State to Yeshiva Student: Leave the Country or Sit in Prison

This week a young Israeli Jewish citizen, an immigrant from the United States, was forced out of the country. The man, Efraim Khantsis, a 22 year old graduate of Stony Brook University, recently immigrated to Israel. He was enrolled in the Machon Meir yeshiva in Jerusalem.

All seemed well for Efraim, who was beginning to live out his dream of putting his roots down in the Jewish state. Several months ago, however, he was suddenly detained by the Israeli Secret Police (or “Shabak” in Hebrew), on suspicion that he had made statements praising Baruch Goldstein and the recently arrested Yaakov Teitel, who is a leading suspect in the killing of two Arabs.

For this alleged crime Efraim received an administrative restraining order. The order, which was given without any trial for allegations against which he was not permitted to defend himself, barred Efraim from entry into the West Bank, including his home in Kfar Tapuah.

When Efraim violated this wholly undemocratic and baseless order to visit his home in Tapuah, he was arrested and detained for several days. Now the Shabak has a new administrative order, again obtained in secret without a trial, but this time it sentenced Efraim to 3 months in prison. Unable to defend himself in court or even hear the charges against him, Efraim was offered one way to avoid his prison term: get out of Israel.

This tactic of administrative arrests, that is, prison terms doled out by the Defense Ministry without giving the accused a benefit of a trial or even to hear the accusations against them, is not new. Neither is this the first time its been used to deport Jews. In 2005 when 4 Jews were given administrative arrest and sent to prison, one of them, Saadiah Hershkof, was ultimately sent to America.

It is high time to reveal and repeal this wholly undemocratic and fascistic tool – administrative orders – which is used by the fundamentally undemocratic Secret Police. How can a supposedly democratic country like Israel have a secret police that can imprison and deport citizens without trial? Maybe it’s time to rethink that moniker of “the only democracy in the Middle East”.