Copyright 2001 Ha'aretz
Ha'aretz
August 24, 2001
HEADLINE: Obeid, Dirani to be Allowed Red Cross Visits
BYLINE: Moshe Reinfeld
Three years after they petitioned the High Court - and only after
their lawyer petitioned the court against the court - Lebanese
administrative detainees Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid and Mustafa Dirani
will be visited by the Red Cross, the High Court ruled yesterday.
The original petition for them to be allowed Red Cross visits was
made three years ago. Recently, their attorney, Zvi Rish, petitioned
the High Court against the five justices because they were delaying
their verdict on the petition for so long.
The ruling yesterday infuriated the families of the three kidnapped
soldiers being held incommunicado by the Hezbollah, and attorney
Eliad Shraga, who represents the family of Ron Arad, the
long-missing Israel Air Force navigator.
Rish argued to the court that Red Cross visits are customary
according to the Fourth Geneva Convention for the protection of
civilians during war. Indeed, he argued, Israeli law requires such
visits, according to the laws governing administrative detention.
The Defense Ministry attorney, Shai Nitzan, and Shraga, argued it
was not compulsory to allow Red Cross visits and even if it were
compulsory, the visits can be denied if they could harm the security
of the state.
Three years ago, when the petition was first introduced to allow the
visits for Dirani, who has been held for the last seven years, and
Obeid, held for the last 12, Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein
believed the Red Cross visits should be allowed. But after last
year's kidnapping from the Har Dov area of three soldiers - Benny
Avraham, Omar Suwad and Adi Avitan - and the kidnapping of reserve
colonel Avraham Tannenbaum, Rubinstein notified the court he had
changed his mind. He said it was unreasonable to allow Red Cross
visits to Obeid and Dirani as long as no information is forthcoming
about the condition of the four Israelis being held by the
Hezbollah.
Rubinstein argued that the two prisoners held by Israel are not
being held incommunicado. They have been photographed in court, and
they get to see their lawyer on a regular basis, while the four
Israelis have not been seen by anyone except their captors.
Supreme Court President Justice Aharon Barak, who wrote the opinion
backed by the four other justices on the panel, wrote that the only
question to be decided was whether the decision to deny the two men
Red Cross visits was reasonable. That decision, he said, required
balancing two apparently conflicting issues - the humanitarian one
with the security one.
Barak ruled that in this case the humanitarian consideration
outweighed the security one, due to the long amount of time the
prisoners had been held. Barak's opinion weighed in on whether
Dirani and Obeid, "as members of a terrorist organization that is
far from humanism and for whom harming innocent civilians is their
daily bread and butter," were deserving of humanitarian
considerations.
"The state of Israel is a democratic state, which respects human
rights, and takes into account humanitarian considerations. We take
those rights into account because we value the dignity of man, even
if he is our enemy."
The justice wrote that he and his colleagues were aware that their
decision "seemingly gives the advantage to the terrorist
organizations.
"But that is an ephemeral advantage ... Our moral approach, the
humanism in our position, the rule of law that guides us - all these
are important elements in our security and our strength. At the end
of the day, this is our advantage," he wrote.
He said that it wasn't easy to reach the decision, but he and his
fellow justices were convinced their ruling did not harm the efforts
to release Ron Arad or the other four hostages in Hezbollah hands.
The families of the kidnapped soldiers, of course, did not see it
that way. Haim Avraham, father of Benny, said that "the court is
trying to impose norms of behavior of an enlightened world in a
jungle. THey should have demanded that the UN, the Red Cross and the
rest of the international agencies let the Red Cross visit our sons
and not make do with an announcement that they sit on Olympus and
look down from above. I expect the court to be conscious of the
suffering of the families and I would expect the Red Cross to find
out about our sons."
Shraga, representing the Arad family, said that "we're in a state of
war and in war there are different rules. We can't behave as if
we're in Switzerland. We can't be humanitarian and enlightened when
the other side isn't. This is insane." He said he was considering a
new appeal against the court ruling.
Rish, the lawyer for the two Islamic fundamentalist leaders, who
were kidnapped by Israel, told Israel Radio after the verdict that
the Hezbollah has continually stated since kidnapping the three
soldiers and Tannenbaum that they won't allow visits by outsiders
because Israel has refused to let Dirani and Obeid be visited by the
Red Cross.
In Beirut, Hezbollah spokesman Sheik Hassan Izzeddine said the court
decision "should have happened a long time ago, and this decision,
although late, is excellent." Izzeddine, however, said the decision
has "nothing to do with Israeli soldiers" held by Hezbollah, which
has refused the Red Cross permission to visit them. The Red Cross
has repeatedly asked Hezbollah and the Lebanese government for
permission to see the Israelis, but without results.