Open Statement to the United States Government on the Incarceration of an American Citizen by Israel

Episcopal News Service. April 7, 1995 [95071]

Leaders of the Episcopal Peace and Justice Network and other members of a delegation from the Episcopal Church, U.S.A., traveling in Jordan, Israel, and the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalem, are deeply angered at the apparent impotence of the United States Government to investigate the arrest and detention of an American citizen, Mr. Peter (Butrus) Saleh. We request a timely response from our government.

Mr. Saleh was seized by the Israeli Defense Force on Monday, March 13 at 11:30 pm from his residence in the West Bank. For more than two weeks, all attempts to visit him, including our own, were denied or ignored by Israeli military authorities.

The U.S. Consul in Jerusalem was made aware of his case immediately by members of Mr. Saleh's family, but not by the Israeli Defense Force. The consul said earlier this week that the Israeli Defense Force still had not responded with the reason for Mr. Saleh's arrest, his location and physical condition, nor had the consul been granted permission to visit Mr. Saleh, despite repeated efforts. Possibly as a result of the increased visibility of this case raised by this delegation, a representative of the consul finally was allowed to visit Mr. Saleh on March 29.

In our meeting with the U.S. Consul General's office in Jerusalem, we learned to our distress that cables sent to the State Department about his detention had been ignored to that date. Information about the case was also provided to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, the State Department, the office of Vice President Al Gore prior to his recent visit to Israel and Jericho, and the office of Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. We are unaware of any response from those offices.

Mr. Saleh's situation is apparently symbolic of a systemic reality in the Occupied Territories, in which young men who appear to be Palestinian are seized without explanation and often without cause. They are held for extended periods, and reportedly are sometimes tortured or threatened until they sign a confession. This reality has been extensively documented by the Israeli human rights organization, B'TSELEM, most recently in a report dated November, 1994.

On March 28, our delegation met with Knesset Member Uri Orr, a member of the Labor Government, to discuss the current peace process. In the course of our discussion, we informed him of Mr. Saleh's fate. He promised to secure information and advise us.

Whatever the results of that inquiry, we are not only deeply concerned with the human rights posture of the State of Israel but also with the incapacity of the United States Government, the major foreign sponsor of the Israeli Defense Force, to gain immediate information about American citizens imprisoned by Israeli authorities. To learn, as we did, that four such cases are now pending without public notice is still more shocking. Can Americans abroad no longer count on their government to protect them from abuse by another government? Or is it that Israel is somehow a special case?

We came to Israel and Palestine out of our concern for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and especially among Christians, Muslims and Jews here in the "Holy Land" and the "city of peace," Jerusalem. Now our concern extends not only to the increasingly sober realities on the ground here in this land but also to the capacity and will of our own government to promote human rights and justice for Americans abroad in Israel/Palestine, and, by extension, for all the people of the Holy Land.

We expect the American government to demand that, as an American, Mr. Saleh be given access to "due process." Given his current status and the well-documented, infamous procedures of Israeli military courts, this would include that he be released or charged and tried in an Israeli civil court. We anxiously await a response from our government.

The Rev. William ExnerMs. Ann Thompson
Mr. Lou SchoenMr. Richard Kerner
Ms. Madeleine TrichelThe Rev. Brian Grieves
Mr. Rigoberto AvilaMs. Margaret Lehrecke
Mr. Paul M. NeuhauserMr. Robert Bell