Palestinian hunger striker challenges Israeli ‘Freeze Policy’

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A man from East Jerusalem has been on a hunger strike for four weeks outside the Israeli embassy in Berlin, Germany. Firas Maraghy is protesting because the Israeli authorities have refused to register his marriage to a German national, and they also refuse to allow his wife and nine-month old daughter the right to reside in East Jerusalem.

Maraghy is just one of thousands of Palestinians in similar predicaments due to Israeli policies put into place after the second Intifada. Cinnamon Nippard has more from Berlin.

Wiebke Diehl and Firas Maraghy first met 10 years ago, but it was not until 2007 that they married and Maraghy came to live in Germany while Diehl continued her studies. They knew it was going to be difficult, but Wiebke Diehl says they didn't know just how difficult the Israeli authorities would make things for her family.

WIEBKE DIEHL: I never really thought that they will do everything at the same time to force him to decide between his home and his family.

Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem do not have a passport – instead the Israeli authorities issue them a residence card and a blue travel permit. If they do not go back to East Jerusalem within seven years, they lose their right to return. Maraghy has only been away from his home for one-and-a-half years, but the Israeli Interior Ministry has made a seemingly arbitrary decision.

DIEHL: The Israeli Ministry of the Interior told him in May 2009 that if he doesn't return for a period of two years in May 2011, he will lose his right to live in Jerusalem. At the same time, they refuse to register our marriage, so they will never give me the right to go with him. And the second thing is that they refused to register our daughter at the Israeli embassy.

In protest, Maraghy decided to go on a hunger strike outside the Israeli embassy on the 26th of July.

FIRAS MARAGHY: I want my right – my daughter’s right – and I will not return from here without this. I cannot live without this right – that I have the right to return to my homeland when I want, and to leave when I want and to live a normal life.

According to B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights, between 1967 and 2008, more than 13,000 Palestinians from East Jerusalem have had their residency rights revoked. Fanny-Michaela Reisin, president of the International League of Human Rights, says that this is a deliberate Israeli demographic policy.

FANNY-MICHAELA REISIN: The ultimative [sic] goal is to build up a Jewish majority in East Jerusalem. Why? Because at the time of Camp David and Taba, there was a suggestion that the parts of Jerusalem with a Jewish majority would be related to Israel. And the parts of Jerusalem with a Palestinian majority would be given to Palestine.

Reisin says that this policy contravenes Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and also Article 23 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – both of which Israel has signed. Iris Hefets is an Israeli Jew who moved to Berlin with her family 8 years ago for political reasons. She is also on the board of the organization, Jewish Voices for a Just Peace.

IRIS HEFETS: There are thousands of Palestinians that are subjected to such human rights violations – not only his case. I think that Israel is now on the way of becoming a fascist state.

Maraghy has won the support of other Israelis including 82 year-old Reuven Moskowitz. He's a Holocaust survivor who moved to Israel 62 years ago and is one of the founders of the Israeli peace movement. He came to Berlin to support Firas Maraghy outside the Israeli embassy.

REUVEN MOSKOWITZ: I'm a Jew and an Israeli and I'm a survivor of the Holocaust. I didn't survive in order that my state will do to other human beings the same what was done to me.

Moskowitz says that the international community, and especially Germany, has a responsibility to assist in the peace process.

MOSKOWITZ: We were the direct victim of the Holocaust, but the Palestinians are continuing to be the only people still suffering from the Holocaust. And it’s the duty of Germany to help both of us to exist, to live in peace, to recognize each other and to help each other.

Late last week, human rights groups presented the Israeli Ambassador with a petition with 1,200 signatures. The Vice-President of the German Bundestag and the Human Rights speaker for the SPD political party also met with the Israeli Ambassador. These visits have resulted in an offer for Maraghy and his family to go to Jerusalem and meet with the Director of the Registration and Civil Status Department. Maraghy and his wife, Wiebke Diehl, said this afternoon that they will agree to the meeting as long as a senior German politician accompanies them to Jerusalem. If the Israeli authorities agree to these terms, Maraghy says he will end the hunger strike.

- Cinnamon Nippard, FSRN, Berlin.