JAPANESE TOURIST ABDUCTED
I think it's fair to say that the Japanese tourist is an omnipotent creature. Go to the most inaccessible and hostile regions of the world and if your not welcomed by a Japanese smile you only have to wait a short while before you see one. Venture into any of the Palestinian cities which are victim to the arbitrary violence of Israel and you will meet a Japanese tourist.
Satoshi Itakura (31) a waiter from Tokyo, was one of these tourists. He set off on the journey of a lifetime from Japan to Britain and back across land. After one year of traveling he found himself in a bustling hostel in East Jerusalem. The travelers were predominantly Japanese and many were taking a break from their ISM activities. It wasn't long before Satoshi was under Israeli curfew with ISM in the west bank city of Bethlehem being trained for non-violent direct action against the illegal Israeli actions in Palestine. He chose to band together with a handful of international volunteers and become a human shield, placing himself in front of Palestinians that were coming under attack from Israeli settlers living illegally on Palestinian Land. He spent two months in Yanun,a small village home to only 16 families, west of Nablus. It was here that he came face to face with the lawless Wild West Bank and the violence of ultra orthodox Jewish settlers.
Yanun is home to approximately eighty people two thirds of whom are school children. The villages first residents were shepherds who made homes of the caves in the fertile valley, they roamed with their sheep as they pleased until 1992. An illegal Israeli settlement expanded aggressively onto the villages land prohibiting Palestinians access to their pastures and olives groves. Yanun has since suffered numerous violent attacks, injustice, deteriorating health and a loss of livelihood as Itamar has continued expropriating Palestinian land.
The border between Itamar and Yanun is marked by what the Israelis call a security fence less than100m from Yanons family homes. It was when an Israeli digger drove through this fence towards Yanon uprooting the villages olive trees that Satoshi ran out with his camera and another British volunteer to document the events. He was welcomed by the butt of an American M-16 rifle. His camera went missing, his shoes were removed, and he was restrained with his hands kept behind him while he received a beating face down in the mud with rifles placed against the back of his head. While he was out of sight other international volunteers tried in vain to get the Israeli authorities to intervene. Although this was Palestine the Israelis are responsible for law and order (part of the Oslo agreement). As those policing the area are themselves illegal Jewish settlers they generally adopt a policy of tacit consent. The phone calls for assistance fell on deaf ears as the police claimed they were unable to hear and that they did not know where Itamar was. It later transpired that Satoshi had been arrested for trespass into Itamar. He was dragged backwards towards the security fence where a hole was being cut by his captors. The Japanese embassy intervened while Satoshi was being detained in Ariel settlement and he was later released.
He returned with the Jewish peace group Ta'ayush and a small contingent of the IOF, together they returned to the crime scene in order to recover the camera . This time a member of Ta_ayush was greeted by the butt of an M-16, his nose was broken and the entire group was chased back down into the Palestinian village where Avri Ran and his fellow settlers hurled abuse at everybody including the IOF who became irritated and promised not to return but some how forgot to arrest Avri for assaulting the Ta_ayush member. A band of armed criminals were left to roam freely through Yanon dishing out death threats and promising an imminent end to the Palestinian ownership of Yanon (an important source of scarce water in the region).
Satoshi has since left Yanon and Palestine and has returned back to Tokyo. It seems that Palestine is truly a lawless land. While the media represent the Palestinians as the lawless and savage terrorists they skirt over the everyday inhumanity, abuse, theft and terror that the Palestinians suffer on a daily basis and which only seems to increase daily regardless of attempts for peace. The Jewish human rights group B'TSelem, comprised of amongst others, members of the Knesset, has documented the bias in Israeli domestic policy to shift the Israeli population out of Israel proper and into occupied Palestine through tax and other incentives even though all of the Israeli settlements in Palestine are illegal.
Although the terrifying experience Satoshi suffered is only a single rain drop in an ocean of terrifying suffering that exists on a daily basis in Palestine it illustrates the injustice, the inequality and the lack of law and order and the terror which is imposed on Palestinian by the current US funded Israeli policy. Just as Avri Ran received no reprise for his attack on Satoshi so too Israel receives no reprise for terrorizing Palestinians, for stealing Palestinian land, livelihoods and indeed lives. Indeed they receive no reprise for creating the conditions under which most us of would have buckled and given in to the desire to leave a world full of pain and suffering, perhaps even given in to the urge for revenge and perhaps combined these two overriding desires. In short the only reprise Israel receives for creating a land fertile for suicidal people full of the urge for revenge, is the suicide bomber.
FURTHER RESOURCES
www.stopthewall.org
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/japac/tky/index.htm
http://plaza17.mbn.or.jp/~CCP/index.html
and photos here
http://www.palsolidarity.org/pictures/flash/settlers.html