i don’t know how to make you care about a dying Palestinian prisoner on his 59th day of hunger strike

Posted on 14/02/2012 by esta

“My husband is dying inside an Israeli jail. The world should make sure I am able to see him. And it should pressure the Israeli government to release him before it’s too late.”
– Randa Adnan, 13.2.2012

(from an email wrote to friends while in Europe))

i haven’t been posting about Khader Adnan, a Palestinian political prisoner who entered his 59th! day of hunger strike today because, to my shame, i felt overwhelmed, i had no idea how to stir any reaction in you, how to make you understand that a man is dying, how outrageous this is. it felt so insufficient to just keep writing some emails that you probably won’t read, although every day,  I receive several calls for action and emails and posts about his condition and the widespread protest against his detention that activists have been staging in support while governments, supposedly relevant organizations and mainstream media continue to do nothing.

 

how do we explain the reality of immense abuse, murder, massacres etc of people in our area in any way that might reach so many people who have been told for too long that this has nothing to do with them, that this is “unfortunate”, that “these things happen”? if it was the reality that was dumped upon your sister, you would likely scream in outrage. but exasperatingly, there is this wrong feeling that these things won’t happen to “us” – a feeling that is based on a very shitty perception of all victims of these crimes as somehow “others” – they are not us, they live in a different world with different rules and different standards, we cannot identify. and these feelings of “this has nothing to do with us” and the reality that, if a fragment of this did happen to any of “us”, you WOULD feel and express outrage are only possible because there is somewhere the notion that your rights don’t apply to “them”, or maybe, they are less than, less human, or maybe they must have done SOMEthing to deserve it? Because how can these things happen?

 

i am aware that i am attacking you in this condescending and presumptuous way. i am despairing, i don’t know how to make you react – forget react, for one moment, how to make you REALIZE, ACKNOWLEDGE, FEEL – any more.

but i am trying, if only in this cynical way:

 

Khader Adnan is entering his 59th day of hunger strike to protest his “administrative detention” (meaning they imprisoned for an arbitrarily extendable period of time him without informing either him or his lawyer of their reasons, without bringing any charges against him and, hence, without the prospect of a trial) and the outrageous treatment he has been receiving at the hands of the Israeli military legal system and its executives (torture, denial of rights, humiliation, etc.).

 

since it is difficult to image what 59 days of hunger strike mean, let me tell you that i am afraid to find out he has died as I’m writing this. Khalder Adnan is in very critical condition, in hospital, chained to his bed, still denied all kinds of rights.

 

yesterday, an Israeli court finally heard an appeal against the decision to keep Khader in prison until at least May 8 (after having postponed the original date for the hearing). And in spite of Khader’s condition, the court rejected the appeal, affirming that HE WILL REMAIN IMPRISONED UNTIL At LEAST MAY 8.

THIS IS A DEATH SENTENCE. since day 45 of his hunger strike, Khader could die at any moment. the judge furthermore argued that it is ADNAN WHO IS TO BLAME FOR HIS SITUATION.

 

please inform yourself and others and choose whatever action suits you best (call/fax/write to Israeli responsibles (see bottom of this link) or political representatives of your area, join or organize protests, print signs/messages, etc.).

 

disrupt your routines and those of other’s! make sure we won’t have the blood of yet another man on our hands.

 

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human rights defender mahmoud abu rahma attacked for 2nd time in gaza

Posted on 18/01/2012 by esta

Mahmoud Abu Rahma, a renowned rights defender, was attacked for the second time in two weeks last friday. this attack was brutal. this is fucked up, this is shit, and we fight this as much as the occupation. we are fighting for a free palestine and a free world, against the denial of our rights and the repression of our fight for them – no matter by whom. this is not to equate the oppressors with those among the oppressed that opt for the oppression of those of us who are even less protected. context is always crucial.

 

PCHR Condemns Attack on Human Defender, Mahmoud Abu Rahma
Tuesday, 17 January 2012 11:00

Ref: 7/2012

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the attack against Mahmoud Abu Rahma, a human rights defender and Director of Communication and International Relations Unit in Al Mezan Center for Human Rights by unknown persons last Friday evening in Gaza City. PCHR calls upon the competent authorities to investigate this attack and bring the perpetrators before justice.

According to statements made by Mahmoud Abu Rahma, 38, who lives in Tal al-Hawa district in Gaza City, at approximately 23:15 on Friday, 13 January 2012, Abu Rahma was walking from the house of his brother Mohammed to his nearby home. On his way home three masked persons carrying sharp tools attacked Abu Rahma and stabbed him in his back, leg and shoulders. Abu Rahma sustained a stab wound in his hand as he tried to defend himself from attacks to his chest. Abu Rahma stated that the attackers had tried to stab him in his chest; however his laptop, which blocked a lot of the attacks, saved him. The attackers then withdrew while shouting death threats and insults. Abu Rahma called a doctor from the neighborhood to provide him with medical treatment. It was found that Abu Rahma sustained injuries from stabbing to his right thigh and left hand, which required stitching. Abu Rahma also sustained slim wounds in his back.

It should be noted that this attack is the second of its kind on Abu Rahma within two weeks. On 03 January 2012, he sustained an unarmed attack by unknown persons.

Abu Rahma noted that he recently received many threats on his mobile phone and e-mail. These threats included insults and threats to his life. The last threat he received was a few hours before the attack. Based on the threats that Abu Rahma received, these attacks were launched on the ground of an opinion piece titled “Absent Protection: Among Resistance, Government and Citizens” that Abu Rahma had authored. PCHR has witnessed some of the threats, including a threat that read “Death to Abu Rahma.”

PCHR strongly condemns the attack on Abu Rhama and:

1. Calls upon competent authorities to seriously investigate the two attacks on Abu Rahma and bring the perpetrators before justice.

2. Stresses that the freedom of opinion and expression is guaranteed under the Palestinian Basic Law and its amendments and under international human rights instruments.

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two killed in another airstrike on the gaza strip

Posted on 18/01/2012 by esta

17 year old Ahmad al Zaneen and Mohammad Abu Odeh were killed in another airstrike on the northern Gaza strip, making them the fifth martyrs killed by Zionists in Palestine this year, while at least two more died because of/were murdered by of the military occupation.

on average, Gaza is being attacked at least every other day of late.

here more:
https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/gaza-under-attack-2-killed/

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stop using martin luther king and gandhi to delegitimize our resistance!

Posted on 16/01/2012 by esta

To quote my friend Tom Vee: “MLK was a radical. Don’t buy into the “white-washed, bastardized retrospectives of Martin Luther King, Jr’s legacy.”

this is a beginning of a rant that I will continue on and off: i am so, so fed up with people (particularly in Western discourse) repeatedly utilizing some highly problematic, westernized reading of history and the so-called “non-violent resistance” of Gandhi and Martin Luther King so as to delegitimize any form of resistance that does live up to the moral standards set by the assumed tools used by these retrospectively sanctified men. I HAVE HAD IT WITH THAT, fuck off if you think about coming at me with any such crap, read non-Eurocentric historiography of their liberation struggles instead!

the whole Gandhi-imagery is whole other topic on its own (white-man’s version of how he resisted and what led to India’s independence purposefully ignores the Indian revolutionary movement that used more radical tools of resistance – and played a major role in mobilizing particularly the youth. not saying that Gandhi wasn’t important or impressive, but saying that 1) the version disseminated mostly is the one approved by Western men and 2) that there were other movements that played a major role in mobilizing resistance to British colonization and that were so threatening to the Brits that Gandhi appeared much more attractive.

 

but back to MLK, Jr. here are excerpts from his last speech (watch the video) that don’t fit so well with the holier-than-thou image of his that is being shoved in the faces of anyone who dares to resist in anything that is not PURE non-violence (whatever that is). and even had he not said this, i would still (and do either way) insist that IT IS AND WILL ALWAYS BE THE OPPRESSED WHO CHOOSES HOW TO FIGHT THE OPPRESSOR. and if you give me that crap about the differentiation between oppressor and oppressed being not so clear, etc., you are white-washing and condoning oppression, so fuck off.

 

Excerpts from MLK: “Why I am opposed to the war in vietnam”

“There is…a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America […]. And you may not know it, my friends, but it is estimated that we spend $500,000 to kill each enemy soldier, while we spend only fifty-three dollars for each person classified as poor, and much of that fifty-three dollars goes for salaries to people that are not poor. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor, and attack it as such.[…] As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. […] They ask if our nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without first having spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. […] There’s something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that will praise you when you say, Be non-violent toward Jim Clark, but will curse and damn you when you say, “Be non-violent toward little brown Vietnamese children. There’s something wrong with that press! […] We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. […] This is a role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolutions impossible but refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that comes from the immense profits of overseas investments. […] We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered. […] A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” […] Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing, unconditional love for all men. […]

 

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what happened on jan 10 in jericho?

Posted on 14/01/2012 by esta

Mahmoud, a very close friend, and three others who had been detained in the “car protest” on Wednesday were released a day later, while Omar was remanded until Sunday. while it is infuriating that Omar is again imprisoned – he had just been released as part of the “prisoners swap” – it was nice to know that mahmoud and the others were released on thursday as it could have gone differently, too. i think all that video footage (like this bit) of the protest and the arrests and as well as the attention drawn to their cases probably factored in.

here is what Mahmoud wrote today:

Dears,
I would like to thank all of you who stand with us, who have shown amazing support these past three days and demanded our immediate release from Israeli military jail. I hope that we will be able to free Omar Dar Ayoub from Nabi Saleh soon, as well. Although Omar was arrested together with the other four of us on Wednesday, only a short time after finally having been released from military jail as part of the “prisoner swap”, Omar, alone, was remanded until Sunday. We need Omar out NOW, together with all political prisoners.

Unlike Omar, Anwar Abu Mousa, the young woman from Ramallah who was arrested first, ‘Azmi al Shyouhki from Hebron, Khaled Tamimi from Nabi Saleh and I were released Thursday night, after the first hearing of the “case” against us in military court. During the hearing, the prosecution had argued vehemently for the need to extend our imprisonment – on the grounds that, for various reasons, they had allegedly not been able to conclude the interrogations and generally needed more time to prepare the case against us. Fortunately, our lawyer was nonetheless able to secure the release of the four of us – on the condition that we each pay 3000NIS in cash as bail, sign guarantees of another 10,000NIS that we would be forced to pay should we fail to show up in military court, and the signature of a third person also guaranteeing that we will show up (as if there was any way we could evade that in the occupied Palestinian West Bank).

No charges were formally brought against us yet, but during the hearing, the prosecution accused all five of us of having “assaulted” soldiers and of “illegal assembly”. In spite of ample video footage and other evidence to the contrary, the prosecution alleged that ‘Azmi, Khaled and I had pushed soldiers, while Anwar had allegedly slapped one soldier and Omar kicked four of them, as if highly armed Israeli soldiers in an equally armed military unit were likely targets for unarmed and handcuffed Palestinian civilians.

Of course, accusing us of assault is an easy and efficient way for the prosecution to criminalize us, but after all that had happened in the previous 30 hours or so, it was highly surreal to listen to the prosecutor’s allegation. For a moment, it almost sounded like we should organize a campaign of solidarity with the soldiers.

What actually happened is this:
Early Tuesday morning, our convoy set off from the center of Jericho. Our plan was to drive together to Ramallah on “Road 1”, one of the so-called “bypass roads” that Israeli authorities illegally build on Palestinian land to provide infrastructure for the equally illegal settlements.

Although they run right all over the occupied West Bank, in and around our privately owned lands, the “Israeli Civil Administration” claims full control on these roads, but “allows” us West Bank Palestinians to use them alongside the settlers. In practice, this means that Israeli traffic police not only patrols on these roads, but actually claims authority on them, frequently stopping us and issuing arbitrary fines; all along these roads, Israeli settlers wait at bus stops of ordinary Israeli bus companies, only a few meters away from the make-shift bus stops that we are allowed to use; attacks through settlers or pull-overs through Israeli military are common…

We had intended to drive up to Ramallah via one of these roads, and only then use some of those roads that are accessible to Jewish settlers only and from which we are barred. But we didn’t even make it that far.

On our way to Ramallah, before reaching “Road 1” which, according to their bizarre military law, we are allowed to use, we were stopped by Israeli armed forces. We were told that we would not be allowed to continue our trip while displaying the Palestinian flag – an act that, since the “Oslo accords” of 1993, is no longer considered illegal by Israeli authorities. About 300m away, illegal settlers were driving past unhindered, displaying the Israeli flag in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.

As you might have seen in the many videos of that day, we were angered and outraged at this arbitrary denial of our freedom of movement.. We had come to exercise some of those rights that are regularly denied to us, and we were not going to walk away with yet more of our rights stripped away. We refused to turn back or to take down our flags.

In the ensuing argument, Awar was suddenly and very arbitrarily arrested. When Omar tried to prevent this absurd arrest, he, too, was arrested, shorty followed by ‘Azmi. At that point, IOF took both my ID and the ID of my friend Naim Manar, and ordered us to move to the side while they made checked information on us. I realized that they were going to arrest me as well and that my car was stuck on the road, right in front of the soldiers, so I handed the car keys to Khaled Tamimi, and caught a ride back to Jericho. I later learned that they then arrested Khaled (who – after having been released together with us Thursday evening – was rearrested later that night during a raid, together with 17 year old Anan and 20 year old Mahdi, and then again released yesterday evening while Anan and Mahdi remain in prison). The army also prevented anyone else from moving my car.

30 minutes after I left, the Israeli “intelligence” office began calling me on my mobile phone and threatening that I would be put on the “wanted” list if I did not turn myself in immediately. Knowing the limited options available to us in occupied Palestine, I opted to go back in the company of a lawyer.

As soon as I arrived, I was handcuffed and blindfolded and taken to the “DCO” in Jericho where I was kept until I was brought to the settlement in Ma’ale Adumim. After Anwar, Omar, ‘Azmi, Khaled and I were interrogated, we were then transferred to the military prison in Ofer, which marked our official arrest.

This is only one more example for the blatant disregards of any Palestinian rights in the entire Israeli system, including its so-called legal one. Khaled, like so many other Palestinian women, men, and children, remains in military jail because of the arbitrary and criminal politics of an entity that is allowed to act with total impunity. This has to stop!

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