Caged dove
Prominent Bay Area activist imprisoned in Israel for protesting "apartheid wall"

By Camille T. Taiara

As the Bay Guardian went to press Jan. 6, Bay Area activist Kate Raphael was serving her sixth day in an Israeli jail.

The Israeli government is seeking to deport Raphael for participating in a Dec. 31 march against the construction of a 400-mile-long barrier, dubbed a "security fence" by the Israeli government and an "apartheid wall" by activists who argue that it effectively annexes more Palestinian territory into Israel.

Raphael, one of the Bay Area's most prominent Jewish activists against Israel's occupation of Palestine, is part of an international effort to highlight the plight of Palestinians (see "Letters from Palestine," 8/6/03). Many have been injured, a few even killed, as Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's government has taken an increasingly tough stance against foreign activists.

Raphael was being held at the Michal Detention Centre in Hadera and could be banned from the country for 10 years if deported.

"Kate wants to fight it all the way," Raphael's attorney, Gaby Lasky, told the Bay Guardian. "If we need to appeal to the Supreme Court, we'll do that." At press time Lasky was still in negotiations over the terms of Raphael's release, which she hoped might come as early as Jan. 6.

Raphael was arrested on New Year's Eve, during the second of a week of actions meant to prevent Israeli forces from leveling an olive grove in the West Bank town of Budrus, through which Israel is erecting a section of the barrier. Israel has designed it to encircle the town, thereby cutting it off from basic services and separating many of the villagers from their fields.

Between 400 and 500 demonstrators – including Israelis, local Palestinians, and international activists – participated in the march. Soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd after some of the protesters began throwing stones, according to regional press reports. Dozens were hurt in the melee.

Raphael was detained along with three other international activists and four Israelis. One international, Swedish parliamentarian Gustav Fridolin, agreed to leave the country the next day, but the others intend to fight the deportation. All the Israelis arrested that day have been released.

Immediately following the demonstration, Israeli forces imposed a curfew on Budrus and conducted door-to-door raids. The crackdown has resulted in the arrest of nine local Palestinians so far, according to Stop the Wall (www.stopthewall.org), a Web site where activists in the field are posting daily reports.

Raphael, who helped found the San Francisco branch of Women in Black – an international, mostly Jewish, women's organization against the occupation – was on her fourth visit to the region and was working with the International Women's Peace Service.

"She quit her job in San Francisco and left her home in Berkeley, with the intent of staying [in the region] for two years," Naomi Azriel of Women in Black told us.

Since arriving in the West Bank in August 2002, Raphael initiated a project called Mikarov (known as Neighbor to Neighbor in English), which takes Israelis into the Palestinian territories to experience the occupation firsthand so they can educate their communities back home.

This isn't the first time the 45-year-old has gotten into trouble for the stances she's taken against the occupation. Raphael, an activist on the Palestine issue for more than 20 years, was also contacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for questioning within two weeks of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (See "FBI Casting Wide Net in Sept. 11 Attack Investigation," 10/10/01).

The FBI told National Lawyers Guild attorney Rachel Lederman at the time that its interest in Raphael stemmed not from any potential ties to al-Qaeda but rather from her role in Women in Black.

Get involved: call the Israeli consul general in San Francisco, Yossi Amrani, at (415) 844-7500 to demand his government drop the deportation orders against Raphael and Kimberly Gray (another U.S. activist arrested at Budrus) and to express your opposition to the barrier and the occupation of Palestinian land. To contribute to Raphael's defense fund, send a check payable to IWPS to 2018 Shattuck Ave., PMB 122, Berkeley, CA 94704. (To make a tax-deductible contribution, write the check to the Middle East Children's Alliance and indicate IWPS on the memo line.) For more information call (510) 434-1304 or go to www.quitpalestine.org.

E-mail Camille T. Taiara