Thousands of Israelis demonstrated opposite the Jerusalem home of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) Saturday night in protest of recent arrests of Jewish minors by the Shabak, as well as the conditions of their captivity.
The protests came in response to another two teenagers from the so-called “hilltop youth” being arrested Saturday night on suspicion of involvement in a “Jewish terror” affair on which a media gag order was imposed.
The two minors join three friends from the same Samaria yeshiva that had been arrested last Sunday.
A special order was issued against the underage suspects, preventing them from being able to meet with lawyers.
Many public figures attended the demonstration, decrying the behavior of Israeli security services against minors.
Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan accused the Shabak of violating the human rights of the underage detainees, emphasizing that “we will not accept human rights violations, human rights are intended for people who are detained on such suspicions.”
“This is where the rule of law system is tested,” he continued. “Right at this point, and at the moment it is failing the test.”
“It cannot be that mafiosos who fire missiles on houses in Netanya, pedophiles and child murderers are entitled to a meeting with an attorney, while children aged 15 from a yeshiva in Judea or Samaria are not entitled to a lawyer.”
“It is the function and duty of law enforcement and police to investigate this incident,” Dagan conceded. “But all this must happen while safeguarding the human rights and the rights of detainees, and certainly minors. That is why we came here to make a clear statement to the prime minister, the justice minister and the internal security minister in charge of this system. We demand your immediate intervention in this crime and trampling on the rights of our residents and children.”
“I want to make it clear that we will not sit on the sidelines while our rights are violated,” he threatened. “We will not stand aside while they torture children and deny their rights. I call on anyone who considers himself a fighter for human rights not to stand aside when this crime is committed in broad daylight.”
Detaining minors and preventing them from meeting with lawyers is completely indefensible and undermines Israel’s claim to be a democratic society. While we should also oppose these methods when used against Palestinian suspects, a major difference we should acknowledge is that the young Jews detained in this case were assumed to enjoy the protections of citizenship in a democratic state. And if we see a disparity between the treatment of Jewish and Palestinian prisoners by our security forces, we should correct that disparity not by lowering the moral standard for how we treat Jewish prisoners but by raising the moral standard for how we treat Palestinians.
It is generally unwise for any state to make small ideological groups feel like persecuted minorities. The behavior of the Shabak will likely only harden and further radicalize the teenage Jewish activists throughout the entire West Bank. Not just those who have been imprisoned without charges and tortured in basement interrogation rooms but also the thousands of others who have begun to see themselves as living under a regime in which they have no rights.
