The debt trap

[Gimel]

It's not only the Palestinians that have a rough time in Israel.


Sitting in the wood-paneled hallway outside one of the Debt Collection (hotza'a l'foal) courtrooms in a Tel Aviv courthouse, Yehezkel Hemed looks as if he's had a rough night - and he has. He's spent the better part of the last 24 hours in the Abu Kabir lock-up for non-payment of debt.

"If I'm not mistaken, Israel is the only Western country that imprisons debtors," noted Supreme Court President Aharon Barak in a hearing last month into the legality of the practice, according to attorney Einat Albin, co-counsel in the Supreme Court appeal, and an advocate with Tel Aviv University Law School's Law and Welfare Clinic.

Hemed's case is some doozie. Like many imprisoned debtors, he didn't even know there was an arrest warrant out for him. His right hand wrapped in bandages, he recalls what happened the previous afternoon.

"I'd just had surgery on my hand at Tel Hashomer, and I was waiting at a bus stop for my sister to pick up my prescription from the pharmacy, and a policeman came up and asked to see my ID. I guess I looked like a terrorist to him."

Coninued..

[Spinzonner]

1. Whiner

he should shut up and be grateful he doesnt live in an Islamic country where they would cut his hand off.

:-)

[Gimel]

2. Oh yes,

I'm sure he is grateful for that. No doubt there is a bright side to everything. I didn't read that he was whining. Obviously the case came to someone's attention, because the review of the debtor's prison laws.

Living on an unhealthy overdraft is the norm, rather than the exception.

[Spinzonner]

3. uh, I was being ironic

The damn world is full of the irony-impaired ...

:-)

[Gimel]

4. True

blind to any facetious remarks.