U.S. Congresswoman Takes Stand Against Israel’s Abuse of Palestinian Children

Finding a United States lawmaker willing to openly criticize Israel’s systemic abuse of Palestinians is difficult. Finding nineteen is nearly impossible.

But this week, nineteen Democrats from the U.S. Congress signed a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, urging the Obama administration to make Israel’s detention and abuse of Palestinian children a “priority” issue in U.S.-Israel relationship.

Minnesota representative Betty McCollum initiated the letter, citing a 2013 UNICEF report on Palestinian children in military detention which she called “profoundly disturbing.”

According to Defense for Children International-Palestine, an average of 700 children are prosecuted in Israeli military courts annually. Most are accused of throwing stones. Children in Israeli detention centers endure physical assault, psychological abuse, and in some cases torture by Israeli interrogators, soldiers, and security officers.

After opening her letter with three paragraphs detailing the Israeli military’s gross violations of children’s rights, Rep. McCollum reaffirmed that “the security interests of Israel are clearly a national security priority for the United States congress and for the American people. There could be no more clear demonstration of American commitment to Israel than $3 billion of US taxpayer funds which are invested annually to ensure the security of the Israeli people.”

Though her letter was far from a direct call for funding to made contingent upon reforms (or an end to a brutal half-century occupation…) the mere presence of a dollar sign in the same paragraph as the phrase “human rights” makes McCollum’s statement one of the strongest ever issued by a Congress person in support of Palestinian rights.

Rep. McCollum’s move stands in stark contrast to the muted response from many U.S. representatives to the systematic violation of children’s rights in Israeli detention centers. As recently as July 2014, Florida representative Kathy Castor remained publicly silent on the brutal beating and detention of Tarek Abu Khdeir, a fifteen-year-old Palestinian-American and member of her constituency.

In a videotaped incident on July 3, 2014, Israeli border police beat and detained Tarek in occupied East Jerusalem. Following his detention, Mondoweiss reported:

In a private letter issued to Abu Khdeir’s family, Castor pointedly stated that she had not called for the teen’s release and return to the US. Instead, she assured them that she “requested for Tariq to be provided with the appropriate and needed medical care and for [her] to be kept apprised of any plans of his return to the United States.” In a separate letter to the US consulate in Jerusalem, Castor merely stated that she would “appreciate being kept apprised of any plans for the return of Tariq and his parents to the United States.”

Tarek and his mother spoke in Washington this month as part of the No Way to Treat a Child campaign, led by the Chicago Faith Coalition on Middle East Policy, American Friends Service Committee, and Defense for Children International-Palestine. In an opinion piece published in CNN on June 3, Tarek’s mother made clear that, while the physical and psychological violence inflicted on her son mirrors much of what hundreds of other Palestinian children endure each year, the international attention given to his case is rare. It is largely, if not exclusively, a result of Tarek’s American citizenship:

I wish I could say what happened to Tariq is extremely unusual, but it’s not. Every year, somewhere between 500 and 700 Palestinian children are typically prosecuted in Israeli military courts, according to Defense for Children International Palestine. Human rights groups have documented abuse of these children and, in some cases, torture at the hands of Israeli soldiers, interrogators and policemen.

…

This horrifying cycle must be broken. The Israeli officers that tied my child up and beat him unconscious must be held accountable for what they did in a transparent manner. We must also ensure that this never happens again to any child, anywhere in the world.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund.

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