[WCUSP] Blood on Our Hands by Uri Avnery

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

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 mornâ?¦") 
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.





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