Holocaust survivor and Palestinians’ rights lawyer Felicia Langer dies in exile at 87 - Opinion - Israel News

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  • Holocaust survivor and Palestinians’ rights lawyer Felicia Langer dies in exile at 87
    Felicia Langer fought, first in Israel and then from Germany, for the enforcement of international law from which Israel excepted itself
    Haaretz.com - Gideon Levy - Jun 24, 2018 2:42 AM
    https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-death-of-an-exiled-conscience-1.6200232

    I never met her, only called her two or three times in her place of exile, but I well remember what she was for me and most of my generation in our brainwashed youth: a symbol of hatred for Israel, a public enemy, a reviled, outcast traitor. That’s how we were taught to regard her and a few other early dissidents, and we neither questioned nor cared why.

    Now, at 87, she has died in exile; her image glows brightly in my eyes through the distance of time and space. Felicia Langer, who died in Germany Thursday, was a hero, a pioneer and a woman of conscience. She and a few of her allies never got the recognition here that they deserved; it’s not clear they ever will.

    In a place where “alumni” of a murderous Jewish terror organization are welcomed — one a newspaper editor, another an expert on religious law — and where self-declared racists are accepted as legitimate participants in the arena of public debate as they are nowhere else, there is no room for courageous justice warriors who paid a high personal price for trying to lead a camp that never followed.

    Langer was a Holocaust survivor from Poland who studied law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After the occupation, was the first to open a law office dedicated to defending its Palestinian victims. In this, she followed an illustrious tradition of Jews who fought injustice in South Africa, Latin America, Europe and the United States.

    Here, her sense of justice brought her into conflict with her state. Occasionally she even succeeded: In 1979, in the wake of her petition, the High Court of Justice blocked an expulsion order against Nablus Mayor Bassam Shakaa. A year later, the Jewish underground attached a bomb to his car that destroyed his legs, and Israeli justice came to light.

    Langer was a pioneer among Israeli lawyers of conscience who came out for the defense of the rights of the occupied population, but she was also the first to throw in the towel, closing her law office in 1990 and going into exile. In a 2012 interview with documentary filmmaker Eran Torbiner, she explained: “I left Israel because I could no longer help the Palestinian victims with the existing legal system and the disregard for international law that was supposed to protect the people whom I was defending. I couldn’t act. I was facing a hopeless situation.” She told The Washington Post she “couldn’t be a fig leaf for this system anymore.”

    She said she didn’t switch battlefronts, only her place on the front, but the front is currently at its lowest point. The occupation is entrenched as never before and nearly all of its crimes have been legitimized.

    Langer came to the conclusion that things were hopeless. Apparently she was right. The fight in the military courts was doomed to failure. It has no prospect of success because the military courts are only subject to the laws of the occupation and not to the laws of justice. The proceedings involve nothing more than hollow and false legal ritual.

    Even the civil legal system, headed by the vaunted High Court of Justice, has never come down on the side of the victims and against the crimes of the occupation. Here and there restraining orders have been issued, here and there actions have been delayed. But in the annals of the occupation, Israel’s Supreme Court will be remembered as the primary legitimizer of the occupation and as an abject collaborator with the military. In such a state of affairs, perhaps there really was nothing for Langer to do here. That is a singularly depressing conclusion.

    What did this brave and courageous woman fight against? Against torture by the Shin Bet security service at a time when we didn’t believe that such torture existed, yet it was at the peak of its cruelty. She fought against the expulsion of political activists, against false arrests, against home demolitions. Above all, she fought for the enforcement of international law from which Israel decided to except itself on unbelievable grounds. That’s what she fought and that is why she was considered a public enemy.

    In her old age, her grandson told her that ultimately the Palestinians will win and will get a state of their own. “You won’t see it, but I will,” he promised his grandmother. In the end, the grandson will be disappointed, just as his distinguished grandmother was.

    • Felicia Langer
      https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicia_Langer

      (...) Elle adhère au Parti communiste d’Israël, elle sera membre de son Comité Central, et, quand elle obtient une licence de droit en 1965, elle se rend compte qu’elle est sur une liste noire et que personne ne l’embauche après enquête.

      Elle devient l’avocate des Arabes palestiniens, dénonçant dans plusieurs ouvrages l’usage de la torture par l’État d’Israël. Elle déclare en 1978 : « Je peux dire que j’ai ici dans mon bureau toute une encyclopédie sur les violations des droits de l’Homme : j’ai dans mes dossiers de quoi écrire de nombreux livres » (...)

    • Langer came to the conclusion that things were hopeless.

      […]

      Here, her sense of justice brought her into conflict with her state. Occasionally she even succeeded: In 1979, in the wake of her petition, the High Court of Justice blocked an expulsion order against Nablus Mayor Bassam Shakaa. A year later, the Jewish underground attached a bomb to his car that destroyed his legs, and Israeli justice came to light.

      Bassam Shakaa - Wikipedia
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bassam_Shakaa

      On June 2, 1980 he became the victim of a bomb placed in his car by members of the Jewish Underground. They also planted bombs in the cars of Ibrahim Tawil, the mayor of El-Bireh, and Karim Khalaf, the mayor of Ramallah. Khalaf lost one leg, while Shakaa had to have both legs amputated. Moshe Zer, one of the first Israeli settlers in the northern West Bank, was the person who led the Jewish underground “hit team” that tried to assassinate Shakaa. Zer was convicted for causing serious injury and belonging to a terror group, but was sentenced to only four months in prison, the time he was in jail waiting for his trial, because of the state of his health and the fact that he was badly injured in an attempt of a Palestinian to murder him.

      (pas de version française, apparemment)

    • Un extrait de son site www.felicia-langer.de

      Felicia Langer
      http://www.felicia-langer.de/person.html

      Richtigstellung zu dem Wikipedia-Eintrag „Felicia Langer“

      Auf Wikipedia wird die Behauptung aufgestellt, dass ich die Rede des iranischen Präsidenten zur Antirassismuskonferenz der UNO am 21. April 2009 als „Wahrheit“ bezeichnet haben soll. Diesen Vorwurf lehne ich entschieden ab: Ich habe niemals und nirgendwo den iranischen Präsidenten gerechtfertigt oder seine Reden als gut befunden. Dies ist eine Erfindung, um mich zu diskreditieren und zu diffamieren. Der Quellenverweis für diese Anschuldigung erscheint mir jedenfalls sehr zweifelhaft. Eine weitere Richtigstellung: Ich nahm im Jahr 2008 und nicht 2009 die deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit an.

      Laut Wikipedia hat das israelische Verteidigungsministerium mir 1977 die Lizenz zum Verteidigen vor Militärgerichten in Israel entzogen, so dass ich die Palästinenser nur noch in deren Gebieten vertreten konnte. Dies ist nicht richtig. Mir wurde die Lizenz im Falle von Kriegsdienstverweigerern oder in besonderen Fällen ( „aus Sicherheitsgründen“) entzogen. Aber nicht in Militärgerichten, wo man die Palästinenser (auch in Israel) gerichtet hat. Ich konnte und hatte weiterhin sehr viele Palästinenser in allen Gerichten vertreten. In meinem Buch „Zorn und Hoffnung“, das auch in Israel verlegt wurde, schildere ich Gerichtsverfahren, wo Fälle von Palästinensern behandelt werden (s. Seite 371, Jahr 1981, Mohammad al Arda, oder siehe S. 390, Auad Hamdan.) Außerdem bin ich zu Anträgen beim höchsten Gerichtshof in Israel (High Court of Justice) in Jerusalem aufgetreten und war für diese Auftritte in Israel bekannt.

      Zudem habe ich die israelische Palästinenserpolitik nie mit dem Holocaust verglichen, sonder als Apartheitspolitik bezeichnet.

      Felicia Langer
      05.04.2011 (Ergänzt am 04.06.2012)

    • In memory of Felicia Langer, the first lawyer to bring the occupation to court
      https://972mag.com/in-memory-of-felicia-langer-the-first-lawyer-to-bring-the-occupation-to-court/136393

      Felicia Langer was a Holocaust survivor, a communist, and one of the first Israeli lawyers to defend Palestinian residents of the occupied territories in the Israeli Supreme Court. She died in Germany last week.

      By Michael Sfard

      “““““““““““““““““““““““““
      traduction en français
      À la mémoire de Felicia Langer, premier avocat à amener l’occupation devant les tribunaux
      30 06 2018
      http://www.agencemediapalestine.fr/blog/2018/06/30/a-la-memoire-de-felicia-langer-premier-avocat-a-amener-loccupat

    • C’était la première avocate juive à défendre les Palestiniens, mais pas la seule, puisque elle a aussi travaillé avec #Lea_Tsemel qui a continué après le départ de Felicia Langer, qui continue encore et qui est plus indépendante puisqu’elle n’est pas liée au Parti Communiste.

      En revanche Lea n’a pas de page wikipedia en français, juste en anglais :
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_Tsemel

      Voir aussi :
      https://seenthis.net/messages/171835
      https://seenthis.net/messages/344801
      https://seenthis.net/messages/676993
      https://seenthis.net/messages/678658