Tali Fahima - Giving up the privileges by Smadar Ben Natan, Haokets 26.7.2005; Translated from Hebrew by Daniel Breslau
Tali Fahima first appeared before the Israeli public when she was interviewed in the media and announced her intention to serve as a "human shield" for Zakaria Zubeidi, the leader of the El Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the Jenin refugee camp, who was then designated "the number one wanted man in the Jenin area." She made this declaration in March of 2004, after the IDF`s third attempt to assassinate Zubeidi. This was part of Israel's assassinations policy, "extrajudicial death sentences" in the sanitized language of the security apparatus: "targeted eliminations." In that attempted assassination, Zakaria Zubeidi was injured in the shoulder. Two men who were with him, and were apparently not targeted for elimination, were killed.
Following that assassination attempt, Tali Fahima was interviewed in the media, and announced that she intended to stay at Zakaria's side, in order to serve as a "human shield." She was interviewed extensively in the Ha'ir magazine, and told of her acquaintance with Zubeidi and of the ideological transformation she had undergone, from a right-wing Arab-hater, to a fierce opponent of the occupation. She was also interviewed on the talk show London and Kirschenbaum on the very same matter. She was photographed for a story on Channel 2, at Zakaria's side in the Jenin refugee camp, saying "I am here all the time, in order to protect Zakaria, to stop the assassination." Later, when the Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abd al Aziz Rantisi were assassinated, she was interviewed on the Popolitika talk show, and spoke out against the assassinations policy.
Today she stands accused of various charges, one of which is "supporting a terrorist organization," as stated in the Terror Prevention Order. She is charged with this crime because of the interviews she gave in the media in which she declared herself a "human shield" for Zakaria. In other words, the willingness to protect someone from assassination, if they are a member of a terror organization, is considered support for terror itself, as support for a terrorist organization. This is in spite of the fact that in every interview Tali stressed that she wants to protect Zakaria because she knows him and has a personal connection with him. "This person is worth protecting, he`s worth it"; "I don't know all of Palestine. I protect who I know."
The human shield pits a body against a weapon. The army assassinates using Apache helicopters, bombs, and missiles, explosives triggered by remote control, and against them stands a women who says that with her body she will be there in order to prevent the assassination.
What was it about Tali Fahima's human shield declaration that brought down the wrath of the entire defense and political system of the state of Israel?
The human shield declaration is not really body against weapon. That is the most naïve way to see this declaration, since the body has no chance against a weapon; the weapon destroys the body.
The human shield declaration is a declaration of humanity, of human solidarity. It breaks down the distinction between one life and another, "between blood and blood," that is created by the assassination policy, and by the Israeli political system as a whole. It places the life of the Israeli, the Jew, on the same plane, the same value, as the life of the Palestinian.
The declaration does even more than this, it turns the entire distinction between blood and blood on its head. Tali Fahima uses the same racist distinction between blood and blood to her advantage as a Jew within this system, for the sake of one whose blood is worth less.
What permits Tali Fahima to be a human shield for Zakaria Zubeidi, and not the reverse? What allows Tali Fahima to be a human shield, while denying this possibility to other women and other men who are at the side of the next assassination target?
Indeed, the tens of women and children who were at the side of Salah Shehada when he was assassinated in Gaza, 14 of whom were killed, and 150 injured, did not provide him with a human shield. Their lives were not valued. Other women who were beside their husbands; children and men who were beside their family members and friends, they were not human shields either, but were killed along with their loved ones.
Through May of 2004, 364 people were killed by the Israeli army in the course of the assassinations policy. Among them 237 were actual targets, while 125 were bystanders. 585 people were injured, of which only seven were assassination targets.
The lives of innocent Palestinians are not effective as human shields.
The reason that Tali Fahima can be a human shield for Zakaria is that she is Jewish. The lives of Palestinians have no value. They are considered "children of death," and are targets of assassination, and the loss of the lives of bystanders is nothing more than a side effect. Is this sad? It depends who you ask. But the lives of Jews, in contrast, are valuable and must be preserved. In the spirit of the times: "A Jew does not assassinate a Jew."
Thus, if you hit the target of the assassination, it is a blessing. If you hit a bystander it`s no so bad. If you hit her, the Jew, it's a problem.
Only because of this double standard by which human lives are valued, can Tali Fahima declare that she will be a human shield for Zakaria, and this declaration does carry some weight. The army will hesitate to eliminate him when it means that the Israeli Jew at his side will also be hit.
By choosing to place herself at his side, at the same risk of attack as he, Tali Fahima is challenging the distinction between blood and blood. She says: my life is equal to his. If you are prepared to hurt him, you must also be prepared to hurt me, because I am there too. I will be hit too.
The human shield declaration is even more than this, it is the opposite of the racist distinction between Jewish blood and Arab blood. Tali is using her privilege as part of the superior group (in its own eyes, of course), the enhanced value placed on her life, in order to thereby protect the life of one whose life is not considered worth protecting. She is taking what was given her, the advantage of being Jewish, but is not using it for its intended purpose, to protect herself and the group to which she belongs. Declining to use it for herself, she uses it instead in order to give value to the life of one whose life is considered worthless. Thus, she uses the advantage that the racist system gave her against that very system.
The human shield is therefore not really body against gun, but a Jewish life against the destruction of a Palestinian life.
More human shields
Tali is not the first to use the term "human shield." There are surely many historical examples that I have not studied. There are examples of the use of human shields by coercion, during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, that were prosecuted in the international court for Yugoslavia.
The following examples are from the concrete reality of the occupation regime in the territories.
In this context it is possible that the IDF invented the human shield. To our horror, IDF soldiers have used, and may still use, Palestinians as human shields for themselves. This is what has been termed "the neighbor procedure," or, as the IDF calls it, the early warning procedure. According to this procedure, soldiers take an available Palestinian, usually a neighbor, and place them at the front of their ranks when they enter a house to make an arrest. Or, in another version, even earlier, from the first intifada, soldiers send a nearby Palestinian to take down Palestinian flags from electric poles, risking electrocution, rather than endangering themselves.
This is how human shields are used within the racist system and according to its logic. The lives of the soldiers are valued, those of the Palestinians are not. Thus it makes sense that if someone needs to be hurt it will be the Palestinian. Thus we'll put him in front of us, and if there is shooting or an explosion, he is the one who will be shot, or electrocuted, and the soldiers will be kept safe.
A long list of human rights organizations petitioned the High Court of Justice against this practice in May of 2002. These included Adala, the Association for Civil Rights, The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, Physicians for Human Rights, B'Tselem, The Committee Against Torture, and the Hamoked Center for the Defense of the Individual. In August, 2002, the court issued a temporary injunction, which suspended the use of human shields until a final decision was rendered. The decision is yet to be handed down, and the interim injunction is still in force.
The state argued in response to the petition that the army enjoys the assistance of the local residents, who agree to help the soldiers to arrest their brothers. In other words, the Palestinians willingly help the army by acting as human shields for the soldiers.
There are two differences between this human shield and the human shield that Tali Fahima offered. The first is the "real" shield according to the Israeli logic. The less valuable lives shield the more valuable ones. The second difference is that the shield of Tali Fahima is voluntary, altruistic, while the Palestinian shield is coerced; it is initiated by the one that is shielded and not the shield. In its legal defense, the state tried to portray this situation as an altruistic one the Palestinians want, or at least consent, to serve as human shields. Thus, the argument goes, it is acceptable.
According to this logic, when Tali Fahima consents, or wants, to serve as a human shield, this must be acceptable too.
A second example of a human shield is more like Tali Fahima`s case. During "Operation Defensive Shield," Yasser Arafat was confined to the Mukata. It was at the height of the assassinations policy, and there were heated discussions in the security cabinet whether to assassinate Arafat or to deport him.
During the course of the campaign, Uri Avnery, his wife Rachel, and other members of Gush Shalom, entered the Mukata, and declared themselves human shields for Arafat. The declarations were covered in the media, and in a way that was similar to the coverage of Tali Fahima. Despite this, nothing happened to those who entered. They were not charged with supporting a terrorist organization.
Uri Avnery is the one you expect to see, that you recognize. When he expresses radical views, it does not disturb the establishment. He plays the role that he is assigned in the drama, and no one gets worked up about it. He won't persuade Likud voters in Kiryat Gat to become opponents of the occupation. In contrast, Tali Fahima has the potential to do just that. Thus she, much more than he, troubles the defense and political establishment.
But more than this, it was clear that the human shield declaration of Avnery and Gush Shalom was a public and political declaration, for the media. As far as I recall, they did not stay there long enough to really serve as human shields. They did not split up among various candidates for assassination, of whom there were many at the time, so that each one of them would protect the life of someone, one on one. They declared that they were coming to protect Arafat, as leader of the Palestinian people, and not as an expression of solidarity, concern and personal compassion. They too, the shields, were known personages. Not every man in the street, from Kiryat Gat, will suddenly come and announce that he is a human shield.
Tali Fahima's declaration was accompanied by a personal story of the meeting and subsequent friendship between her and Zakaria Zubeidi. He was not the most senior one on the list of future assassinations, but someone that she knew. To paraphrase her words: I know him, he is important to me, and he deserves my protection. She meant Zakaria the person. She told how his mother and brother were killed in the course of Operation Defensive Shield from IDF gunfire, how he hosted her in Jenin, and more personal details of their relationship. The protection that she offered was personal protection, protection that affirmed Zakaria the human being, turned him from a moving target to a human being.
And Tali was not a well-known person. She dared to get up and say all of this, despite the fact that she is not Uri Avnery. She thus also challenged the Uri Avnerys, the long-standing Ashkenazi masculine hegemony of the left. The advantage that she used and subverted was thus purely racial. She can be a human shield even without being Uri Avnery, even if she is "just" Tali Fahima from Kiryat Gat, because Jewish blood is enough to make her a human shield.
She was the unexpected and thus she was so frightening to the establishment.
And finally, she was really there, during the "Crocodile Tears" operation in May 2004, which included the assassination of Zakaria Zubeidi and others among its objectives. The fact of her presence seems to have disrupted the assassination plans, or at least required special attention from IDF forces that entered the camp to look for her.
All of this made Tali Fahima a real human shield. Zakaria Zubeidi still lives and breathes. The assassination policy has been stopped, according to Israeli assurances at the the Sharm al Sheikh summit (even if it is likely to be resumed), the pursuit of wanted persons has also been stopped, according to Israeli declarations. At least according to Gideon Levy, Zakaria travels in the open within the refugee camp. He can't leave the camp, but he is alive. It is hard to believe that Zakaria might be assassinated now, even if the assassinations were resumed. The exposure and publicity that Tali Fahima gave him no longer allows us to see him as just another number on the hit list.
Despite this, Tali Fahima has been in prison for 11 months. She deliberately gave up her privileges as a Jew, and this sacrifice was accepted by the security establishment. They have begun to treat her (almost) like a Palestinian: arrests, investigation, administrative detention, trial on trumped-up charges. It is hard to avoid thinking that if she had been a Jew from a more prestigious background, her surrender would not have been accepted so easily.
Thanks to Professor Liora Bilski, as part of this essay was written
after a conversation with her.
* Smadar Ben Nathan is a lawyer representing Tali Fahima
Hebrew Version:
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