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Electronic-Shackle Me, Too
Rami Heuberger
Yedioth Aharonoth
May 7 2009



Samieh Jabbbarin is an Israeli citizen and a theater person, and so am I.
He has opposed the war in Gaza, and so have I, but I did not have the guts to go out and demonstrate. Samieh organized protest actions and was warned. When he demonstrated in Um El Fahm he was arrested. First he was jailed and then put under house-arrest. If Israel believes that a theater person poses a security risk when inolved in democratic protest action and should sit at home for whole year with an electronic shackle on his ankle, then I, too, should be have an electronic shackle on mine.

I volunteered to take part in an artists` solidarity evening with theater artist Samieh Jabbarin at Tzavta Tel Aviv last weekend, because there is really no difference between us. He is engaged in theater and so am I He opposed the brutal war Israel waged on Gaza under the name Cast Lead and I, too, opposed it. I simply did not have the courage to go out and demonstrate at the time, because I fell into a pattern common in such times: I became another voice lost in the general consensus. I have not met Samieh Jabbarin in person. From what I heard and read, he studied theater and communications in Germany, is presently completing a master`s degree in Theater Studies in Tel Aviv University, and he also teaches theater. During the war he organized protest vigils in Yafa and was warned by the Security Services. When he came to Um El Fahm to join a demonstration protesting the provocative involvement of the radical right-wing party `The Jewish Home` on Election Day [February 10], the police identified him and hastened to arrest him under the pretext (vehemently denied by eye witnesses and so far not corroborated with any independent piece of evidence), that he had supposedly attacked a senior officer of the Border Police. He has been in custody since then: first he spent 17 days in prison, and then held under house-arrest at his parental home in Um El Fahm. Last week a judge extended the arrest order until the next scheduled court hearing in September.

Samieh and I are both Israeli citizens. If the State of Israel maintains that an action by a theater person democratically demonstrating against wrong doings turns him into a security risk and makes it necessary to lock him up at home for almost a year under surveillance, than I, too, should wear an electronic shackle.

A different theater person, like myself, a non-Arab, would not have been treated this way for taking political action. This is why I don`t even think it is particularly courageous of me to support Jabbarin. I do think, however, that something stinks around here.
I watched Jabbarin`s taped video message on the program presented at Tzavta and realized his Hebrew is better than my own and many others I know. He is the kind of person who, like myself, is first and foremost interested in artistic expression. If our society makes such efforts to alienate such people, if it tries to make them join those who hate us, then we are in serious trouble.

The other day I read about eight young Arab citizens of Israel who blocked a road with a power pole during an anti-war demonstration. It sounds out of line and they should probably be indicted, but I was astonished to discover that they are charged with `interfering with transport during war times`, a felony which may incur a life sentence. From this I can deduce that these people are second-class citizens, and that they may be sent to jail for many years because they do not agree with the State. Such things only happen in dark régimes.

Too many Israelis seem to complain, like the creatures in Lea Goldberg`s `For Rent`, that `The neighbors are not good enough`. One cannot choose one`s neighbors, and it is not called for. Our neighbors are Arabs, and many of us, too, are Arab. I have two children who are one-quarter Arab, because their grandmother was born in Morocco. Arab is not a pejorative; it is what you call people who originate in a certain civilization, just like Australian, American or Japanese.

It is enough that our religion segregates us from the rest of the world. We did not come here to continue to isolate ourselves from the rest of humanity. Have you noticed that recently, on Independence Day, considerably less Israeli flags were furling out on Tel Aviv balconies than in former years? It is no coincidence. Many of us begin to feel we have nothing to be proud of. If people who ideologically oppose what happens here are second-class citizens to be locked at home with an electronic shackle – then I should be one of them.

Rami Heuberger is a well known Israeli actor and theater director.

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