Amira Hass wrote in Haaretz: “The failing political and security mechanisms are the ones that for years have formulated the axioms in Israel concerning the Palestinian prisoners. The first axiom is that every Palestinian security prisoner is a criminal. Even during the Oslo period, Israel did not free itself from this definition and did not recognize the Palestinians as prisoners of war to be released as an integral part of a peace process. Israel did release many thousands, but it did this as a gesture from the ruling side. It also demonstrated a racist approach when it released people who had been convicted of murdering Palestinian collaborators, but not those who had been convicted of murdering or injuring Jews (among them soldiers). Thus, to this day, nearly 400 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israel who were convicted of crimes (which is how the occupier’s law book defines it) that were committed before the signing of the Gaza-Jericho agreement in May 1994…
Amira Hass’s words continue: “Those responsible for these prisoners, from Yasser Arafat through Yasser Abed Rabbo to Mohammed Dahlan, spent many hours in negotiations and at cocktail parties with Israeli representatives. [n.b. Did Yasser Arafat ever really attend a cocktail party??] But those under their command are supposed to serve out their prison terms (of several decades) to the end or remain in life imprisonment, which for Palestinian prisoners is also until their death, in shocking contrast to Jewish prisoners, especially Jewish settlers in the occupied territories convicted of murdering ‘out of nationalist motives’ who are quickly released after their punishment is reduced. Among the Palestinian prisoners there are prisoners who have come down with serious illnesses, and the vengeful Israeli system is refusing to release them. Family members of most of the prisoners have not been allowed to visit them for long periods. All of them, and this too is an axiom, are discriminated against in their conditions of imprisonment, as compared with the Jewish prisoners. Since the signing of the Oslo agreement, most Israelis have been denying the fact that we are the citizens of an occupying state. They define the current intifada as a war that has been declared against us by the fictive Palestinian state. And even though this is defined as a war, the prevailing axiom is that the Palestinians are always ‘terrorists’, even when they act against soldiers and not civilians. The companion axiom to this is that only on our side are there ‘soldiers’, even when they are sent to act against an occupied civilian population. The common denominator of these axioms is the distinction between blood and blood and person and person. The Jew is always worth more, much much more, when he is a victim, when he is a soldier, when he is a POW”. Amira Hass’ remarks on the relative value of prisoners and victims is posted here.
Tags: Palestinian prisoners