[WCUSP] Fwd: Avnery on missed opportunities to empty our prisons + Bil'in conference link

[yvonne simmons]

--- Gush Shalom <otherisr at actcom.co.il> wrote:

> From: "Gush Shalom" <otherisr at actcom.co.il>
> Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 14:33:35 -0700
> Subject: Avnery on missed opportunities to empty our
> prisons + Bil'in
> 	conference link
> To: intl at mailman.gush-shalom.org
> 
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> אורי   ××‘× ×¨×™
> 
> דם על הידיים
> Blood on our hands
> 
> Uri Avnery
> 
>  
> 
> full English text follows
> 
> *
> 
> click here for the program of the international
> Bil'in Conference
> 
> it's already next week April 18-20 - high time to
> register 
> 
>  *
> This may interest you:
> "We Support A Fair Tenure Process for Dr. Norman
> Finkelstein" 
> you can read and sign the petition at
> http://www.petitiononline.com/nf200704/petition.html
> 
>  *
> 
> Uri Avnery
> 14.4.07
> 
>      Blood on Our Hands
> 
> AT THIS moment, negotiations on a prisoner exchange
> are in full swing.
> 
> The term "negotiations" is really inappropriate.
> "Haggling" seems more fitting. One could also use an
> uglier expression: "trafficking in human beings". 
> 
> The planned deal concerns living people. They are
> being treated like goods, for which the officials of
> the two sides are bargaining, as if they were a
> piece of land or a load of fruit. 
> 
> In their own eyes, and in the eyes of their spouses,
> parents and children, they are not goods. They are
> life itself.
> 
> 
> IMMEDIATELY AFTER the signing of the Oslo agreement
> in 1993, "Gush Shalom" publicly called on the Prime
> Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, to free all the Palestinian
> prisoners.
> 
> The logic was simple: they are in reality
> prisoners-of-war. They did what they did in the
> service of their people, exactly like our own
> soldiers. The people who sent them were the chiefs
> of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)
> with whom we have just signed a far-reaching
> agreement. Is there any sense in signing an
> agreement with the commanders, while their
> subordinates continue to languish in our jails?
> 
> When one makes peace, prisoners-of-war are expected
> to be released. In our case, this would not only be
> a sign of humanity, but also of wisdom. These
> prisoners come from all the towns and villages.
> Sending them home would release an outburst of joy
> all over the occupied Palestinian territories. There
> is hardly a Palestinian family that does not have a
> relative in prison.
> 
> If the agreement is not to remain just a piece of
> paper, we said, but be imbued with content and
> spirit - there is no wiser act than this.
> 
> Unfortunately, Rabin did not listen to us. He had
> many positive traits, but he was a rather closed
> person, devoid of imagination. He was himself a
> prisoner of narrow "security" concepts. For him, the
> prisoners were goods to be traded for something.
> True, before the founding of Israel he himself had
> been held in detention by the British for some time,
> but, like many others, he was incapable of applying
> the lessons of his own experience to the
> Palestinians.
> 
> We considered this a fateful matter as far as the
> peace efforts were concerned. Together with the
> unforgettable Faisal Husseini, the adored leader of
> the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem, we
> organized a demonstration opposite the Jneid prison
> in Nablus. It was the largest joint
> Israeli-Palestinian demonstration ever. More than
> ten thousand people took part.
> 
> In vain. The prisoners were not released.
> 
> 
> FOURTEEN YEARS later, nothing has changed. Prisoners
> have been released after completing their sentence,
> others have taken their place. Every night, Israeli
> soldiers capture a dozen or so new "wanted"
> Palestinians.
> 
> At any one time, there are some 10,000 Palestinian
> prisoners, male and female, from minors to old
> people.
> 
> All our governments have treated them as goods. And
> goods are not given away for nothing. Goods have a
> price. Many times it was proposed to release some
> prisoners as a "gesture" to Mahmoud Abbas, in order
> to strengthen him vis-Ã -vis Hamas. All these
> suggestions were rejected by Ariel Sharon and Ehud
> Olmert.
> 
> Now, the security services oppose the prisoner
> exchange deal for the release of the soldier Gilad
> Shalit. And not because the price - 1400 in exchange
> for 1 - is exorbitant. On the contrary, for many
> Israelis it seems quite natural that one Israeli
> soldier is worth 1400 "terrorists". But the security
> services raise much weightier arguments: if
> prisoners are released for a "kidnapped" soldier, it
> will encourage the "terrorists" to capture more
> soldiers.
> 
> At least some of the released prisoners will return
> to their organizations and activities, and that will
> result in more bloodshed. Israeli soldiers will be
> obliged to risk their lives in order to arrest them
> again.
> 
> And there is something else lurking in the
> background: some of the families of Israelis killed
> in attacks, who are organized in a very vociferous
> lobby connected with the extreme right, will raise
> hell. How could this pitiful government, devoid of
> any public standing, withstand such pressure?
> 
> 
> FOR EACH of these arguments, there is a
> counter-argument.
> 
> Not releasing the prisoners leaves the "terrorists"
> with a permanent motivation to "kidnap" soldiers.
> After all, nothing else seems to convince us to
> release prisoners. In these circumstances, such
> actions will always enjoy huge popularity with the
> Palestinian public, which includes many thousands of
> families that are waiting for the return of their
> loved ones.
> 
> >From a military point of view, there is another
> strong argument: "Soldiers are not left in the
> field". This is held as a sacred maxim, a mainstay
> of army morale. Every soldier must know that if he
> or she is captured, the Israeli army will do
> everything, but everything, to get him free. If this
> belief is undermined, will soldiers be as ready to
> take risks in battle?
> 
> Furthermore, experience shows that a high proportion
> of released Palestinian prisoners do not return to
> the cycle of violence. After years in detention, all
> they want is to live in peace and devote their time
> to their children. They exercise a moderating
> influence on their surroundings.
> 
> And as for the thirst for revenge of the families of
> "terror victims" - woe to a government that gives in
> to such emotions, which, of course, exist on both
> sides.
> 
> 
> THE POLITICAL argument goes both ways. There is
> pressure from the "terror victims" - but there is
> even stronger pressure from the family of the
> captured soldier.
> 
> In Judaism, there is a commandment called "ransom of
> prisoners". It arose from the reality of a
> persecuted community dispersed across the world.
> Every Jew is obliged to make any sacrifice and pay
> any price for the release of another Jew from
> prison. If Turkish pirates captured a Jew from
> England, the Jews of Istanbul paid the ransom for
> his release. In today's Israel, this obligation
> still holds.
> 
> Public meetings and demonstrations are now being
> held for the release of Gilad Shalit. The organizers
> do not say openly that the aim is to push the
> government to accept the exchange deal. But, since
> there is no other way to get him back alive, that is
> the message in practice.
> 
> One cannot envy the members of the government who
> find themselves in this situation. Caught between
> two bad options, the natural tendency of a
> politician like Olmert is not to decide at all and
> postpone everything. But this is a third bad option,
> and one which carries a heavy political price.
> 
> 
> THE STRONGEST emotional argument voiced by the
> opponents of the deal is that the Palestinians are
> demanding the release of prisoners with "blood on
> their hands". In our society, the words "Jewish
> blood" - two words beloved by the Right - are enough
> to silence even many on the Left.
> 
> But that is a stupid argument. It is also
> mendacious.
> 
> In the terminology of the Security Service, this
> definition applies not only to a person who himself
> has taken part in an attack in which Israelis were
> killed, but also to anyone who thought about the
> action, gave the order, organized it and helped to
> carry it out - prepared the weapons, conveyed the
> attacker to the scene, etc.
> 
> According to this definition, every soldier and
> officer of the Israeli army has "blood on his
> hands", along with many politicians.
> 
> Somebody who has killed or wounded Israelis - is he
> different from us, the Israeli soldiers past and
> present? When I was a soldier in the 1948 war, in
> which tens of thousands of civilians, fighters and
> soldiers on both sided perished, I was a
> machine-gunner in the Samson's Foxes commando unit.
> I fired thousands of bullets, if not tens of
> thousands. It was mostly at night, and I could not
> see whether I hit anybody, and if so - who. Do I
> have blood on my hands?
> 
> The official argument is that the prisoners are not
> soldiers, and therefore they are not
> prisoners-of-war, but common criminals, murderers
> and their accomplices. 
> 
> That is not an original argument. All colonial
> regimes in history have said the same. No foreign
> ruler, fighting an uprising of the oppressed people,
> has ever recognized his enemy as legitimate
> fighters. The French did not recognize the Algerian
> freedom fighters, the Americans do not recognize the
> Iraqi and Afghan freedom fighters (they are all
> terrorists, who can be tortured and held in
> abominable detention centers), the South African
> apartheid regime treated Nelson Mandela and his
> comrades as criminals, as the British did to Mahatma
> Gandhi and the fighters of the Hebrew underground in
> Palestine. In Ireland, they hanged the members of
> the Irish underground, who left behind moving songs
> ("Shoot me like an Irish soldier / Do not hang me
> like a dog; / For I fought for Ireland's freedom /
> On that dark September morn…")
>  
> The fiction that freedom-fighters are common
> criminals is necessary for the legitimation of a
> colonial regime, and makes it easier for a soldier
> to shoot people. It is, of course, twisted. A common
> criminal acts in his own interest. A freedom fighter
> or "terrorist", like most soldiers, believes that he
> is serving his people or cause.
> 
> 
> ONE PARADOX of the situation is that the Israeli
> government is negotiating with people who themselves
> have served time in Israeli prisons. When our
> leaders speak about the need to strengthen the
> "moderate" Palestinian elements - they mainly mean
> these.
> 
> That is a feature of the Palestinian situation,
> which I doubt the existence of in other occupied
> countries. People who have spent five, ten and even
> twenty years in Israeli prisons, and who have every
> reason in the world to hate our guts, are quite open
> to contact with Israelis.
> 
> Since I know some of them, and some of them have
> become close friends, I have wondered many times
> about this.
> 
> At international conferences I have met Irish
> activists. After several pints of Guinness they have
> told me that they know no greater joy in life than
> killing Englishmen. I was reminded of the song of
> our poet Nathan Alterman, who prayed to God "Give me
> hatred grey like a sack" (for the Nazis). After
> hundreds of years of oppression, that's how they
> felt.
> 
> Of course, my Palestinian friends hate the Israeli
> occupation. But they do not hate all Israelis, just
> for being Israelis. In prison, most of them have
> learned good Hebrew and listened to Israeli radio,
> read Israeli newspapers and watched Israeli TV. They
> know that there are all kinds of Israelis, just as
> there are all kinds of Palestinians. Israeli
> democracy, which allows members of the Knesset to
> vilify their prime minister, has made a deep
> impression on them. When the Israeli government
> showed a readiness to negotiate with Palestinians,
> the best partners were to be found among these
> ex-prisoners.
> 
> That is also true for the prisoners that are to be
> released now. If Marwan Barghouti is released, he
> will be a natural partner in any peace effort.
> 
> I shall be very happy when both he and Gilad Shalit
> are free.
> 
> 
> In this context, see also: Adalah accuses gov't of
> war crimes in past Gaza operations
> 
>  
> 
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