Politicians, justice and missing the point

Shai visits Aleh Jerusalem 2018

I was first introduced to Knesset member Dr Nachman Shai when Bizchut (“Promoting the rights of people who have disabilities in Israel”) paired me up with him to pay a joint surprise visit to a large, closed Jerusalem institution for children and adults with disabilities.

Across the country on that same day, other such facilities were similarly inspected. The reason for having activists accompanied by Knesset members was that the latter can legally insist on admittance to those institutions. Civilians, like me, are almost always denied entry.

I certainly was, anytime I previously tried.

After the tours, each Knesset member's impressions were recorded on video. Shai astounded me with his praise for the institution. He was well aware that Bizchut and other activists, some with disabilities themselves, were intent on replacing institutionalization with in-community living for everyone.

Nevertheless he emerged with this reaction: 

"I believe I am leaving with a good impression, a positive impression... We toured from top to bottom, the institution was open... We were not prevented from viewing anything, everything we requested we received and I leave as much as possible with a good feeling." (My translation of his Hebrew as recorded at the time.)

Shai had entirely missed the point.

People with disabilities are often locked up in “gilded prisons”.  Their human rights are denied, the love of family and home stolen from them. Funding which our government could and should channel to parents and children with disabilities is lavished on institution operators.

The rest of the Western world has, as a universally agreed matter of strategy, abandoned the institutionalization of people with disabilities over the past two decades. But Israel persists in supporting, funding and promoting it for its population with disabilities.

Standing outside that institution on the day of that visit, Shai briefly related to that "debate", as he called it, and said he intended to leave it at that.

On April 20, 2022, a demonstration will be held at Tel Aviv's Kikar Habima at 16:00. In the Passover spirit, it is being called "Our Exodus to Freedom - From Institutions into the Community".  

Nachman Shai just didn't get it.

Last week, he missed another crucial point again. And just as egregiously. 

Here is how he is quoted by Michael Freund in an opinion piece [source: The Jerusalem Post]:

In an interview on Army Radio on March 30, he asserted that “hungry people turn to terrorism. Without food and water, they will disrupt our lives... this contention simply does not stand up under further scrutiny. To begin with, consider the fact that according to the World Bank, there are approximately 700 million people on the planet living in what is described as “extreme poverty,” which is defined as earning less than $1.90 a day. That is nearly 10% of the world’s population...

If the simple equation that suggests that poverty directly gives rise to terrorism were true, one would expect to find millions of people, if not more, taking up arms worldwide and launching terrorist attacks. But that is clearly not the case.

Simply put, most hungry people are not violent nor are they terrorists. They might be desperate, embittered or dissatisfied, but that is a far cry from joining the ranks of terrorists...

Numerous academic studies over the years clearly demonstrate this to be the case. As MIT Prof. Alberto Abadie concluded in a groundbreaking 2006 study titled “Poverty, Political Freedom and the Roots of Terrorism,” published in American Economic Review, there is “no significant association between terrorism and economic variables, such as income, once the effect of other country characteristics is taken into account.”

The same holds true vis-à-vis Palestinian terrorism. Studies have repeatedly found that those who engage in it are generally better off economically than most Palestinians… The resulting evidence on the individual level suggests that both higher standards of living and higher levels of education are positively associated” with the likelihood of a Palestinian joining Hamas or Islamic Jihad, Hebrew University's Professor Berrebi wrote in 2003...

Indeed, Berrebi discovered that Palestinian suicide bombers “tend to be of higher economic status and higher educational attainment than their counterparts in the population.

My child's murderer, Ahlam Tamimi, reinforces the above findings. Neither poor nor uneducated, she was a middle-class student of journalism working as a TV news anchor who thirsted for Jewish blood. Released in the tragically lopsided Shalit Deal in 2011 along with several hundred other convicted murderers, she maintains her previous comfortable standard of living today in her city of refuge, Amman.

She continues to boast of her "successful operation" in which fifteen Jews perished and urges others to emulate her.  

It may be ignorance that lies behind Dr Shai’s recent responses - or rather, non-responses - to me. As we parted after that visit to the Jerusalem institution, he handed me his card inviting me to contact him if I ever needed his help.

My husband and I have been eager to take him up on that offer. Our quest for justice for our daughter is blocked by many, including Israeli politicians. The U.S. Department of Justice indicted Tamimi in 2017 and has asked Jordan to extradite her to Washington where she faces terrorism charges. But King Abdullah's regime has rejected those requests and she remains free, sheltered by the Hashemite kingdom.

The State Department has throughout all our years of effort been uncooperative. So have U.S. politicians on both sides of the aisle. We have learned that the Israeli government has signaled American Jewish leaders know they would prefer our requests for their support to be ignored. 

We approached Dr Shai in the naïve hope that he would speak up in support of our quest for justice. But he has never responded to my emails and his spokesperson has repeatedly advised me to direct my pleas elsewhere.

Here’s how she framed the brush-off:

While I understand that this response is not satisfactory for you, I will keep you posted if something more concrete develops. I am deeply sorry that I cannot help you further at this moment in time… I will continue to explore how we can be of support - particularly through other diplomatic means."

It’s been months and the exploring is presumably still underway.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised. Public figures who don’t respond when the massive problems of institutionalization of the disabled are under discussion are probably not that tuned in to justice either.