Israeli Court Delays Ouster of Arab Activist

JERUSALEM — The Israeli Supreme Court on Sunday issued a temporary injunction barring deportation of Palestinian-American activist Mubarak Awad pending a hearing on his appeal, which could set a legal precedent affecting thousands of Jerusalem-born Arabs.

The court gave the government three days to answer Awad’s argument that it has no right under the so-called Law of Entry into Israel of 1952 to deny him residency.

Awad was arrested in a raid on his home Thursday after Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, in his additional capacity as acting interior minister, signed the deportation order over strong U.S. objections.

While Israel accused the U.S.-educated psychologist of activities harmful “to the security of thestate and to the public order,” the specific grounds for the expulsion order are that Awad has been in the country illegally since his tourist visa expired Nov. 22.

Awad’s attorney, Jonathan Kuttab, said that the basis of the appeal filed on his client’s behalf Sunday is that Awad “can’t be considered a tourist in his own homeland.”

While no precise figures are available, American officials here agreed with Kuttab that the outcome of the case could affect “tens of thousands” of other Jerusalem-born Arabs whose current legal status is “very questionable.”

Israel captured the Arab eastern sector of the city in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed it soon afterward. While not subject to the same military rule as occupants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip--also captured in 1967 but never annexed--neither are Jerusalem Arabs considered Israeli citizens.

The U.S. government, which does not recognize Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, has protested Awad’s deportation “to the highest levels of the Israeli government,” State Department spokesman Charles Redman said Friday. He cited Awad’s public support for “nonviolence and reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis.”

Israel Radio reported that U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz urged Shamir in a message on Sunday to reconsider the expulsion order, saying it would be counterproductive to the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Became U.S. Citizen

Awad, 44, was born in East Jerusalem and left in 1969, allegedly under Israeli government pressure, to study in the United States. He remained there after graduation, married and became a U.S. citizen.

Kuttab said his client’s American citizenship should have no bearing on his right to a Jerusalem residency permit. He noted that American Jews who emigrate to Israel are allowed to maintain dual citizenship.

Awad returned to Jerusalem in 1983 to start a counseling program for parents, students, and teachers on the West Bank, and two years later he founded the Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence.

Adopting many of the protest tactics of Martin Luther King Jr. and India’s Mohandas K. Gandhi, Awad has publicly advocated a campaign of civil disobedience and other forms of nonviolent opposition to Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In a lengthy defense of the government action Friday, Shamir’s media adviser, Avi Pazner, charged that Awad’s public proclamations of nonviolence are a sham and that he “is one of the main contributors to the violent disturbances” that have rocked the occupied territories since Dec. 9.

At least 175 Palestinians and two Israelis have died in the anti-Israel disturbances.

Pazner also charged that Awad had been “involved in the preparation of the bulletins” regularly circulated by the self-styled Unified National Leadership for the Uprising in the Occupied Territories and specifically in the authorship of the latest leaflet calling for the use of stones and petrol bombs against “all our enemies.”

In an affidavit filed in connection with his appeal, Awad has called the charges “absolutely false,” according to attorney Kuttab. “He has never endorsed or accepted or encouraged anyone to engage in violent activity,” Kuttab added, noting that the government’s charges of hostile activity are, in any event, “irrelevant” to the legal basis of the deportation order.

In a statement issued from his jail cell and read by his American wife at a press conference here Sunday, Awad declared: “If I were a criminal, I should be tried and it should be proven that I have violated the law and then I should be punished. But for Prime Minister Shamir to say that I, a Christian, will be forever prevented from returning to my city of Jerusalem to pray in my holy places is totally unacceptable.”

Awad’s statement appeared designed in part to answer Arab critics who contend that Palestinians should not appeal to the Israeli courts for fear of appearing to concede their legitimacy.

“As part of my struggle to remain and be free in my homeland, I will use all means, short of violence,” the statement said. “I will leave no stone unturned, and I will use all avenues to achieve recognition of my right as a Jerusalemite to stay in my homeland.”

On Sunday, Awad was continuing a hunger strike he began with his arrest, refusing both food and water, Kuttab said. The attorney said his client appeared tired but seemed in good condition.

The Supreme Court scheduled a separate hearing for today on a defense petition that Awad be released from custody pending the outcome of his appeal.

Among scores of expressions of support for Awad made at the press conference were messages from folk singer Joan Baez and Jacqueline Jackson, the wife of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in the United States.

Police intervened when a handful of activists from the right-wing Kach movement of American-born Rabbi Meir Kahane appeared outside the hotel where the press conference was held, shouting “Awad go home!”

“That’s exactly what he’s trying to do,” said a Palestinian supporter of the Jerusalem-born activist.

Police then stood by as several dozen other Palestinians stood on the hotel steps holding placards of support for Awad.

FO(Southland Edition) Respite--Mother and daughter in Beirut enjoy fresh air on their shell-pocked balcony during a 16-hour cease-fire among rival Shia Muslim militiamen. Fighting resumed Sunday in city’s southern suburbs.