Veterans For Peace Member Accused of Being a Terrorist: : An Eventful Visit to the Occupied West Bank

By Michael Jacobsen

On October 10, 2024 in the Masafer Yatta region of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) arbitrarily arrested 78 year old, US citizen and Veteran For Peace (VFP) member, Michael Jacobsen (in blue shirt above). Jacobsen was there in the role as a non-violent, unarmed, civilian accompaniment to witness and report on any escalation of violence he observed. Typically, the violence is perpetrated by illegal settlers against the indigenous Palestinian population with the intent of stealing their land. This illegal settler violence is habitually supported by the militarized Israeli Occupation Forces. Ironically, The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel itself is illegally exerting military control over the Palestinian territory.

At the time of his arrest, Jacobsen was accompanying a Palestinian farmer and shepherd, Hafez Hureini who that morning in the village of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills of Masafer Yatta, in the Occupied Palestine Territories OPT. (again, land illegally occupied militarily by Israel), as part of the international delegation Meta Peace Team (MPT), which had joined forces with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

When an Israeli “reservist” soldier, came to demand an ID from Jacobsen, he complied with the soldier’s request immediately. A reservist soldier is basically a settler who is relatively untrained in military procedures, and is for all intents and purposes, acting in the self-interest of settlers’ illegal land-grab. A reservist is supplied with an IOF uniform and given a US made M-16 automatic rifle that hosts a 30-round magazine of bullets. Quite often, reservist soldiers bypass one simple and very important safety precaution and remove the red safety-plug from their M-16s. Automatic weapons are used everywhere, night and day, to intimidate and terrorize unarmed indigenous Palestinians on their own ancestral land.

The settler/soldier mentioned above ID’d Mr. Jacobsen and after conferring with the Israel Police by phone, told him, “You [are] wanted by police” and asked him, “[Are] you a Jew? You a terrorist?” After being loaded into an armored vehicle, Mr. Jacobsen was sent on his way to an interrogation center in the Israeli Police Central Unit for Investigation, near Ma’ale Adumim, an illegal colonial settlement Northeast of Jerusalem. On his journey there, Jacobsen was accused by two armed guards in the vehicle, of being a terrorist because they claimed he was a member of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement. Upon arrival at the Police Central Unit, the interrogator repeated the claim that, because of his involvement with the BDS movement (without any evidence given), Jacobsen was therefore considered a terrorist and thus illegally in Israel.

This interrogation center is home to the special task force created by the notorious Israeli Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. The task force was created as a response to several countries, including the U.S., interfering with Israel’s rapidly expanding, post October 7, illegal settler-colonial land-grab project. Since international activists witness and report upon illegal settler violence, an Israeli governmental committee was created in March 2024 for the purpose of ridding the West Bank of such activists due to their “inflammatory activity.”

After Mr. Jacobsen’s interrogation, his lawyer was told that he was accused of “endangering the public due to provocation of disturbances” and of “entering the country illegally”. These absurd accusations were based on the police assertion that Jacobsen supported the BDS movement. The interrogator further claimed that Jacobsen is a member of a total of five terrorist organizations as follows: Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS), International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Meta Peace Teams (MPT), The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) and Veterans for Peace (VFP).

The Police could not explain to Mr. Jacobsen’s attorney how claiming he was a member of alleged terrorist organizations (with or without evidence) was a criminal offense and grounds for imprisonment or deportation. After advice from his attorney, who thought his case would be dismissed in the courts anyway, he opted for de-facto deportation from Israel. The police transferred him directly from the interrogation center to the Jordan border crossing, forcing him to depart the country without his belongings.

Israeli Occupation Forces IOF have intensified their crackdown on international activists and journalists, such as reporters from well-respected Al Jazeera, who may witness and report on Israel’s ongoing crimes against humanity. Two German activists were arrested in the same garden in At-Tuwani in similar circumstances and de-facto deported last Sunday October 6th, after being imprisoned since October 2nd. The aim of this illegal effort is to isolate Palestinians from international solidarity. This strategy is part of the ongoing barrage of terrorist harassment by Israeli settlers and soldiers toward Palestinians as well as toward human rights activists in the area. This escalation of the terrorist violence against non-violent peace activists includes the murder of American and Turkish ISM volunteer 26 year-old Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi who was assassinated, by a shot to the head, targeted by an Israeli Occupation Force sniper in the village of Beita at the conclusion of a peaceful protest against settlement expansion on the village’s land on September 6th, 2024.

Israel’s criminal far-right wing government uses the term “anarchists” to refer to all Israeli and international human rights defenders who are supporting Palestinians living under the illegal occupation in the West Bank. Considering what just happened to Mr. Jacobsen, the term terrorist is ironically and hypocritically now being used to denigrate those who are attempting to reduce IOF supported settler terrorism against Palestinians. Israel’s illegal occupation is now confirmed by the International Court of Justice in it’s July 19, 2024 ruling. 186 – Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, 186-20240719- sum-01-00-en.pdf

“Automatic weapons are used everywhere, night and day, to intimidate terrorize and murder unarmed indigenous Palestinians on their own ancestral land.”

In the village of Zanuta in this same region, residents have been forcibly displaced multiple times despite a court ruling in their favor. Residents of Um Durit have had their livestock and property stolen and destroyed, and their land abused by settlers. Last July, around 200 settlers launched a coordinated attack in which they destroyed vehicles, burned fruit trees and beat up residents in Khalet Al Daba’a and Um Fagarah. In the past year, at least 19 Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank have been forcefully displaced and wiped off the map by Israeli settler terrorists, with the support of the Israeli Occupation Forces.

It is worth mentioning that the Hureini family, whom Jacobsen and other activists were accompanying, faces daily harassment, attacks, and invasions of his private land by Israeli settlers and illegal occupation forces, which all make it difficult for him to access his land, to cultivate it, and even to remain in his home. This onslaught of settler terrorism against Palestinian residents of the region of Masafer Yatta extends beyond At-Tuwani. Every village in the area is affected.

Please view the link below for an excellent documentary by Al Jazeera that gives the feel of what Palestinians have to experience on a daily basis. Most of this documentary was filmed in the exact location where Jacobsen and his team were staying at the time of his arrest.

A Palestinian Family Resisting Israeli Land Grab on YouTube or click the following link:

 

Post Script: Statement by Michael Jacobsen

“My personal impression during my arrest, being accused of involvement with terrorist organizations during interrogation, and my de facto deportation, was that the real terrorists are: the violent self-interested land-grab settlers; the IOF soldiers that support their violence; the petty Israeli Police bureaucrats that enforce official terrorist policy; and the upper level Zionists like Ben Gvir et al that actually create official “terrorist policy”. These are the real terrorists! The dehumanizing words of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ring in my ears, who on 9 October, 2023 stated, ‘We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.’ Also, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who, on 28 October referring to Old Testament Biblical Amalek called forth the genocide of the Palestinian people quoting from [Samuel 15:3],’Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’

In the process of fighting terrorism, Zionists have totally forsaken all of the high moral and ethical values of Spiritual Judaism and have themselves become the real terrorists!

I pose a question to those who might be wrestling with their opinion on the Palestine/Israel issue. Please ask yourselves whether you truly believe that, after 76 years of an ethnic-cleansing land-grab and 57 years of brutal illegal military occupation, you truly believe the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 happened in a vacuum without a cause. As Princeton University Professor of History, Gyan Prakash recently stated, ‘History did not begin on October 7th. History actually led to October 7th’.”