Tag: Prisoner Swap - Page 2 - International Solidarity Movement

“Like the Wild West:” Ex-prisoner lives with bounty on his head

by Alistair George

13 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement West Bank

“I see my situation as a cowboy film, like the wild west” says Hani Jaber, showing ISM a poster, written in Arabic saying: ‘Wanted: if anyone has any information about the whereabouts of the killer Hani Jaber, please call us on this number and you will receive a reward.’

The number goes through to an answer machine where the message instructs callers to leave a phone number, promising to guarantee confidentiality and to pay good money. Other leaflets have been handed out showing pictures of Jaber and other recently released prisoners, offering rewards for information and leaflets for soldiers so that they can alert settlers if Hani passes through a checkpoint. Reports in the Israeli media suggest that the reward is $100,000 for information on Hani’s whereabouts.

After serving eighteen years of a life sentence, Hani was released from prison on 18 December 2011, as part of the prisoner exchange deal which saw 477 Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in 2006.

In 1993, Hani, 18 years old at the time, took a kitchen knife and stabbed to death the settler Erez Shmuel, who Hani claims had attacked his nine year old sister as she came come from school. Hani’s rage had built as he and his family experienced frequent attacks by settlers over many years. Hani had his jaw broken during an attack by four settlers, on another occasion his leg was fractured. His cousin, Aziza Jaber, was shot and killed by a settler as she was in labour and on her way to hospital – she was 30 at the time.

Hani was sentenced to life imprisonment and was kept in isolation for a total of five years. He spent two years without seeing his family – the only person who could visit relatively regularly was his mother; his father only got permission around once a year to visit and he has a brother which he didn’t see for 18 years.

Despite his prison term, Hani looks strong and healthy, his beard neatly trimmed and hair carefully side-parted. He seems calm and relaxed as we talk in a quiet corner in a nondescript café in Hebron. However, Hani and his father, Rasami, are careful to sit with their backs to the wall where they can see the layout of the shop. Rasami has rarely left his son’s side since his release from prison. “It’s a very difficult time, I’m afraid to leave him in case something happens – I stay with him or his brother stays with him to protect him.”

“I take the situation seriously” says Hani – “I don’t give any opportunities to anybody. I believe that I won’t lose my happiness with my freedom but I should be afraid sometimes…I don’t have any weapons or anything to protect myself, I only feel safe when I am with my family”.

When he was released from prison, Hani was given clearance to travel anywhere in the West Bank. However, a few days after his release, the police gave him a verbal order that he had to remain in Hebron for his own safety and that he had to sign in with the DCO (District Coordinators Office) every two months. But Hani says that his confinement to Hebron makes him feel like he is living under huge pressure in a “big jail” and is more vulnerable from attacks.

He says that his primary fear is from Palestinian collaborators rather than from settlers or soldiers. He is also fearful for his family, who have been attacked by settlers many times since his release.

Hani Jaber lives in secret location in Hebron for his own safety, it is too dangerous for him to return to his family’s home in Wadi Al-Hussain, a valley situated on the edge of Hebron’s old city. Their house faces Kiryat Arba, an illegal Israeli settlement of around 7,000 people, a few hundred metres away on the opposite side of the valley.

The Jaber family’s house has always been a focus of attacks by settlers, due to its proximity to the settlement. However, the attacks have escalated since it was announced that Hani would be released from prison. The house was attacked on the day of his release and Ibtisam Jaber, 33, Hani’s sister-in-law, was beaten and suffered a miscarriage three days later.

“The settlers came and attacked the house. Ibtisam lost her baby, nobody else was here because we were celebrating [Hani’s release]” said Moutasem Jaber, 21 – Hani’s brother.

On 19 November 2011 thousands of Israeli settlers and Zionists crowded into Hebron for Shabbat Chaye Sarah – celebrating Abraham’s biblical purchase of land on the site of the Ibrahimi Mosque. The family experienced a surge in attacks; they were attacked around 10 times – at one point there was over 100 settlers outside the house. They threw stones, urinated in the family’s well, and chanted “We will kill you” outside the house. The soldiers responded by entering the house and forcing the family to stay in one room for seven hours.

According to Hani, the family’s shop has been attacked and the house has been attacked at least seven times since his release. The Jaber family have reported the attacks and the threats to kill Hani to the police but they don’t expect any action to be taken.

“The government does not do anything against the settlers,” said Hani. They also say that the Palestinian Authority is unable to offer any kind of protection to Hani and his family.

“My case is not the only one” says Hani – “Many people have the same pressure. There are much harassment to all Palestinians – even if you’re not resisting and no settlers have been arrested after they harassed my family. They have evidence against them but the Israeli government will not do anything.”

Now that he has been released, does Hani think he can ever have a normal life with the death threats hanging over him and a bounty on his head?

“I’m not a terrorist, I didn’t do anything wrong and I think that I deserve to live a normal life, to get an education, to get married and to live like normal people” he replied “but now after all this harassment from the settlers I’m afraid to get married because I will destroy someone else’s life.” Hani says that if he was to study or work it would be a huge risk to take at the present time.

Even considering the brutal attacks that his family has faced from settlers, does he not think in hindsight that his actions were wrong? Does he have any regrets?

“I believe that I haven’t done anything wrong, and I have the right to live a normal life, and I have the right to be a fighter if there is an occupation in Palestine. With all the attacks from settlers it makes people react and to fight and resist – this is the normal thing, it’s not normal to sit and do nothing.”

But does he still believe that this is the most effective way to resist?

“At that time I was 18 years old, it was impossible to take all this darkness from the Israelis except in this way. Even after 18 years in the prison I see that the settlements are larger, the occupation is stronger and everything is getting worse. I believe that I did the right thing at the time but now I want to live as a normal person. I believe that I have to stay in one place, and that is the only resistance I can do because I think the fighting time is over.”

Alistair George is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Palestine mourns another real legend, a symbol of motherhood

by Shahd Abusalama

11 December 2011 | Palestine from My Eyes

The mother of Anees and Akram (Photo: Shahd Abusalama, Palestine from My Eyes)

My voice is muted but every feature of my face speaks sorrow and anger. There is no need to wonder why. It’s Palestine, the rich land where smiles can turn to tears and laughs can turn to sighs in a second. It’s Palestine, where series of sad stories mixed with strength, will, and glory never end.

Anees and Akram Al-Namoura are brothers who were released in the first stage of the prisoner exchange on October 18 after spending ten years, originally supposed to be two life sentences, in prison. They joined the resistance by the beginning of the second Intifada, answering the call of their occupied lands and oppressed people to defend them, ready to pay any price that their precious homeland, Palestine, would require. While Israel was aggressively and continuously attacking, killing, wounding, and detaining Palestinian citizens, the brothers took to arms against the occupying army hoping for a better future for their family, their neighbors and their community. They planted a bomb beneath an Israeli tank, killing two Israeli soldiers.

I coincidentally met Anees, the elder brother, in his hotel while I was interviewing some other former detainees. After having a short chat, I learned that he was somehow related to my mother’s family. Then he told me that his imprisonment started five months before his brother’s. I commented innocently, “I can’t imagine how hard it is for your mother to have two sons in prison at the same time. But it is a little fortunate that you and Akram met each other there.” He shook his head, smiling at my naïveté, and corrected me. “No. We were in prison at the same time, but separated by the Israeli Prison Administration for the first five years. We tried legal remedies, but no lawyers and no courts could bring us together. So we started an open hunger strike to pressure them, and we were clear that our hunger strike would end only after they had met our demands. We could eventually meet and live as brothers in Armon Prison, in the same cell, for the last five years of our imprisonment.”

Anees and Akram’s father is holding their picture (Photo: Shahd Abusalama, Palestine from My Eyes)

Anees and Akram couldn’t enjoy the blessing of kissing and hugging their elderly parents even after they gained their freedom. Israel imposed a separation of a different kind on them as they were exiled from Hebron to the Gaza Strip. But this was only additional pain from a wound that was already existed, as their 80-year-old father, a cancer patient in a wheelchair, and 65-year-old sick mother weren’t allowed to visit their detained sons for more than three years.

When I Googled Anees and Akram’s names, I encountered a video of their parents from a year ago. They were interviewed about how it felt having sons in the Israeli tyrants’ prisons. “How can an old man like me, sick with cancer, threaten Israeli security?” their father wondered with a shaking voice full of sadness. “I collected all papers that explain my health situation, which is getting worse, and tried every possible way to meet my sons again before I die.” After watching the video, I smiled despite my sadness, thinking of how merciful God is: Anees and Akram’s father is still alive and has witnessed his sons attaining freedom.

In the same video, their mother, with expressive wrinkles that evoked long years of suffering, said, “I only wish I could sit on their beds, as I used to when they were young, and play with their hair while their heads lie on my knees.” The father challenged his disability by joining his sick wife and one of his daughters in a trip to the Gaza Strip to meet their sons only six days ago. This trip couldn’t happen earlier, as their permission to leave through Jordan was denied by Israel, and they obviously couldn’t come here through the Erez border for “security reasons.” However, if there is a will, there is a way. They eventually overcame all obstacles and made it here.

Six days ago, I heard Mum speaking cheerfully to Dad about the arrival of Anees and Akram’s parents and sister safely. Today, I saw Mum’s tears for the death of their mother, who had waited long to hug her sons and celebrate their freedom. “Oh Allah, her destiny was to live and not die before she enjoyed seeing and hugging her sons between her arms once again,” Mum said with tearful eyes as she entered our home after the funeral. After ten long years of waiting, with worry, sadness, suffering, and humiliation between checkpoints as she tried to visit her imprisoned sons, she lived six days with them before passing away, leaving us a real legend, a symbol of patience, challenge, and motherhood.

In Exile: Families relate stories of prisoner exiles

by Alistair George

10 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Although Palestinian prisoners endure harsh conditions in Israeli prisons, including and physical and psychological torture, their families are also severely punished through the policies of the Israeli authorities.

The prisoner release deal brokered between Hamas and the Israeli authorities saw the release of 477 Palestinian ‘security’ prisoners on 18 October 2011 (with a further 550 to be released in a second phase thought to be in December) in exchange for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured by Hamas in 2006.

The joy experienced by many of the prisoners and their families was tempered by the fact that many prisoners from the West Bank were released but sent into exile. Of the 477 Palestinian prisoners released, at least 40 were sent abroad toTurkey, Syria or Qatar; 18 were sent toGaza or abroad for a period of three years, whilst 146 were forcibly relocated toGaza on a permanent basis away from their homes.

According to a joint statement by prisoner rights group Addameer and legal rights group Al-Haq, “These terms violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits forcible transfers and deportations of protected persons, a proscription that is part of customary international humanitarian law. Unlawful deportation or transfer also constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV) and qualifies as one of the most serious war crimes. Given the stark asymmetry in power, resulting from the belligerent occupation, between the Palestinian and Israeli parties involved, neither the potential “consent” of the prisoners nor the fact that the deal was negotiated by a Palestinian authority can serve as justification for the deportations as this contravenes the spirit of articles 7, 8 and 47 of the GC IV concerning the inviolability of the protections afforded by the Convention.”

Addameer’s director, Saher Francis, notes that, as Gaza has been hermetically sealed off by Israel, the release of the prisoners “effectively serves as an extension of their previous isolation from their homeland and families and in many cases can be seen as a second prison sentence.”

Families of the prisoners spoke of their mixed feelings about the release and exile of their loved ones and revealed their fears and hopes for their family members.

The Assab family, Hebron

Ahmad Abu Assab, 18, spoke of his father Ataiah Assab, 47, who has been released after serving 18 years in prison and sent to Gaza City.

He was a member of the Hamas movement and he participated in three operations to kill Israelis, though he did not directly kill anyone. I was five months old at the time of his arrest. For the last two years I couldn’t visit him in prison, before that I visited him maybe around once every 2 months. When I heard he was being released I was very happy but when we heard he was going to be sent to Gaza our happiness was not complete. I was upset. They didn’t mention for how many years he has been sent to Gaza, I think they are making an example of him or testing him.

Ahmad was able to visit his father on his release, travelling through Jordan and Egypt to reach Gaza.

I hadn’t seen him for two years and when I met him I burst into tears. We hugged and kissed, and my father also cried. My father was in jail for 18 years and it was the first time I had touched him since I was five months old. I spent 13 days in Gaza with my father, but in Egypt I was detained for 2 days and they interrogated me – I didn’t tell them why I was going to Gaza.

Ahmad has two sisters and a brother and described the impact of Ataiah’s imprisonment.

Our family missed the pillar in our lives, someone who used to solve our problems, with whom we could share our problems, or give us advice – no one can replace your father, not even your uncle. Your father should be sharing your life and supporting the family, so it was hard. In spite of that we were steady and looked forward to the future. My mother divorced him whilst he was in jail 10 years ago. We haven’t seen her for 6 years – we don’t know if she is married or where she is. Our grandparents and uncles looked after me. But now my father will marry a girl in Gaza– his friends in Gaza have found a girl for him.

Despite being absent for nearly his entire life, Ahmad insists he bears no anger or resentment towards his father. “I am proud of my father for what he did but for some people, the resistance is not good. Some Palestinians think the resistance is useless and they don’t care.”

He says that his father will adapt well to life in Gaza. “My father knows some people who used to have a business with him before he was arrested – traders and businessmen. He is waiting for a job – we will open a branch of this shop [a toyshop in Herbon’s old city] in Gaza! He has to rest for 4-5 months, and after that he can start work.”

Despite the pain of exile, Ahmad says that his father is bearing up well.

“My father is happy to be released -Gaza is better than jail! Anything is better than jail.”

Al-Natsheh family, Hebron

Arafat Al-Natsheh, 39, was imprisoned in 1994 for participating in the Palestinian resistance in Hamas. His brother, Chaban, 37, says “he participated in three operations in Hebron in which three settlers were killed, but he didn’t directly kill anyone.”

When asked why he thought his brother was exiled to Gaza, Chaban replied, “Hamas wants to send as many prisoners as possible back to their homes but Israel wants to send as many as possible outside. The Israeli government wants to look better in front of the Israeli people.” Chaban suggested that as Gaza is a closed area, Israeli may think it is safer to send released prisoners there.

There is no time limit [on his exile] he will stay there until something changes” said Chaban, “When they were in prison it was like they were already deported, inside the jail there was really hard punishment. ButGazais part ofPalestine, they [the released prisoners] will start their lives there again; they will get married and choose to start another life. I wish they could come home [toHebron] but what can we do? Nothing. It’s better than being inside the jail!

Nevertheless, Chaban worries that life in Gaza will be hard for his brother. “For a prisoner who’s spent 18 years in jail it will be very difficult to start his life there, he will be completely confused. But he will start his life, he will forget politics, he will start looking for work but he will need time first to adjust. The first thing he will do is look for a wife. I will visit him if I get the chance.” Chaban’s mother and some of his siblings (there are five sons and seven daughters in the family) have visited him, travelling through Jordan and Egypt to reach Gaza.

Chaban said, “When I heard the news [that he would be released] I couldn’t believe it. I was so happy, but I couldn’t relax until he was actually released. I was always worried that something would change.”

Chaban was not allowed to visit his brother in prison – he had spent a year in jail himself and was denied visits for “security reasons.” He spoke to his brother once on the phone after their father had died. “[When he was released] I spoke to him on the phone and I had such strong feelings, but it is nothing like when you can touch someone and hug him,” said Chaban. “My mother is very old and she is ill – she has very high blood pressure. Whenever she got any news of my brother, like if there was a hunger strike, her health deteriorated. But when he was released, my mother said she felt like she could climb 1001 stairs!”

Chaban has a high opinion of the exchange deal.

It was great because my brother was also released. I wished for Shalit to be released and to go to his family because Shalit also had a mother and father waiting for him for 5 years. We know what it’s like to wait for the release of your son, so we understand Shalit’s family and how they feel. I wish all the Palestinian prisoners could be released in normal circumstances – without killing, or kidnapping soldiers. If there is no prisoners I don’t think the resistance would kidnap soldiers. I hope thatIsraellets the prisoners have a normal life now. Arafat has been punished – now let him have a normal life.

The Qafishih family, Hebron

Ala’a Qafishih was released after serving 8 years of a 30 year sentence. Ala’a’s family attempted to visit him in Gaza but the Israeli government prevented them from reaching Jordan. His father Mohammed says, “We have talked to him by phone– he says he is happy but at the same time he wishes the be in Hebron. He wants his wife and kids to be with him.”

Mohammad said, “Gaza’ s government welcomed him, they arranged some place to stay and the Hamas government is going to give each prisoner an apartment. Ala’a is very sociable and likes to meet people, and he’ll make friends easily there.”

Mohammed continues,

I was upset because I heard he was being released but sent toGaza. But I feel glad that they released him and I was surprised that he was released at all. I feel like it is now us who is in jail now he has been released but we can’t see him. They didn’t give any reason or explanation for why he was sent toGaza. Maybe because he was arrested many times before, so maybe it was a kind of punishment.

Ala’a is married and has a 12 year old son and a 7 year old daughter. His wife, Manal, said that her plan is “to take the children and move to Gaza to be with my husband. But the Israelis won’t let me go.”

Ala’a was imprisoned for participating in a group which was foiled in its attempt to carry out a bombing inIsrael. Despite this, the family insists they are proud of Ala’a.

“I only feel proud about what my son did,” said Mohammed. “I feel proud of anyone that resists the Israeli occupation, no matter what their political party. As Palestinians, we live in an unjust situation and we are supposed to fight the occupation in any way. We never thought he would be released, but thanks be to God he was. I wish the same for the other prisoners.”

The Wazwaz family, Hebron

Moussa Wazwaz, 29, was in prison for 8 years. He has three brothers and three sisters and is not married.

His mother Khowla describes her feelings at the circumstances of her son’s release. “Something hurt in my heart when I heard he would be sent to Gaza.”

Moussa had been serving a 792 year sentence (8 life sentences) as he was charged for his role in killing Israelis, a charge that he and his family has always denied. “I expected that all the family would die and he would stay in the jail” said Khowla.

The family says they have not attempted to visit him yet but they will try soon. Moussa’s brother Mohammed said, “There are two ways to get to Gaza– the first is to get permission and go through Israel to get to Gaza. The second is to go through Jordan,Egypt and Rafah to Gaza. We worry that they will stop us – there are a lot of families who have been prevented from going.” Kowla added, “When I met him [in prison] my son was like a lost person. So imagine how I will feel when I see him in front of me and feel him in my arms.”

Khowla worries what life will be like for him in Gaza. “He doesn’t know anyone there, there is no family, no friends. Our family doesn’t know anything about Gaza. It’s in God’s hands. We want him to have a normal life, a good life. We don’t know why he was sent there, Israel will fight to send all prisoners toGaza, it’s a kind of punishment.”

When Moussa’s father died he was 10 years old, so he had to start work, to sell products in the city centre. Mohammed went to Ramallah to study and “Moussa just kept working and studying” said Khowla. “He brought money to the whole family. He was everything in this house.”

Moussa’s younger brother Iyad, 22, is keen to talk about Moussa’s character.

“There are 8 years between me and Moussa. When I was a little boy he treated me in a very gentle way and as a friend, even when I was going to work with him. My brother had a very special character, he is a really unique guy.”

Iyad does consider the change in his brother after a prison sentence. “Sure he’s changed but I think he has changed for the better. He was jailed when he was 19 for 14 months – he could study in jail,and he came out better educated.”

His brother Mohammed is angry about the way the exchange deal was covered in the media. “When Gilad Shalit was arrested all the world knew about him. My brother has been released but there are still a lot of prisoners inside and a lot of people will be arrested in the future. Nothing will change. Always there is hope, but Shalit is one person and there are thousands of Palestinian prisoners. This family was suffering a lot and we don’t want another family just to keep suffering. Where is the world? The world started to talk about Gilad Shalit – when will they start to talk about our prisoners?”

Circumstances of arrest

The manner in which Palestinian suspects are arrested by the Israeli security forces is often a terrifying ordeal for the prisoner and their family.

Khowla Wazwaz recounts the night when her son Moussa was arrested.

It was around 6pm, it was raining. The soldiers surrounded the house and started to throw sounds bombs. When Moussa went outside – every gun has a laser – it was like there were hundreds of laser dots on his body. They asked him to remove all his clothes. They threw him this [a jumpsuit]. He took it and after that they arrested him. After that they told me to go inside and turn all the lights on and open all the windows. They entered the house and they started to check it.

They took my other sons and put them in another shop and Moussa in a different shop. After that they started to interrogate me – he asked me ‘Where does Moussa go, when does he come back.’ All these questions. I told him everything I knew but he told me ‘Look, the soldiers are beating him, so tell me where the gun is.’ I said ‘He doesn’t have any gun.’ I was interrogated for 3 or 4 hours. I heard someone screaming ‘Mother, mother!’ from the next room. I don’t know if they were beating Moussa or not, I think that perhaps it was someone acting.”

After that he told me, ‘You have been a widow since 1993, and you built this house. But now we are going to demolish it.’ They destroyed the inside of the house. We have a library in the house – they started to open fire [with live ammunition] at the books, they destroyed the computer and took the hard drive.”

Khowla has kept the spent bullet casings and a white jumpsuit thrown on the ground as mementoes; “We keep these just to remember that time.”

Amer Ahmad Al-Qwasmah, 45, was released as part of the exchange deal on 18 October 2011, after serving 23 years in prison for his part in a PFLP operation to kill an Israeli man in Jerusalem in 1987. He says, “I used to live in Jerusalem and came back to Hebron once a week to visit my parents. One day I was visiting my parents and the Israelis came to the home and they arrested me. They demolished the house, and they prevented my parents from building a new house until the PA [Palestinian Authority] was established here in 1997. This was common at the time.”

Mohammed Qafishih recalls that after his son Ala’a was arrested,

The Israeli army tried to demolish the home but it was almost like a miracle prevented it from happening. They arranged the dynamite but something happened and the Israeli army had to leave – [in that time] we got a lawyer to represent us and they managed to stop the demolition.” Mohammed says that the arrest was a traumatic experience for the family; “The Israeli army and intelligence arrived around 3am in the morning, they tried to destroy the main door – they gathered all of us and they started searching the house. They turned everything upside down, it took a long time to clean it up.

In a speech given in Jerusalem last month, newly released prisoner Ibrahim Mish’al recounted his arrest.

I was captured on the 28 March 1990. The Israelis entered my house with explosives and dogs; they didn’t care about the fact that there were children in the house. My son was two years old then and my daughter was one years old. My wife was three months pregnant. It was really horrifying for them and my daughter couldn’t speak for one year afterwards. I will never forget those moments or the look on my family’s faces when the whole house, the walls, everything, was demolished.

At the same event, Nasser Abed Rabbo said,

I was arrested from my house and they destroyed everything in the house. I was handcuffed and blindfolded. My arrest was not usual, I was not taken straight from my house to the police car; they took me through several neighbourhoods in my village, a very long distance, almost 2km, in order for the people in the village to see. I was hit repeatedly on the head and everyone saw me bleeding. I think the purpose of this was to make me an example for any other person who tries to resist occupation.

Denial of family visiting rights

The restrictions in place on Palestinians attempting to visit family members in Israeli jails often constitutes a form of psychological abuse and punishment for the families.

Chaban Al-Natsheh spoke of his frustration at being denied visits to see his brother, Arafat, in prison

Normally, the family should be able to visit every 15 days but there are problems with getting permission. My mother would get permission sometimes every 2 months, sometimes every 5 or 6 months. My other brothers would often get permission to visit only once a year. I couldn’t visit my brother at all in jail – I spent one year in jail – I was denied permission for ‘security reasons’. It was a really hard but this was destiny and I had to face it.

Chaban claimed that it was also extremely difficult to communicate with his brother by phone;

When people are given long sentences the military is very worried about them and they are not allowed phones. For people sentenced to 2, 3, or 5 years it is different; they have phones and they call their families all the time. But my brother could hardly ever call, I spoke to him just once – he was allowed one call when our father died. My brother started to talk but I couldn’t answer, I was so shocked, it was such a long time since I’d spoken to him.

Manal Qafishih was often denied visits to see her husband Ala’a,

There weren’t regular times to visit Sometimes it used to be every four months, sometimes every six months. They often refused to allow me and the family to visit my husband for ‘security reasons’ – this is all they would say. Family visits with the Red Crescent should be every 18 days. When we could visit, we were supposed to have 45 minutes but sometimes it was only for 30 minutes. It’s difficult to find the words to express how hard it is. During the visiting itself, you lose your dignity – they search you naked, they make you wait a long time – all this is routine.”

The Israeli authorities only allowed Ala’a’s brothers to visit him once during his eight-year incarceration, although his sisters were granted permission more freely. Manal says that “When they refuse someone to visit, they start with someone very close – if the prisoner is married they refuse the wife permission to visit, like they did with me. If they are not married, they refuse his mother permission. So it was easier for his sisters to visit than it was for me.”

In the first year of his sentence, no one was able to visit him – only the lawyer. We couldn’t even talk to him on the phone. There are many radio stations here inHebronand there are special programs, like ‘A Message for the Prisoners by the Families’ so we can say hello and pass messages, this was one of the ways to keep in touch, if prisoners are able to listen to the radio station. Another way to keep in touch is by the Red Crescent post but it is limited. You have to only write a few words, without an envelope. Ala’a used to send some letters from the jail but it used to take a long time.They put Ala’a in isolation two or three times – the last time he was in isolation for more than 100 days. Our only connection with him was through the lawyer, who only visited him once in 100 days. The problem is to visit him now he is in Gaza.

Khowla Wazwaz was often denied permission to see her son Moussa in prison and the family was frequently subjected to ill treatment during attempts to visit him.

I couldn’t get permission to see him [in prison] for the first year; I wasn’t even allowed to call him. After he was sentenced I could visit him and talk to him. To visit him we were leaving Hebron at 5AM to the Red Crescent, from there we take a bus and go to the prison checkpoint. In that time we were checked in a very bad way – if the soldiers feel like you have something strange then they check you in a closed room and often do strip searches. If you have food with you and it is not Israeli they will throw it away. If you take water and it’s frozen, they will throw it away. Once I brought stuffed olive leaves and they just smashed them. During the winter they don’t care about old men or women, many times women had jackets on during the winter and they told them to remove it outside.

We had 45 minute visits. Sometimes every 2 weeks, sometimes once a month, sometimes longer. Once I went to visit my son and I reached the prison they said that he was in a special truck in the prison waiting to be transferred, so I asked to see him. They refused and told me to leave. The Red Crescent sends the names to the Israelis and after that they give permission, so the Israelis knew that I was coming to visit.

We could send clothes and books but under really strict conditions. It was not permitted to send trousers with pockets, so I removed the pockets but they still refused!” Khowla has a suitcase full of clothes and books that she wanted to give to Moussa – “I tried many times to send these things. The authorities always lied and tried to confuse us – if you take black clothes they say ‘no – clothes have to be grey’. They wanted to make us suffer as much as we could. Now, if prisoners want clothes they have to buy them from the prison and they are very expensive. If you want to send a book they will check it and if you’ve directly written anything yourself in the book they will not accept it. I tried for three years to send some books but I couldn’t, they kept returning them. They’re religious books not political – how you should pray. I managed to send him just two or three books when he was in prison.

Mohammed added that, “It’s forbidden to send cologne to prisoners, so we sprayed it on books or clothes and tried to send it that way!”

Moussa’s brother Mohammed says that, “All the brothers and sisters were refused permission at first by the Israelis to visit our brother because of ‘security reasons.’ There is no real reason but they say ‘security reasons’ and that’s it. If we knew some prisoners visiting the same jail then we asked them to ask about him –if he needed clothes or anything like that.”

Eventually the restrictions were slightly relaxed; in six years Mohammed visited twice, his brother Iyad visited once and Fahed, another brother couldn’t visit at all. Moussa’s sisters were able to visit three or four times.

Mohammed is angry at the family’s treatment by the Israeli authorities. “If Moussa did something wrong, he got punished in the jail. But why punish all the family? Why did we not get permission to visit him? They don’t just punish the prisoner they punish all the family with him.”

Alistair George is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

‘A Needle in the Binding’: The legacy of Palestinian prisoner self-education in Israeli prisons

by Ben Lorber and Khalil Ashour

29 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On the third floor of the Nablus Municipality Library, there sits a room of over 8,000 books set apart from the rest. Many of these books are very old and tattered; many of them, in lieu of a normal face, are adorned with images taken from old National Geographic or Reader’s Digest magazines. Some are laboriously written by hand. The spines of the books show a variety of languages, from Arabic to English, French and Spanish. The New English Bible is flanked by The Great American Revolution of 1776 on one side and The Diary of Anne Frank on the other; across the aisle, Edward Said’s Orientalism and The Greek Myths look on silently, next to Elementary Physics and a study of The Chinese Road to Socialism.

One day in 2008, Italian artist Beatrice Catanzaro became fascinated with this section of the Nablus Library. “I would return day after day”, she related, “to pour over every detail- how the work was sown, the notations, the drawings.” A librarian, seeing her fascination, told her a story:

A few years ago an old man asked me for a specific book. [She picks up and shows me a thick hard covered grey book with old yellowish pages.] He started to explore the perimeter of the cover with his fingers, searching in the bookbinding gap. When [I] asked him what he was searching for, the man looked at [me] with a discouraged expression: ‘in prison I use to hide my embroidering needle in the binding of this book.’

What fascinated Beatrice about this collection? This 8,000-book collection is no ordinary collection, but the Prisoner’s Section of the Nablus Library. Here are gathered books that lived with generations of Palestinian prisoners behind the bars of Israeli prisons. The shelves are adorned with weathered tomes of economic theory, slim volumes of poetry, well-worn novels, textbooks on mathematics and physics, classic works of philosophy and history, and much more. Personal and political annotations, scribbles and drawings adorn these pages, which captivated the hearts and minds of decades of Palestinian prisoners before finding their way, after the closure of two ex-Israeli military detention structures in 1996, to this library.

PFLP leader Abdel-Alim Da’na, who was imprisoned for a total of 17 years between 1970 and 2004, spearheaded PFLP educational programs behind bars to spread the philosophy of resistance to less experienced prisoners. He explains the foundation of prison pedagogy- “everyone, when they enter the prison, must learn to read and to study. Some people, when they enter the prison, cannot read or write, and we put an end to their illiteracy. Some of them are very famous journalists now, some are poets, some are writing in the newspapers and doing research in the universities, some are men in the Palestinian Authority, some are activists!”

Khaled al-Azraq, a refugee from Aida Refugee camp who has been a political prisoner for the last 20 years, testifies that

Through the will and perseverance of the prisoners, prison was transformed into a school, a veritable university offering education in literature, languages, politics, philosophy, history and more…Prisoners passed on what they knew and had learned in an organized and systematic fashion. Simply put, learning and passing on knowledge and understanding, both about Palestine and in general, has been considered a patriotic duty necessary to ensure steadfastness and perseverance in the struggle to defend our rights against Zionism and colonialism. There is no doubt that the Palestinian political prisoners’ movement has played a leading role in developing Palestinian national education.

Khalil Ashour was a Palestinian political prisoner from 1970 to 1982. Years later, he became Director of the Ministry of Local Government for the PA in Nablus until his retirement in 2005. He was also a central figure in Beatrice Catanzaro’s aptly-titled exhibit in the Prisoner’s Section of the Nablus Municipality Library, ‘A Needle in the Binding’. Several excellent pictures and stories from Catanzaro’s exhibit, which ran until November 17, can be found here.

In conjunction with the exhibit, Khalil Ashour wrote a moving personal testimony called ‘The Palestinian Detainee and the Book’. In accordance with the wishes of Ashour and Catanzaro, it is reproduced here in full.

THE PALESTINIAN DETAINEE AND THE BOOK

by Khalil Ashour

The tragedy of detention is the deprivation of freedom of choice, or the limiting of this freedom to the minimum. If someone imposed their rules on you and oppressed you, you are their subject even if you are not a prisoner. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have lived this tragedy in the Israeli detention centers starting from the year 1967 until now, and the ugliest image of this tragedy was when Palestinian detainees were prohibited from reading and writing. They were allowed only to write letters of ten lines to their families, and if they were to write more than ten lines by one word or more, the prison administration used to tear up the letter. During this period Palestinian detainees used to spend their time in narrating stories they knew and films they had watched before detention.

I recall that a detainee narrated for us the story “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo, in several chapters. He used to narrate one chapter a day, until he finished the story after two weeks. We used to wait anxiously everyday until nighttime to listen to a new chapter. We all felt as if “Jean Valjean” the hero of the novel, was living among us. The last night we were so sad, as “Jean Valjean” was leaving our detention center, knowing that we were never to meet him again. And when the moment of separation arrived, a sorrowful silence fell upon us all.

This was our situation in Asqalan prison in the years 1970-1971. However, in Biet Led, in 1972, the prison administration allowed three things: the first one was to allow the “Jerusalem Post” Newspaper into the prison, which is published in English. One of the detainees who is fluent in English used to translate articles and news relevant to our interests as detainees for freedom. The second was distributing Israeli books which explain and defend the Zionist Movement, the Jewish right to Palestine, and that the Palestinian Organizations are a group of “terrorists” who are going to fail, in order to inject detainees’ minds with the Israeli version of the situation, bring despair to their hearts and smash their morale. The third one was that every detainee’s family is allowed to buy two books every month for their detained family member, however, these books were to be approved by the prison’s administration first, in addition to the fact that they should remain in the prison if the detainee is released or transferred to another prison. This is how the first library was established in Beit Led prison.

However, cultural life in Nablus prison was rather different. The prison was managed by the Jordanian Police before 1967, there was a small library of tens books in this prison. Most of the books were novels, poetry and few school books that talk about the Jordanian History. However books that address philosophy or politics were originally prohibited in the Jordanian Reign. A remarkable improvement occurred during one of the Red Cross’s visits near the end of the year 1972, the delegation handed us a long list of the books that are allowed and approved by the prison’s administration. The list was distributed to the detainees to choose whatever they wanted, it included books about Marxism, Leninism, Communist theory, and Socialist thought. It was a golden opportunity for the Popular Front and democratic front organizations’ members, as their leaders say that they are leftist organizations that defend laborers’ rights, and lead the proletariat revolution from the inside of the Palestinian national movement and Arab nationalism. This was the first time that the communist books were seen in prisons.

Every time a delegation from the Red Cross used to visit the detainees, the number of red books increased, as well as religious books, especially those authored by Hassan Al-Banna, Sayed Qotob and his brother Mohammed Qotob, as well as Mohammed Al-Ghazali. Those authors were the founders and poles of the Muslim Brotherhood that was established in Egypt in 1928.

Based on these books, the thoughts that lie within their pages, and according to their viewers and readers, three intellectual trends appeared and spread among detainees. 1. A patriotic and national movement 2. A communist and socialist movement 3. A religious and Salafi movement. Fruitful and rich discussions and debates occurred between these three parties, which improved the intellectual and cultural level of the detainees. These movements also influenced residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as its ideas spread among the populace, especially amongst university students and educated people. When the communist and socialist movements disintegrated as a result of the fall of the Soviet Union after the year 1989, the leftist parties and organizations suffered from a sever tremor, and a deep shock, as they started flopping aimlessly searching for an identity, which resulted in the spread of the Religious and Salafi movement’s values, thus gaining more popularity, as it found itself more free to compete with the national movement.

In addition, books’ spread in Israeli prisons, and the variation in its genres and subjects, opened new horizons for the detainees; even those who were illiterate, mastered reading and writing. Detained students completed their education, became Tawjihi degree holders, and joined universities after they were released. Those who were interested in language learned Hebrew, English and French. Those with little knowledge read books about geography, history, economy, politics, philosophy, astronomy, religion, and literature. This is how Palestinian detainees turned prisons, through reading and writing into active and living workshops, as a room in any prison used to be calm at time allocated for reading and noisy when holding sessions and conducting debates, regardless of the number of inmates. In order to test erudition and level of knowledge, they used to conduct a weekly “question & answer” tournament, and award the winning team. As a result of this tournament, the spirit of competition spread among detainees, they started reading more, and copying books to send to other prisons that lacked them. It is known that copying books helps in memorizing more than reading. Translations also became common from Hebrew or English into Arabic. Detainees used to hold a special meeting to listen to translated articles’, which used to be read by the translator himself. They even held meetings in order to listen to translated literature.

One of the cultural activities also was that a group of detainees worked on preparing and distributing magazines, where they would hand write their articles in notebooks. Here one can see how the desire for learning, reading new books and self-education, was spread amongst detainees, as it was their priority. Books played a pioneering role in the significant change in detainees’ lives and hearts, and the clear evidence was that detainees were different when they were released; different than how they were several years ago when they were arrested. They occupied important and influential positions in society after they were released, in fact, some of them were top students at universities, and some of them went on to complete their MA and PHD degrees.

It is natural for detainees to pursue any mean in order to free themselves from imprisonment, and search for a way to escape from their harsh and bleak reality. Those who are deprived of bread dream of bread, and those who are deprived of freedom seek freedom. The Palestinian prisoner resorted to books in order to dream and free themselves through words as well as to escape to an alternative to their lived reality. If the book was a novel, the prisoner lives with its characters and moves amongst them from one place to the other, eavesdrops on their discussions, experiences their feelings, and walks around in their homes. This feeling creates another life for the prisoner, another world, and another reality.

Hence, books transferred and freed prisoners, even if it was temporary, it is the path to their salvation, as it also brings new ideas to the reader, and new beliefs, it introduces us to different lived experiences, which leads to a widening of horizon and an openness towards difference. The more books a human reads, the more minds he tackles and deals with, the more he enriches his knowledge.

A book is a spring of knowledge that quenches the intellect’s thirst for learning, blessed are those minds that are forever thirsty.

A book is a new world – we add to the world we know a space for another. The book is a transformation tool from a state to a better one, if we listened carefully to what it says and comprehended what it means. A book does not redeem humans from illiteracy, ignorance, delusion and myth only, it redeems one from corruption, bad manners, bad behavior, narrow mindedness, and bias.

Books reveal your true self, guide you to what you will become, and illuminate your world just like the sun lights your day. There are two truths in this world, the first is is God which is a permanent truth, and the second; the world, is temporary. We came to this life to read the second truth in order to understand the first, and those who do not know are the ones who do not read.

Ben Lorber and Rana Way are volunteers with International Solidarity Movement.

Political organization, resistance, and education in Israeli prisons

by Alistair George and Ben Lorber

24 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Raed Atrash, 25, is a presenter and journalist working in Hebron; his work focuses on prisoner’s issues. He interviews prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families, and he writes articles and presents programmes on the issue. Issa Amro is the director of Youth Against Settlements (YAS), a nonviolent organization protesting against the occupation.

They spoke to ISM about political organization, resistance and education in prison and how the media covers prisoner issues.

ISM: Can you explain how life in prison is organized for Palestinian political prisoners?

Attrash: Life inside prison is organised very well. Every prisoner who is arrested by the Israeli army will go to the prison and align himself with a political party…for each party, there is a leadership committee which organises the life of these prisoners.

Prison is divided into many parts; in each part there is a commitee from all the parties which decides rules that the prisoners have to follow in order to organise their life. There is a cultural committe in order to raise the awareness amongst the prisoners of what’s happening outside and inside to give them the experience to deal with their situation. There is also a management committee to solves clashes between prisoners if something happens. There is a religious commitee which will protect the right to pray for every prisoner.

There are rarely clashes between different political groups in prison. There are a lot of problems between the prisoners and the Israeli management – they interfere and they try to make problems for the prisoners. They try to interrogate them in the night in order to annoy them and to create instability in their lives. They also try to strip search them. They try to take the machines which prisoners use – televisions or hot-plates. It’s not easy to live without these things.

There is also an educational committee in prison. There are very intelligent prisoners inside the prison who have a very high level of education. The task of this committee is to teach the prisoners how to read and write – simple education.

Five years ago the [Israeli] management allowed papers and pens into prison. Since Shalit [was captured] they prevented books and paper from entering. They are allowed now to buy pencils but not new books.

ISM: Are any Palestinian prisoners studying for degrees or taking high school exams?

Attrash: Absolutely none.

Amro: In the past they were letting the schoolchildren take the high school exams but not anymore – not the high schools or even any degrees as a collective punishment for all the prisoners for Shalit. After Shalit was captured they launched a new law (‘Shalit’s Law’) against the prisoners. After he was released everyone thought they might stop Shalit’s Law, to let the Palestinian prisoners study, to let the families from Gaza vistit their family members. Until now, nothing has changed – only the isolation [has ended] because of the hunger strikes.

Attrash: Many prisoners volunteer to teach the other prisoners but the main issue is to have a formal education – to have a degree at the end of the education and they are not allowed to do it. They call it ‘self-education’, the prisoners teach each other many subjects. It’s continuous and working well – you need education to fill your time, otherwise you will go crazy.

ISM: Can you describe the political education and resistance that takes place in prison?

Attrash: They teach the prisoners about the Palestinian cause in general, about the history of the Palestinian people and the naqba [tragedy] and teach them many case studies in the world; Che Guevara and these kind of revolutions – the French, Indian, Colombian – to use them as case studies for revolutions across the world. There are many political meetings, debates, discussions among the prisoners to teach them and empower their discussions. For many prisoners this is a form of steadfastness for them and a form of remaining in their cause and supporting their motivations and their willingness to learn more and more. Without this kind of education and empowerment I don’t know if they can survive.

[Regarding resistance in prison] usually they have many steps and they have their own nonviolent resistance history – the hunger strike and disobedience. They have representatives in there, a structure, people who negotiate with the authorities, they try to talk to them and convince them. They start with boycotts, not listening, not going for the count, missing meals until they go to the hunger strike. After the hunger strike is the disobedience – they ignore the security completely and they don’t listen at all – which makes it very hard and its not easy to count the prisoners every three hours without their willingness.

Amro: Historically nonviolent resistance was very successful inside Israeli jails. Many writers wrote about the prison resistance – it’s nonviolent resistance. They got many achievements; they got the right to education, to family visits, more TV channels, reading, writing, food – prisoners negotiate about every small detail of their lives. It’s a continuous conflict and it’s about who will give up first and usually the prisoners get their rights through many hunger strikes – many people died because of their resistance. If you are strong, they [the Israelis] listen to you.

Attrash: Israel considers children older than 15 as adult – although from 15-18 they put them in a special jail, they don’t want them to let the political prisoners affect them politically.

All the prisoners consider the jail as a school. Prisoners in Israeli jails learns political issues, languages, religion – anything you can imagine. It’s not optional for the prisoner not to study or participate in these courses – all the Palestinian parties/factions oblige their members to join the education system – both political and otherwise. There are some optional courses, which are extra, but the basic education is compulsory. This obligation fulfills the prisoner’s needs, so you don’t have anyone refusing this.

Many prisoners go into jail without any political education. When they go in they have a lot of time to study why they are doing this [resisting] and they study the theory behind their practice. They give them all these case studies and international law, tactics to resist and they share their experience fighting the occupation.

Because of the division that happened between Fatah and Hamas, the West Bank and Gaza, the institution that created the unity charter was the prisoners. The prisoners from Fatah and Hamas inside Israeli jails had a meeting and published a unity charter and now all the Palestinian factions are implementing it outside jails.

Amro: The prisoners are creative in what they do and they have a huge influence on the outside, this is why you saw all the people were more than happy when the Shalit deal gave them hundreds of prisoners, it was 10% of the Palestinian prisoners but the happiness was much more [than this] as if all the prisoners were released. All Palestinians are united in listening to the prisoners – they see them as holy people, in spite of their political background or agenda. All of them are equal and all of them are heroes in our eyes.

ISM: What are your opinions of the recent prisoner exchange deal?

Attrash: It’s a very good achievement to release even one prisoner. This deal released 315 prisoners on life sentences in Israeli jails and usually they don’t give them a release date – even their bodies usually stay in Israeli jails [after they die], they keep them in special freezers or they bury them in cemetaries – just to punish the families. It was a good achievement.

Amro: I have a poltical concern about the deal. I thought that if they insisted to release Marwan Bargouti he would make a change in Palestinian political life, especially to Fatah. Marwan Bargouti will start the third intifada for sure. He’s the only one who can unify Fatah and all the Palestinian factions, everyone agrees on his leadership. He was leading the second intifada and sentenced to six life sentences. It gives him uncountable credit from the Palestinians from all factions. All the factions consider all the prisoners as heroes. If he is already a leader and he is high up in Fatah – this will make him the future President of Palestine. [There will be a third intifada] next year or the year after – we are very close. It will for sure be an nonviolent intifada, as the first intifada.

The Palestinians learned from the second intifada and the political factions, even Hamas, are now talkign about nonviolence and the influence from the Arab Spring is so influential and we have very good experience. The second intifada was problematic for us. It was not normal – we were led to the second intifada. I was one of the people starting the second intifada because I was a leader in my university. How it became a violent intifada or an armed resistance, I don’t know. I stopped following it after it became an armed intifada. I can’t use arms. The majority of the guns were from Israel – Israel wants us to be violent and to keep us violent to justify killing our children and killing us. In the beginning of the second intifada the students were demonstrating in the streets and one day 10 people were killed in Hebron and they were only nonviolent demonstrators. More than 100 people injured. They were shooting at us with rubber bullets – I was injured – from zero distance [point blank range] which made it hard for the intifada to stay nonviolent – it was not proportional force. They deal with us as gunmen – they don’t have any methodology to stop the nonviolent resistance, they are only trained to shoot, and to kill, and to be violent.

The hatred inside them is so high. Blind support from the UK,USA,Germany– if you know that all the strong countries support you, why follow international law? Gaddafi described his people as ‘rabbits’ – they [the Israeli authorities] don’t even see us as rabbits, they see us as less than rabbits or mice. They don’t see us as human beings, so we deserve to die. A rabbi in Kiryat Arba [an Israeli settlement near Hebron] wrote a book syaing that you are allowed to kill Palestinian children, you are allowed to kill Palestinians even if they are not attacking you. He is a religious leader and he is trying to transmit this poison to his followers. Hate speech in Israel is illegal….I filed complaints. You can’t challenge violence, even with all the evidence – you will not achieve anything in Israeli law [if you are Palestinian] it will vanish in Israeli courts.

Everyday in 2008 I went to the police station to make complaints. I went once to the court last year and they found him [a settler] guilty – he confessed that he broke my camera. I had the video to prove that he attacked me. The prosecutor representing me didn’t [even] want him to go to jail or to do voluntary work, she just wanted to send him to the behavioural officer where they tell him ‘how come you let him film you doing that, next time don’t leave evidence’ – this is the behavioural officer! To file complaints to the same authorities that are violating the law – it’s useless.

ISM: What motivates you [Attrash} to focus on prisoners’ issues?

Attrash: It’s my patriotic duty, my national duty. I am supporting human rights and the prisoners cause is a human rights case, it’s not even a political thing. I have been in jail in 2009 for six months for ‘incitement’ against Israel, through my work.

Amro: If he was in a political party or in a poltical movement they would not accuse him of incitement – as a journalist or an activist these are the only charges that they can use. They use it for many other Palestinian activists and journalists.

Attrash: When I was released, one of the intelligence commanders told me ‘I hope not to listen or hear you on the radio again’. I work with 10 radio stations now! During the investigation they showed me the timetable of my programmes and they were following my media programmes.

Amro: This shows for me that it is not about terrorism or violating Israeli law. On the contrary, putting a journalist in the Israeli jail is violating Israeli law and international law and the Geneva Conventions. He has special protection as a journalist. This is one of the main violations of the Israelis and why you don’t have many Palestinian journalists working hard against the occupation as you are a target.

Even if you are not a terrorist and you don’t believe in violence, if you are a journalist, a writer, a musician, a football player – whatever – you are a target. They are targeting any active member in the Palestinian community, it’s about destroying Palestinian society and this is why we [YAS] are a target here because we are trying to empower the community. They want the community to be without a leader, without a guide. All the Palestinian leaders, in spite of their ideology, are a target for the Israeli security in a different way. If you are within the law they put you in jail according to the law – I was accused of incitement and it wasn’t a mistake – it is a systematic way to kill any voice against the occupation.

Take Abu Mazen’s step to go to the UN [bid at UN] it is a completely nonviolent step, he is allowed to do it according to international law, and they can oppose him politically, not to threaten to destroy Ramallah or theWest Bankor to cut the money. But the international community is silent. The Israeli security forces are the real terrorists, not us.

Attrash: I was once in the studio giving my programme – I was live – and the Israeli forces came and stopped the programme and raided the radio station and detained me for an hour. This is normal for the Israeli security. There is more harassment when I am out working in the field; they detained me many times. I was detained at one of the checkpoints after I participated in the journalists forum election. They detained me for 2 hours even though they knew I am a journalist and I showed them my ID as a journalist…I [personally] know 10 journalists in jail but there are a lot more.

Amro: You are a terrorist in spite of any identity you have. All the Palestinians are terrorists – this is how they treat us! We are all Bin Laden! This is how they try to show us to the world.

ISM: How important is it to be sensitive to terminology in your media work?

I took a special course in the terminology of international law about what to use exactly to suit [fit in] international law, not Palestinian culture or Israeli propaganda.

ISM: What do you make of the media coverage of the prisoner exchange?

Attrash: The international media covered the Shalit case and put him equal with 6000 Palestinian prisoners. Some media agencies ignored the 6000 and only mentioned the victim who was Shalit, and the majority of the Palestinian prisoners are political prisoners and they didn’t participate in killing Israelis, however Shalit was inside a tank [as part of an occupying force that killed people], he was captured from his tank, not from his house, or his city or his school or his university. The Palestinian media was talking about him as a normal prisoner and telling him that he should be treated according to our Islamic culture and that he should be safe and treated well, not as happened to our prisoners in Israeli jails who are suffering daily.

Amro: All of the big international media agencies are biased, all of them are pro-Israel and pro the Zionist movement and they lie and manipulate and they hide a lot of obvious facts. We use social media [to get past the media agencies], it’s our method to teach all the people in the world what’s happening.

ISM: But surely there are still many unbiased and fair journalists out there?

Amro: Let’s say that all international journalists are either pro-Israel or neutral. I see the neutral people as biased – when you see violations, when you see oppressed people and you are neutral; you are biased and participating with the oppressor. I meet many journalists who are pro-Palestinians but they are a tiny amount compared [to pro-Israelis]. I’m not against Israel by the way – I am aganist the occupation! This is very important – if you are against the occupation, it doesn’t mean that you are against Israel – on the contrary, if you are against the occupation you are going to protect Israel in the long-term. Not having a solution [to the occupation] doesn’t helpIsrael.

ISM: If this is true, how do you explain it?

Amro: People are afraid of [being called] anti-semitic. I met one of the main journalists from the Washington Post. He said ‘either you are pro-Israel or you are silent, this is how to be successful’. What about transparency, freedom of information etc and what about funds? ‘They will cut your salary.’ Capitalism, globalisation, all the big companies in the world are owned by the Jews or they are cowards. Usually rich people are cowards. I don’t think Obama is against out cause, I think he is pro-our cause but I don’t think he thinks his country’s interest is with our cause. This is when we will reach our freedom, when our cause will be connected with the national interests of theUK,Sweden,USA,China,Russia – it’s about politicians, not about principles, morals or anything like that. There are many good people in Israel who want to live in peace and love with the Palestinians but they are controlled and hidden [by the media].

Ben Lorber and Alistair George (name has been changed) are volunteers with International Solidarity Movement.