Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Law and order, Palestinian-style

http://www.thestar.com/News/Insight/article/617148
Law and order, Palestinian-style  TheStar.com - Insight - Law and
order, Palestinian-style
Illustration by Louise Ferguson
Palestinian society has an underlying tribe-like structure. It's a
culture composed of large extended families called hamulas or clans,
whose influence affects most aspects of Palestinian life.
In the ancient Palestinian justice system, there are no police to
investigate crime and no district attorneys to prosecute the
offenders. There is only tribal law and, if that fails, blood
vengeance – as two extended families have tragically discovered. This
is their story
April 12, 2009
Oakland Ross
Middle East Bureau
RAMALLAH, West Bank–What is the value of one man's life?
In the unfortunate case of the late Nael Abu Subeh, the tab so far
includes three torched houses, eight displaced families, two men
hospitalized with gunshot wounds, 41,000 Jordanian dinar, and 33
months of dislocation in a West Bank village called Beit Surik.
The bill also includes a series of earnest but so far fruitless peace-
making efforts by sundry dignitaries from near and far.
This is law and order, Palestinian-style.
"Revenge does not depend on time," says Abu Mohammed Hamdad, 37, a
resident of Beit Surik. "And revenge ultimately will take place if
there is no truce and no settlement."
Hamdad agreed to speak about the ongoing feud in Beit Surik only on
condition the conversation take place in Ramallah, the de facto West
Bank capital, located a safe distance from the village of his birth,
which has yet to recover from the lethal blow it suffered on July 14,
2006.
That was the day an unidentified assailant – almost certainly a member
of the Shuker clan – shot and killed Nael Abu Subeh, 49.
What follows is an anatomy of the resulting conflict, a dispute that
people in Beit Surik and beyond have sought to resolve by means of an
ancient legal system that remains almost as prevalent here as it did a
century ago, when this conflict-ridden corner of the Middle East was
an outpost of the Ottoman Empire, much of it roamed by Bedouin nomads,
with their camels, their tribal identities, and their sometimes lethal
grudges.
"People have to settle conflicts," says George Giacaman, director of
the program on human rights and democracy at Birzeit University, about
seven kilometres north of Ramallah. "In the West Bank and Gaza, the
legal system is largely non-functioning, and that is the problem.
Within this context, people have to resort to other ways to adjudicate
conflict."
The feud in Beit Surik and the peace-making tradition that has been
used to address it are both reflections of the underlying tribe-like
structure of Palestinian society, a culture composed of large extended
families called hamulas or clans, whose influence affects most aspects
of Palestinian life.
When a member of one Palestinian clan causes offence to a member of
another, the resulting dispute does not pit a pair of individuals
against each other, much less one individual against the state.
Instead, both clans promptly find themselves at odds and potentially
at war, unless they can reach a peaceful resolution by following a
three-step program that forms the basis of a venerable Arab tradition
known as tribal law.
"There's a very clear way to solve these problems among clans," says
Dror Ze'evi, professor of Middle East Studies at Israel's Ben-Gurion
University. "The clan that is said to be responsible needs to approach
the other clan before there is blood vengeance."
Next, the two sides must agree to an atwa, or truce. Then they must
invite trusted dignitaries to intervene and negotiate a settlement,
which typically includes the payment of diya or compensation to the
aggrieved party.
Once upon a time, the generally accepted diya for a single act of
deliberate homicide among Palestinians was deemed to be 100 camels. It
is nowadays pegged at 41,000 Jordanian dinar, equivalent to about
$72,000.
"There is ultimately a formal settlement, usually," says Giacaman. "It
is not just an endless round of revenge and counter-revenge."
But there are exceptions.
The dispute in Beit Surik effectively began on July 13, 2006. On that
day, a wedding was celebrated in the town, whose population of about
4,000 is composed almost entirely of the members of nine clans,
including the Abu Subehs and the Shukers.
That night, young men from the two families somehow got into a fight.
The following day, the dispute swelled to include several of their
fathers. Eventually, someone produced a gun, the trigger was pulled,
and Nael Abu Subeh lay dead.
Blame for the crime fell upon Erekat Shuker, 49, a wealthy building
contractor.
Incensed members of the Abu Subeh clan promptly burned down two
residences belonging to Erekat Shuker, as well as a third house that
belonged to a cousin.
No one was injured in these blazes, but the conflict seemed to be
heading toward a bloodbath.
Acting through intermediaries, the Shuker clan petitioned for a truce
and offered to pay the standard 41,000 Jordanian dinar diya due in
such cases.
The Abu Subeh clan accepted the offer, setting the truce to last one
year and demanding that eight families of the Shuker clan –
representing about 100 people – abandon the village for the duration
of the entente, a common measure in such cases.
The Abu Subehs imposed a further condition: Should any of the banned
individuals return to Beit Surik itself or venture into any of seven
nearby villages before the 12-month truce was up, they would be shot
on sight, with no possibility of reparations for their deaths.
These terms were accepted, and it seemed the feud had been quelled.
But Beit Surik would not remain peaceful for long.
It is common to speak of Palestinians as being divided between two
main political organizations – Hamas and Fatah – but Ze'evi says
neither of these factions could function without making regular
accommodations with powerful hamulas.
"Clans are a major factor in local politics and in many ways define
the boundaries of what is politically possible," he wrote in a recent
monograph on the subject.
Ze'evi and others believe the power and influence of Palestinian clans
have only increased in the years that have followed the establishment
of the Palestinian Authority in 1993.
For 26 years before that, the West Bank and Gaza were directly
governed by Israel and were subject to an Israeli-administered
judicial system.
"It had many shortcomings," says Giacaman, "but in many ways it could
enforce the law."
The suspension of that system left the Palestinian territories without
a functioning state-run judicial structure. Clans filled the breach,
and tribal law has become the mainstay of social order in much of the
West Bank and in most of Gaza.
"I think it's usually pretty successful," says Ze'evi. "But it does
happen that things get out of hand."
Consider Beit Surik.
For some mysterious reason, the Shuker clan – or two of its members,
anyway – chose to violate the terms of the one-year truce they had
reached with the Abu Subeh family.
In October 2006, about three months after the murder of Nael Abu
Subeh, two men entered a village near Beit Surik despite having been
banned from doing so.
One of the men was Mohammed Shuker, 26, a son of Erekat Shuker. The
other was Saed Shuker, 46, who is Erekat's brother.
Jad Abu Subeh, 28 – a son of the slain man – confronted the
interlopers. He was armed with a pistol, and he shot them both.
In critical condition, the two men were rushed to the Hadassah Ein
Kerem hospital in Jerusalem. Each would eventually make a full
recovery.
Under the terms of the truce, the Shuker clan had no legitimate
complaint against the Abu Subehs and could not sue for redress, for it
was their side that had violated the agreement.
According to Hamdad, this was the perfect opportunity for Erekat
Shuker to put the conflict to rest, once and for all.
But Shuker did the opposite.
He revoked the truce, denied ever having paid a diya, and insisted he
and his fellow clan members had played no part in the death of Nael
Abu Subeh.
`People must not take the law into their own hands," says Abdul Majid
Ramadan, 62, who knows as much about tribal law as anyone in the Holy
Land. "It is a mistake for people to take the law into their own
hands."
Ramadan is the moukhtar, or local headman, in the East Jerusalem
neighbourhood of Beit Hanina, and he is among the many outside
dignitaries who have sought to forge an end to the feud in Beit Surik.
Ramadan spends most of his time addressing disputes that take place
within Israel, where about 20 per cent of the population is Arab and
where tribal law has a role to play even though the country has a
state-run legal system that functions quite well.
When a crime is committed by one Arab clan against another, it is not
enough for the state to intervene and deal with the case. There must
still be an accommodation between the two extended families, carried
out in accordance with tribal law, before the matter can be put aside.
Most days, Ramadan holds court in an office on the second floor of his
home in Beit Hanina, where he greets petitioners with elaborate
hospitality.
He wears a white kaffiyeh and a long, black robe trimmed with gold,
and smokes a Winston cigarette through a black holder.
Before him, a coffee table practically groans beneath the weight of
plates piled high with bananas, apples, tangerines and pretzels, not
to mention a jug of Turkish coffee and bottles of mineral water and
Coca-Cola.
"We are not police," he says. "So revenge killing does take place."
Hamdad believes the conflict in Beit Surik will have a peaceful
ending, possibly quite soon.
During the past year, he says, feuds have broken out in two
neighbouring villages, one in Biddu and another in Qubeiba. Both
involved killings, and both have already been settled.
He thinks these two precedents have increased the pressure on Erekat
Shuker to put aside his anger and make peace with the Abu Subeh clan.
Erekat Shuker now lives in Ramallah, where he owns a supermarket and a
taxi dispatch service, but it's doubtful he leads a tranquil life.
"His house was a palace, and now it's gone," Hamdad says. "His
business is damaged. He cannot sleep at night, because he's always
worried someone might do something."
In the absence of an agreement, Shuker is right to be afraid.
"The family of the victim are good people," says Hamdad . "But this
crime will not be forgotten."

 
http://www.thestar.com/News/Insight/article/617148
dire che il nemico è brutto e cattivo non aiuta la causa dell'erede di
Golda Meir, perchè di fronte a quello ci sta uno stato "democratico"
che si è "autodifeso" massacrando 400 minorenni in un mese, e quindi è
una causa persa in partenza