UPDATE (with video): Israeli Police and Military Brutalize Peaceful Protesters at Netanyahu's Speech

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was making a major foreign policy speech at Bar-Ilan University Sunday, Israeli police outside the university attacked international protesters of Israel's invasion of Gaza, illegal settlements and the apartheid wall.

Heavy-handed police treatment of the unarmed, peaceful members of the CODEPINK delegation there began immediately after they unfurled several pink banners that read "Free Gaza" and "End the Occupation." CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin and New York activist Zool Zulkowitz were physically dragged across the street from their original protest site next to the entrance gate to Bar Ilan University where audience members and press entered the university complex to attend the speech.

Several hours later, a French journalist and member of the CODEPINK delegation, was arrested as she crossed a small street in an attempt to take photos of the demonstration. As she was placed in an Israeli police car, several members of the delegation converged to determine why the journalist was being held.

Israeli police and military violently shoved the group back into a wall. Delegation member Tighe Barry from Santa Monica, Cali. was struck in the face with the butt of a military rifle and pushed to the ground where he could barely breathe. He was taken by ambulance to the Trauma Center of Tal-Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv where he was treated for a concussion, an injured neck and an asthma attack. Benjamin and several other delegation members were bruised in the arms and upper body from being shoved and manhandled by the police and military.

The journalist was taken to a local police station and released an hour later without charges. Mr. Barry was treated overnight at the hospital.

The CODEPINK delegation has requested the Israeli police and military investigate the brutality used by their forces on the peaceful, non-violent protesters.

When President Obama spoke in Cairo on June 4, a separate CODEPINK delegation that had just returned from six days in Gaza in early June, held a demonstration right outside Cairo University holding signs that read "Stop funding Israeli War Crimes." Egyptian police allowed the demonstration to take place.

But not so in Israel.

"Is this the great democracy that the U.S. taxpayers pay for with $3 billion dollars a year?" Benjamin cried, as she was being dragged away by the police.

Ann Wright is a retired US Army Reserves Colonel and a former U.S. diplomat who resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the Iraq war. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, and Mongolia. She was on a small State Department team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December, 2001. She has visited Gaza three times in the past three months, co-leading two delegations of more than 120 persons.

Comments

[hophmi]

There is nothing on this video that shows anybody being hit in the head with a rifle or anybody being beaten. The idea that Israel does not allow demonstration is ridiculous given mountains of evidence to the contrary. Like any place, there are rules, and one has to move back when asked to do so. As is clear from the video, the activists wait for moments like these, because they make good pictures and give them an opportunity to scream at the top of their lungs and hurl abuse at the police, like here, where a policeman is called a thug and a fascist for moving people back. And it is ironic that in a feminized world, it would somehow be a greater crime for a soldier to push back a woman than it would be to push back a man, but it is clear that the male protester in this video thinks so.

[arle]

"Mountains of evidence to the contrary," huh? Let's take a look at that mountain of evidence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov3Qs8CjPRw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KtpSFBMBa8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FyGG7dbhL4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH5JOtFt80E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcmjR-cVu8w&feature=related

Deniers -- whether denying the Shoah, the Nakba or recent atrocities -- are vile apologists for oppressive regimes.

[azbird]

I saw the same video as everyone else. The woman dropped to the ground and started screaming. I Disagree with Arle on almost every post he makes. The difference is that I don't resort to name-calling. I am not a vile apologist because I disagree with him

[Naqba]

Citing You Tube as any kind of "authority" is like making a home movie and passing it off as award-winning journalism. Surely you must have more reliable sources than that, arle?

[azbird]

It seems to me that the one woman layed down on the ground and screamed, Also the police werent bothering them until they started to be disorderly. If you people think that was brutalization, take a look at Iran now.

[arle]

Why even go all the way to Iran? There's still plenty to see of the Israeli occupation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov3Qs8CjPRw

[Naqba]

Notice that Arle replies to every opposing post on this board? Every one...what a diligent guy. I do believe he's receiving funding from the Islamic Society just to make his presence known here.

[arle]

Anyone else notice how the /top row/ has this article, then a niiice big picture of Osama Bin Laden from an article that was posted back in January (and comments are long since closed) and then a picture of Iranians burning a picture of Obama, and /it's/ comments are closed?

Anyone else sensing a distinct bias seeping into Huffington Post.

Heck, I give it 50/50 that they even bother to post this at all, and less than that if it will remain up for more than an hour or two before getting redacted.

[arle]

Didn't make it clear exactly what page I was referring to, I just realized.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/gaza
As of right now? Still how I described it above.

[Naqba]

Would you prefer to see a picture of Osama in a swimsuit? Or smiling and surrounded by adoring fans?

[Lisa Savage]

CODEPINK is pretty clear on what it believes: non-violence is the way, but you don't have to sit down and be quiet about abuses of power. If you want to discern a pattern in whom they target with protests, it's easy to see: they target the powerful. Not protesting Hamas doesn't indicate they approve of violence perpetrated by Hamas, but it does indicate that the power blockading Gaza for almost two years, and occupying Palestinian lands for decades, is not Hamas. That power is Israel, enabled and financially supported by the enormous power of the imperialist corporations. When the corporations operate their puppets in the U.S. government, CODEPINK is also there to protest.

Full disclosure: I belong to CODEPINK, too. Their message is not essentially different from many groups working hard to bring more peace to our world. Their courage, audacity, and creative crafting of effective messages (wow, the Ahava protest!) are what continue to attract my admiration and support. Go CODEPINK!

[Naqba]

Does "nonviolence" also extend to lying down in front of bulldozers? Just wondering where the line actually lies. Arle...your comment? Of course you'll comment, you have some OCD thing ties into having to respond to every "negative" post here...

[LaFajita]

Having observed the women (and men) of organizations like Code Pink and Global Exchange, I've noticed that where they are welcomed, democracy flourishes, and where they are brutalized, democracy is in need of some Dr. Pink. Israel needs to take its medicine.

[Naqba]

Israel is the most democratic nation in the entire Middle East. Why are they having to take it on the chin, where repressive regimes in Gaza and Syria get the green light? Is this bias, or what??

[Rakiah]

The speech took place at Bar Ilan University, not Tel Aviv University

[Hedonist]

How utterly believable and in no way remarkable that the Egyptian government allowed a CODEPINK delegation to protest against Israel. Of course, the CODEPINK delegation didn't have the courage or intelligence to protest against Egyptian government policies which include the regular torture and imprisonment of political dissidents. CODEPINK has a very transparent agenda which has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with justice or human rights. CODEPINK, of course, wouldn't have the courage to go to Gaza and protest against Hamas who has fired the thousands of rockets into Israel. Pretty shameful bunch of cowards.

[arle]

That's right Israel! Hide! Hide behind Egypt! Hide behind the US and Sudan and the Congo! Hide behind the crimes of others and make excuses and rationalizations. That's one strong jolt of Zionist courage for you, lambasting a peace and social justice organization headed by a Jew. (You forgot to call her anti-Semitic, by the way)

[Naqba]

Guess you found a good hiding place, right, Arle? Right here.

[iggy06]

Code Pink protested against the border ban, which includes both Egypt and Israel. Get your facts straight Moe.

[arle]

Asking Hedonist to get his facts straight is like asking Israelis to stop bombing Palestinian refugee camps for more than a month.

[Naqba]

La Fajita seems to think otherwise.
"where they are welcomed, democracy flourishes, and where they are brutalized, democracy is in need of some Dr. Pink"
I guess she means that governments like Egypt are paradigms of democracy and governments like Israel are brutal theocracies. Right, Dr. Fajita?

[Fairooz]

Netanyahu didn't need to make a major foreign policy speech inside Tel Aviv University as it was demonstrated ever so clearly outside its gates: BRUTE FORCE AT THE BARREL OF A GUN.

[augusteighteenth]

I hate brutality..but arent they prepared for something like this to happen when they are in another country who simply does things different then the US? In other words...what did they expect?

[NTodd Pritsky]

Of course we're prepared for brutality. We were teargassed on Friday in Bil'in, in fact. What of it? The point is this country is touted as THE ONLY DEMOCRACY IN THE ME (Lebanon notwithstanding) and this is not appropriate behavior.

[Wisdo]

Having lived in Israel during the first intifada, it has been my experience that violence is a part of daily life in Israel. Violence against Palestinians and violence against settlers. Violence against the police by settlers and violence against new citizens and foreign people by the police and army.