. If he didn't, he should appeal (according to the article, he plan to appeal.) If he will be found not guilty, he will be set free, and the police officers who gave false testimony under oath will be punished.
The court should judge the case based only on evidence, and not based on popular vote or the number of signatures.
that is if we live in a just world ....!!!!! but believe you me that if the police officer lies he will not get punished for that , and that the activist will get punished no matter what for speaking out against israels politics .....
It's interesting that the definition of "Letto" is a type of swamp.
Isn't this Sayan rather swamping us with misinformation?
So then should Israel be punished for striking the thousands of Palestinians in the recent invasion?
There are 28 pending cases in Israeli courts regarding soldiers who may have broken the law during the last war in Gaza.
There are 0 Palestinians in the Hamas courts waiting to be judged for firing 10,000 rockets and mortar bombs against civilian targets.
1) The Palestinian Rockets were so ineffective as to be laughable. Comparing the death tolls from Palestinian rockets with the death tolls from Israeli attacks on civilians (with a variety of weapons of mass destruction including illegal and torturous phosphorous weapons)and then claiming that it is as injust for the Palestinians to fire their little rockets as it is to force them into a huge concentration camp, forbid them to leave, and then bomb the shit out of them is an exercise in Orwellian logic that is the stuff of nightmares and futuristic and previously fictional dystopias
2) Likewise, silencing an unarmed man for striking heavily armed and lethal border guards who are active in the system of the persecution, mass encarceration, disempowerment and murder of a whole people is an exercise in high absurdity. And if he is NOT guilty as he claims, making up a story that he hit those guards just to shut him up is so bizarrely indicative of the paranoid nature of regimes that are terrified of facing the truth of their actions that they become, unwittingly or not, the defintion of what evil can be accomplished by men and women... and what can and will destroy the race.
The Israeli government (not a democracy) will stop at nothing to further its own selfish agenda unless it thinks the world is watching.
Based on what evidence are you saying that Israel is not a democracy?
Israel is a parliamentary representative democratic republic.
The parliament (Knesset) is elected by vote every 4 years (or less.) All the citizens have the right to vote. The government is replaced after each election.
Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the Knesset. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The political system of the State of Israel and its main principles are set out in 11 Basic Laws.
If you want to learn more about the Israeli political system, you can read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Israel
I'm not saying the system in Israel is perfect, yet the level of democracy in Israeli is higher than in any other Middle-Eastern countries. (More than the partial-democracy in Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and the Palestinian authority, and defiantly more than in all other ME dictatorships and monarchies.)
looks like you getting paid to comment on websites like this ....!!! your comments are not paticulary smart or interesting ....get a real job or get a real life !
"Zbigniew Brzezinski, gave an interview to The Daily Beast in which he suggested President Obama should make it clear to Israel that if they attempt to attack Iran's nuclear weapons sites the U.S. Air Force will stop them."
Unprecedented. A thunderbolt of sanity.
Ezra Nawi is a fine example of a wonderful human being, but his actions are like gnats and mosquitos biting ineffectually at the underbelly of a monster without conscience or feeling. Private acts of conscience seem to be doomed to resonate only symbolically; Israel has become inured to such moral protests.
What Brzeninski has said really gets to the point; it has been long overdue. It has long been verboten to ever suggest using military force against the Israeli Death State. But that has truthfully always been the point. The only way.
It is sad beyond all comprehension it has to come from someone no longer in a position to actualize his insights at the higher levels of American policy. And even what Brezeinski has courageouly proscribed, even that does not go far enough when it comes to Israel. –(Jill Bains)
Any Jew or Israeli speaking against the Crimes is a saint imo. The deafening silence......in Israel & the US re The Atrocities is the norm.
I have known and do, and loved and love many Jews, but in my experience unqualified absolute support of Israel and whatever it does is inserted in between otherwise progressive, humanitarian perspectives.
This is a problem given the very active role of Zionists in our govt making foreign policy-often based on little more than attacking Islam.
A two-state solution, rammed down the throats of all would be a gift from God to every party involved.
One state. Two states only if one side divvies up the land and resources, and the other side picks which one they want.
But one state, with democratic elections and the franchise given to all over age 16 who will commit to living in Palestine permanently, is the only fair solution.
I agree. A "two-state solution" has a facile appeal, because it falsely suggests a "win-win" outcome.
It's reminiscent of the "separate but equal" standard that seemed humane and reasonable to moderate civil rights supporters in Amerika during the Jim Crow era. Maybe not "perfect"-- after all, we mustn't make the "perfect" the enemy of the "good", you know-- but surely a Big Step Ahead that eases so much of the pinch of discrimination.
The sticking point is that Israel would be forced to finally and forever abandon the theocratic anchor of their claim to statehood, the fantastic, exclusive covenant between the Creator of the Universe and the Israeli people guaranteeing their absolute right to a Jewish Homeland.
That anchor is crusted thick with zealous barnacles and guarded with sharks, barracuda, and men o'war.
Like single-payer health care in Amerika, the Received Wisdom is that it's "impossible" or "unthinkable" due to a plurality of entrenched opposition. So the sensible, pragmatic pseudo-thinkers say in one quick breath, "Oh yes, a one-state solution is preferable in theory, but THAT's never going to happen. And now, moving on to brainstorming on the most craptacular TWO-state solution possible..."
Ethnic cleansing, like politics, is "the art of the possible".
· Yr Obd't Servant
OS, Mairead above, no argument, you are right, morally. Pragmatically I feel because Palestinians are going to outpropagate Jews, and 6 decades of hate and murder won't fade easily, that separate countries sharing Jerusalem and some holy sites might work best.
I said rammed down their throats my friends. Implicit in throat ramming is that the choking is equal all the way around. Palestine reborn, no ghetto...NO less than. I mourn for and love Palestine.
1 or 2, until peace is achieved right exactly there, there will be no peace on all of earth. Maybe things too wonderful for us to comprehend are at our fingertips though, within the grasp of our children, even us. Who knows the real power of peace and love radiating out from Christ's place of birth on Earth? What the ripples of pain stopped after all the agony might precipitate?
Any video out there showing this altercation? I can't trust a propaganda machine!
Here is the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysIaQUJWBdk
As one who has seen the power of these Israeli pigs--getting away Scott-free with murder of really good selfless people who's concern for the plight of the Palestinians made them martyrs for justice--I can only say good luck with that--only God has the power to intervene against these unjust and godless modern day Nazis. To them I say Woe to you oh Israel, you too shall be judged.