There are not many places more alive at 5 a.m. than the Kalandiya checkpoint – or more forbidding.At best, the main crossing point between Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority capital in the West Bank, and Jerusalem is an intimidating maze of steel bars and loudspeakers that serve as a constant reminder of the fierce conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. At worst, Kalandiya can be a harrowing experience, both for Palestinians required to navigate a security nightmare that is often abusive and humiliating, and for the Israel Defense Forces soldiers who man the post and are tasked with preventing suicide bombers from reaching Israel. For the former, a visit gone wrong at the checkpoint could mean severe physical abuse or jail time; for the latter, a moment’s lapse could lead to a terrorist attack on the soldiers at the site or even the deaths of a dozen or more civilians on a Jerusalem or Tel Aviv bus.Due to these tensions, it is not unusual to see a group of civilian volunteers on the scene during the morning rush hour here at Kalandiya. Human-rights monitoring groups from Israel and abroad have been part of the checkpoint montage for more than a decade, recording IDF abuse against the thousands of West Bank Palestinians who use the passage to get to work in Jerusalem every day, and often calling on Israeli soldiers to disobey orders while serving there.But a closer glance reveals a sharp difference between today’s observers and other volunteer groups who arrive at the checkpoint after day has dawned. In contrast to better-known groups such as Machsom Watch that are staffed largely by left-wing, secular women in their 50s and 60s, the volunteers this early June morning at Kalandiya are national religious Jews in their 20s, who not only reject the notion that Israel occupies the West Bank, but who openly support the expansion of Jewish communities throughout the Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria.Matan Asher, a 24-year-old law student at Bar-Ilan University and the director of the Blue & White Human Rights project at the Jerusalembased Institute for Zionist Strategy (IZS), says this last point spells out the difference between his organization and veteran human-rights groups such as Machsom Watch, Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem and others.“There is absolutely no contradiction between my belief in a Greater Israel and my commitment to protecting the rights of all residents of this land,” Asher tells The Jerusalem Report. “For years, the right wing in Israel has ceded all talk about human rights to the radical left, and nearly all of the human-rights activists are radically anti-Israel.”But politics aside, that is a terribly skewed portrayal of reality.For right-wingers who see themselves as the inheritors of the legacy of [Revisionist Zionist leader] Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin, concern for Palestinian human rights should be a central part of our Israeli identity. And there is certainly no reason why people who support Israel as a Jewish country should be viewed as outcasts in the “traditional” human-rights camp.”Asher, a veteran of the IDF Givati Brigade who spent four months manning the Hawara checkpoint, near Nablus, said he is well aware that the checkpoints are a point of friction between Palestinians and IDF soldiers. But he added that unlike left-wing monitoring groups, he recognized the essential security need for the checkpoints, and adopts a proactive positive tack with both Palestinians and soldiers to reduce conflict and to streamline operations as far as possible.“Any way you look at it, there’s going to be tension here,” he says.“Nobody wants the checkpoints, but there’s not much choice if we want to maintain security and allow Palestinians to work inside Israel.But before we started coming out here, I met with the commanders of several different checkpoints around Judea and Samaria to introduce myself and to explain what our group wanted to accomplish. When they saw that we are not coming here to verbally abuse soldiers or to delegitimize Israel, the officers became receptive to our interactions and they have usually been willing to work with us.”As an example of this cooperation, Asher cites an incident from mid- May in which a large ruckus from inside the checkpoint was followed by the sight of two soldiers manhandling a young Palestinian man and hustling him back to the Palestinian side of the compound. Asher said he took the Palestinian man aside and listened to his side of the story – he didn’t understand why the soldier on duty had taken away his entry pass into Israel.“The soldier felt the guy had slammed into the metal gate hard enough to break it, so he got angry and took the card away,” Asher recalls. “I asked whether it was really such a serious offense, and said that the guy had calmed down enough to pass through without further incident. The commander came out and escorted the man back through the checkpoint, and gave him back the confiscated card.”Veteran human-rights groups view the newcomers on the block with a dose of skepticism. On the morning I visited Kalandiya, the Machsom Watch volunteers who were there at the same time were dismissive of Matan Asher’s four-member delegation, saying they show up only rarely and when they do make the effort to get up early for the morning rush, it is nearly always “with press in tow.”For her part, B’Tselem head Jessica Montell says she believes members of the group are honest in their dedication to protecting human rights, adding, however, that their commitment to building settlements and using Palestinian natural resources for Israeli benefit, and especially the security regime that is a necessary component of Israeli control of the West Bank, shows that they do not truly understand the issues at hand. Ironically, she said that while the checkpoints are a visible point of conflict, the other areas she mentioned actually represented more serious human-rights abuses in the West Bank.Others, such as Physicians for Human Rights Israel founder and Chairwoman Ruchama Marton are less forgiving of Matan Asher and his colleagues. Marton has been strongly critical of the new group.In a withering attack against the Institute for Zionist Strategy at the Physicians for Human Rights annual general meeting in March, Marton denounced the new organization, saying their attempt to detach politics from human rights is “Orwellian,” and dismissing their efforts as little more than a public relations stunt by the “power-hungry right wing” to legitimize the ongoing subjugation of Palestinians in the West Bank.Marton said the very question of human rights in the West Bank is fundamentally tied to Israel’s occupation because “Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is itself an enormous violation of human rights.” She also singled out Institute for Zionist Strategy Chairman Yoaz Hendel for criticism, charging him with cynically manipulating the cause of human rights in service of what she called the “criminal” settlement enterprise in the occupied territories.”If human rights were really important to them, I would welcome them onto the scene with open arms,” Marton asserts heatedly in a phone interview with The Report. “If they were prepared to abandon their ethnocentric message and platform, it would be fine. But that’s not what they are about. They are only interested in human rights for Jews. No one else matters to them.”Not surprisingly, right-wing activists are quick to reject Marton’s criticism, saying that the left-wing monopoly on human-rights concerns damages the human rights cause because it paints a picture that one must be “anti-Israel” in order to foster a concern for universal human rights. This, they say, alienates many Israelis who believe that Palestinian rights must be protected alongside Israeli rights.Perhaps more surprising is Yoaz Hendel’s admission that some of the left wing’s criticism of his organization is valid. Both Hendel and Montell confirm that they met to discuss human rights prior to the IZS launch of Blue & White Human Rights, and both describe the discussion as polite.Furthermore, Hendel agrees with some of Montell’s remarks, particularly her contention that the checkpoints are only one notable point of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.He says his organization is planning to expand its activities to include educational programs for high-school students and IDF soldiers about military ethics. There are also plans for a group of doctors from Judea and Samaria to launch a program to ensure that all residents of the Land of Israel have access to medical care.But Hendel also points out that groups like B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, Machsom Watch and other left-wing organizations have two large advantages over the IZS – history and funding. Most have had decades of activity to hone their activities (and their anti- Israel messages, say right-wing activists), and most also enjoy funding from a wide circle of donors such as the European Commission, foreign governments including Great Britain and Norway, Christian groups such as Catholic Relief Services and others. While Hendel won’t release hard numbers, he says that the IZS functions on less than 20 percent of B’Tselem’s 9 million shekel annual budget.If Hendel, Asher and other IZS activists are critical of the Israeli right, it is only because the settler community and many of their supporters have left the human-rights playing field to the organizations mentioned above. “Human rights has been an honorable segment of the right-wing platform since Ze’ev Jabotinsky founded the Revisionist Party 90 years ago,” Hendel says. “And no Israeli politician ever spoke more forcefully for Palestinian rights in Israel than Menachem Begin, both before and after he became prime minister. It is time to level the playing field and to make the case for human rights an Israeli national interest.”
