Last Friday Haaretz did something unusual: it placed an opinion
piece on top of its front page. But it wasn't just an ordinary
opinion piece, it was written by one of the country foremost novelists, David
Grossman. The article, like Emile Zola's J'accuse, to which it has been
compared, was a moral critique. Many who read it were very moved. But the moral
missive never appeared in English (at least to my knowledge). The English
Haaretz has always been somewhat reticent in presenting Israel to the world.
And of course translating Grossman is not easy, he is a master of the language
and the art of writing.I have no idea whether I have done justice to this work.
But it needed to be translated. The message is too important. Hebrew original.
Translated by Sol Salbe of the
Middle East News Service, Melbourne Australia.
Why? Who died?
All said and done it is
merely a minor story about an illegal alien who stole a car, was injured in an
accident, then released from hospital to have cops dump him, still injured to
die the by the roadside. What are the building blocks that lead to such an
atrocity?
David Grossman
Omar Abu Jariban, a resident of
the Gaza Strip, staying illegally in Israel, stole a car and was seriously
injured while driving it. He was released from the Sheba Medical Centre while
his treatment was still ongoing and handed over to the custody of the Rehovot
Police station. The police were unable to identify him. He himself was
bewildered and confused. The Rehovot Police officers decided to get rid of him.
According to Chaim Levinson’s account, they loaded him onto a police van at
night accompanied by three policemen. He was still attached to a catheter, was
wearing an adult nappy and a hospital gown. Two days later he was found dead by
the roadside.
 |
| Omar Abu Jariban
|
It’s a minor story. We have
already read some like it and others where even worse. And when it is all said
and done who is the subject of this story: an illegal infiltrator, from Rafah
and a vehicle thief to boot. And at any rate it happened as long ago as
2008, there is a statue of limitation to consider. And we have other, fresher,
more immediate matters which are more relevant for us to consider. (And beside
all that, they started it, we offered them everything and they refused and
don’t forget the terrorism.).
Ever since I read the
story, I find it difficult to breathe the air here: I keep on
thinking about that trip in the police van, as if some part of me had
remained there, bonded on permanently and impossible to be prise
out. How precisely did the incident pan out? it? What are the real, banal,
tangible elements that coalesced together make up such an atrocity?
From the newspaper I gather that
there were three cops there alongside Omar. Again and again I run the
video clip mentally in my head: Was he sitting like them on the seat or was he
lying on the floor of the van? Was he handcuffed or not? Did anybody talk to
him? Did they offer him a drink? Did they share a laugh? Did they laugh at him?
Did they poke fun at his adult nappy? Did they laugh at his confusion or
at his catheter? Did they discuss what he was capable of while still attached
to the catheter or once he would be separated from it? Did they say that
he deserved what was coming? Did they kick him lightly like mates do, or maybe
because the situation demanded a swift kick? Or did they just kick him for the
heck of it, just because they could, and why not?
Besides, how can someone be
discharged just like that from medical treatment at the Sheba Medical Centre?
Who let him out in his condition? What possible explanation could
they put down on the discharge papers which they signed off?
And what happened when the van
reached the Maccabim checkpoint [not far from Jerusalem -tr]? I read in the
newspaper that an argument ensued with the Israeli checkpoint commander, and
that he refused to accept the patient. Did Omar hear the argument about him
from within the van, or did they drag him out of the van and plonked him
in front of the commander, replete with catheter, nappy and hospital gown for a
rapid overall assessment by the latter? And the commander said no. And yalla!
We are on our way again. So they returned to van, and they kept on going. And
now the guys in the van are perhaps not quite as nice before, because it is
getting late and they want to get back and wonder what have they done to have
deserved copping this sand nigger and what are they going to do with him
now. If the Maccabim checkpoint rejected him, there was no way in which
the Atarot checkpoint will take him. It is now pitch black outside and by the
by, while traveling on Route 45, between the Ofer military base to the Atarot
checkpoint, a thought or a suggestion pops up. Perhaps someone said
something and nobody argued against, or perhaps someone did argue back but the
one who came up with the original suggestion carried more weight. Or perhaps
there was no argument, someone said something and someone else felt that this
is precisely what needs to be done, and one of them says to the driver, pull
over for a moment, not here, it’s too well lit, stop there. You, yes you,
move it, get your arse into gear you piece of shit – thanks to you our van
stinks;, you ruined our evening, get going! What do you mean to where? Go
there.
And what happens next? Does Omar
remain steady on his feet, or are his legs unable to carry him? Do they leave
him on the side of the road, or do physically take him there, and how? Do the
haul him? Do they drag him deeper into the field?
You stay here! Do not follow us!
Do not move!
And then they return to the car,
walking a little bit more briskly, glancing behind their shoulder to ensure
that he is not pursuing them. As if he already has something infectious about
him. No, not his injury. Something else is already beginning to exude out of
him, like bad tidings, or his court sentence. Come on, let’s get going, it’s
all over.
And he, Omar Abu Jariban, what
did he do then? Did he merely stand on his own feet or did he suddenly
grasp what was happening, and started running and shouting that they should
take him with them? And perhaps he did not realise anything, because as we
said, he was confused and bewildered, and just stood there on the road or in
the field, and saw a road, and a police van driving away. So what did he do?
What did he really do? Started walking aimlessly, with some sort of a
vague notion that somehow being a little further away would turn out somewhat
better? Or maybe he just sat down and stared blankly in front of him and tried
to figure it, but it was clearly beyond his comprehension for he was in no
position to understand anything? Or perhaps he lay down and curled up on
the ground and waiting? Why? And whom did he think about? Did he have someone,
somewhere, to think about? Did the thought occur to any of those police
officers, at any time during that whole night that there was someone, a man, a
woman or a whole family for whom Omar was important? Someone who cared about
him? Did it occur to them that it was possible, with a little bit more of an
effort to locate this person and hand Omar to them?
Two days later they found his
body. But I have no idea how much time had elapsed from the moment they
dumped him by the roadside until he died. Who knows when it dawned on him that
this was it; that his body did not have enough strength left to save himself.
And even if could have summonsed the energy, he was trapped a situation from
which there was no exit, that his short life was about to end here. His brother
Mohammed, said by telephone from Gaza, "They simply threw him to the
dogs". And in the newspaper it says, "Horrible as it may sound, the
brother accurately described what happened.” And I read it and the image
turns into something real, and I try to wipe that image from my mind.
And in the police van, what
happened there after they dumped Omar ? Did they talk among themselves? About
what? Did they fire each other up with hatred and disgust at him, to
retrospectively justify what they did? To justify what in their
heart of hearts they knew stood in contrast to something. Maybe that
thing was the law (but the law, they probably imagined, they could
handle). But maybe it was contrary to something deeper, some deeply
ingrained memory in them which they found themselves in, many years ago. Maybe
it was moral tale or a children's story in which the good was good and
the bad was bad. Perhaps one of them recalled something they learnt at
school --- they did pass through our education system, didn’t they? Let’s say
it was S Yizhar’s HaShavuy (the captive).
Or maybe the three of them pulled
out their mobile phones and spoke to the wife, the girlfriend the son. At such
times you may want to talk to someone from the outside. Someone who wasn’t here
who did not touch this thing.
Or maybe they kept quiet.
No, silence was perhaps a little
bit too dangerous at that point. Still, something was beginning to creep up the
van’s interior; a sort of a viscous dark sensation, like a terrifying sin, for
which there is no forgiveness. Maybe one of them yet did suggest softly, let’s
go back. We’ll tell him that we were pulling his leg. We can’t go on like this,
dumping a human being.
The paper says: “As a result of
the police Internal Affairs investigation, negligent homicide charges were
filed in March 2009 against only two of the officers who were involved in
dumping and abandoning Abu Jariban. Evidence has yet to be submitted in a
trial of the pair but in the meantime, one of the two accused has been
promoted.”
I know that they do not represent
the police. Nor do they represent our society or the state. It's only a handful
or bad apples, or unwelcomed weeds. But then I think about a people which has
dumped a whole other nation on the side of the road and has backed the process
to the hilt over 45 years, all the while having not a bad life at all, thank
you. I think about a people which has been engaging in a brilliant genius-like
denial of its own responsibility for the situation. I think of a people, which
has managed to ignore the warping and distorting of its own society and the
madness that the process has had on its own national values. Why should such a
people get all excited over a single such Omar?
Source here
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