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Saif Dahlah / AFP - Getty Images
Palestinian children hold posters of hunger striker Bilal Diab, who is in administrative detention in Israeli prison, during a demonstration in his support in the West Bank village of Kafr Rai near Jenin on Friday.
JENIN, West Bank – Im Hisham, 65, spends her days sitting in her home in Kufur Raei village near here waiting for news about her 27-year-old son, Bilal Diab.
“I haven’t seen my son since the day Israeli Special Forces raided our home in the middle of the night and arrested him in front of my eyes,” she said of the incident on Aug. 16, 2011. “They gave him administrative detention for six months and when the six months ended they extended his detention for six more without charges or trial.”
Palestinians resort to hunger strike in protest
Diab has since become one of the faces of a mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
On Friday, Diab and Thaer Halahleh, another prisoner, entered their 74th day without food. They are demanding that the Israeli courts either charge them or set them free.
Israel’s practice of administrative detention allows the military to hold prisoners indefinitely based on secret information without charging them or allowing them to stand trial. Israeli officials defend its use as a way to hold Palestinians who pose an immediate threat to the country's security. Israel says they keep the evidence secret from lawyers and the accused because it would expose their intelligence-gathering networks if released.
Attention to Diab and Halahleh’s protest escalated on April 17 when an estimated 1,600 inmates launched their own mass hunger strike in solidarity, a move that led to Palestinians taking to the streets in the West Bank and Gaza almost daily to rally in support of the prisoners’ protest.
Abbas Momani / AFP - Getty Images
Palestinian protesters hold portraits of their relatives held in Israeli jails during a demonstration to show solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday.
Fears for life
On Friday, a spokesperson for Physicians for Human Rights, a humanitarian organization in Israel, said he fears for Diab and Halahleh’s lives.
Yael Marom complained that the last time the Israeli Prison Service allowed one of their doctors to visit Diab was on April 30. “The Israeli Prison Service is still denying regular access to [Diab] and the other hunger strikers by independent physicians and do not update us or the families, which is a blatant breach of medical ethics," she said.
Israel says all prisoners receive adequate medical attention, including care civilian hospitals if required. "As of now, I know that those who should be receiving extra care are receiving it," a spokeswoman, Sivan Weizman, told Reuters.
Mark Regev, the Israeli government’s spokesman, also claimed that Israel was providing adequate medical treatment for the prisoners and said they were free to choose their own doctors.
"But ultimately, this is not about medical facilities," he said, "this is about hard-core activists, from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who through this protest are trying to instigate violence."
Mass support among Palestinians
Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned Israel that the death of one of the prisoners could result in chaos.
“If anybody dies today or tomorrow or after a week it would be a disaster and no one could control the situation," Abbas said in an interview with Reuters at his office in Ramallah. "I told the Israelis and the Americans if they do not find a solution for this hunger strike immediately, they will be committing a crime."
Issa Qaraqe, the Palestinian Authority’s minister of prisoner affairs, has appealed to the international community, including the U.N. and even Pope Benedict, to intervene.
“Palestinian hunger strikers are fighting for what they have been systematically denied — their dignity, rights and justice,” he said. “I appeal to the world to immediately intervene and save the prisoners’ lives before it’s too late. If the hunger strike results in the death of one of the prisoners then Israel should expect an escalation of violence in the West Bank and even inside the Israeli prisons.”
On May 7, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected Diab and Halahleh’s appeal against imprisonment without charge or trial and ruled that they could not be released because they are a security risk. But the court added that the Israeli authorities should consider
releasing them on medical grounds.
Hoping for the best
Meanwhile, Diab’s mother is maintaining her vigil for her son. Since she has had no direct contact with him since his detention, the only way she can get updates on his health situation is through human rights organizations and media outlets.
“I am constantly listening to the news hoping to hear anything about my son,” she said. “I haven’t been allowed to see him for nine months now. Every time I close my eyes I can see him lying in a bed, looking pale, thin and weak, and I tell him to stay strong and that victory is near.
“I know that my son’s health is suffering as a cause of the hunger strike but I don’t dare think that something bad will happen to him. I just want to see my son, touch his face and tell him that everything will be ok. I will die if anything happens to him.”
Leave a Comment:
let 'em rot for cyring out loud!
"Diab has since become one of the faces of a mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails."
Is not hunger strike un-Islamic? These very people ignore and some times abuse those on hunger strikes as cowards.
Right On, razuhmauhtazz:
The Israelis are not doing this to them; they're doing it to themselves. To blame the Iraelis is ludicrous. To paraphrase from our Indian Wars days, the only good Palestinian (or Muslim, if you prefer) is a dead one. Israel has every right to do what ever it chooses to protect its very life and survival. Good on you, Israel!
Israel is an aggressive nation demanding and taking Palestinian land and natural resources at will. When the Palestinians resist they become a security threat. If anyone truly believes Israel has this right then support them wholeheartedly with eliminating all of the Palestinians at one time. No sense in stretching out this torture. I think the gas chambers worked well for Germany when they had the same problem with the J*ws.
Your an idiot Dick. When will you ever learn who the agressor is? When all the Jewish families are murdered? Bigot.
Anyone who find ourselves now in prison is a murderer or rapist is dangerous to the public no one is there just about. every one has a serious case and is too dangerous to the public!
Israel is a democratic country and everyone is entitled to a lawyer and even Israel financed this representation, there are various agencies that monitoring developments. everyone can turn to.. and sitthere at one of the other Israelis and Arabs.
2 additional points
A. Difference Between Israel and the Arabs is that anyone who was in israel prison his mother know where he is, israel provided him three meals a day and has medical insurance in addition to his mother could see him.
against Arabs, Mother of Israeli do not know where he is, if he lives or dies, if he eats, including every second he can disappear and no one knew what was going on with him. for about 90 percent of the Israeli hostages were murdered in cold blood!
2. It seems to me that the Arabs played a poor part and the world like it.
So dick who do not know nothing about Israel only destroying the slim chance he'd ever be peace!.
Everyone's tired of all this WAR
PEACE and now please!
Two wrongs do not make a right.
Keeping people in jail indefinitely, not letting them or anyone else know why they are there, is wrong -- whoever does it. Including us. Including Israel. Including any Arab state. Whoever does it.
Shila is right. Everyone is tired of this war. PEACE and now please. There are people all over the world whose lives have been terribly warped by war. I do not know how you erase the memories of torture, of hatred, of dead and maimed loved ones. I do not know how you right the wrongs of systems that operate on a base of inequity and unfairness.
But it has to stop. As Gandhi and Martin Luther King both observed, "An eye for an eye makes everybody blind."
shila, and morrigan,
shila,
the *task* for You, IS,
gather ALL the Names of ALL
The *attacked*,<>*kidnapped*<>, <>*murdered on the spot*<>, <>*murdered after kidnap,*<>*
Israeli Victims, dates of violent Death, at the hands of Palestinians that are GUILTY of MURDER !
shila, and Then, when The *enemy lies* are posted by The *enemy*<....
....>You, shila, type A Story of Any One, of The MANY episodes of Jewish Death, by Palestinian Murderers<
morrigan, a small correction in the result, of,...."an eye, for an eye, leaves everyone blind"....
"An Eye FOR An Eye, leaves Only ONE *blind*
ALL The Sunni Muslims MUST SAY, and SWEAR upon the Lives of Their Children,
I as a Muslim, SWEAR To Allah, Swearing to Allah on The Lives of ALL My Children,
I ACCEPT and Welcome, Israel and The Israelis, FOREVER, as A Neighbor and ALLY, against ANY Enemy.
IF, ANY Peace Is To BE HAD, between The Sunni Palestinians, and A New, THIRD STATE,
Alongside The OTHER TWO STATES of The LOST Territory of The Turks....
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and The Jewish State of Israel
Mutually SWORN
razu,
Is letting human beings rot what your religion teaches you?
And for the poster who questioned whether this was Islamic, God calls for fasts, this is true in all Abrahamic based religions.
"I told the Israelis and the Americans if they do not find a solution for this hunger strike immediately, they will be committing a crime."
Is this idiot for real? These drama queens are starving themselves, and will do anything for attention. Funny thing is, what they ask of Israel is something that would never even be part of conversation had it involved two Arab parties. It is only Israel that must be held to higher standards, even when dealing with barbarians lacking any standards and ethics of their own. Can anyone imagine this happening in any Arab country, even the most liberal one? When will these morons wake and and realize it is more beneficial to their well being to finally shut up and make friends?
And MSNBC, another crap reporting job as usual? Please tell us what these peaceful activists did for a living before getting locked up? Not difficult since all the other news outlets reported it. Biased much?
Starving yourself to death as a form of protest only gets you 6' under the ground.
Let them starve if they want to. I don't even know these idiots, and you need to keep yur strenght up to actually protest in the first place. If thety die, they'll just drag the bodies to some dumping ground and say, "NEXT".
These people give new meaning to the word STUPID.
I remember Gilad Shalit, and I don't remember anything like this article in support of him from anti-Israel MSNBC.
Very well said, Steven B!
The article also fails to mention any of the terriorist crimes that these prisioners are in Israeli jails for in the first place!
Shalit was a victim of zionist government's own aggression. israel did nothing to seek his release in 5 years for fear of showing weakness.
Palestinians are held in detention for years without any charges which is a clear violation of their human right.
orangedave is clearly blind to the truth.
boohoo no amount of biased journalism will produce any form of the sympathy for the violent gang that calls itself Palestine. They are dangerous liars which can play on the tolerance of the west. They say they want piece but what they really want is to exterminate all Jew. LET THEM STARVE, THERE WILL BE LESS TERRORISTS IN THE WORLD.
I agree with you.
However I have a major problem with extremists Jews and their leaders like Netanyahus.
They are acting as if they are equally mad or worse like some seventh century desert Islamic Nazi beasts.
On one side, these people dress as most modern, but they act as the agents of Sunni Saudi Arabia, Kuwaiti, UAE and other mad Islamic bigoted rulers. Look at the dresses of their Saudi and co masters and how they rule!
Many are doing seventh century desert dances along with Sunni Islamic religious Nazis (Saudis and co) and want the US and allies to intervene in Syria and Iran.
Take it or leave it: Iraqi wars to save the Sunni Saudis and co were the worst acts. For some, it will take a few more decades to understand the damages.
Why can't we permit the Shiites and Sunnis to battle and decide whose Allah is greater and bigger?
When our enemies are badly battling, why should we poke our noses?
Let us worry about the remaining when their battles are over!
This isn't inhumane on the part of Israel, this is voluntary. Compared to Islamic justice, they are taking a walk in the park, if you know what I mean.
How many German cities are run by angry minorities? Evidently none.
What?
"On Friday, a spokesperson for Physicians for Human Rights, a humanitarian organization in Israel, said he fears for Diab and Halahleh’s lives."
Well, tell the moron to EAT!
7-10 deleted, clock-2300051 and then happy-ali calling for the genocide of Jews. Both banned. Don't do that.
The man has the right to starve himself to death. I do think his mother and family should be allowed to visit him on a regular basis provided that they are willing to undergo security measures to insure the safety of Jewish people.
America's Patriot Act and the extension of powers with the passing of s1867 now allows for American citizens to be detained without trial indefinately and they don't have to contact your family.
Everybody forgets the pagans, Irish pagans stand with Israel.
Irish Pagans ARE The Strongest of Allies !
thank you Mork1
The Irsih do not stand with the Muslims. In fact they are quite pissed that Muslims have been allowed into their country. Pretty much like all the European and western countries.
let them starve - it's just another suicide bomber with no other casualties - everybody wins.
This is part of the propaganda war against Israel just as the flotilla was, it's a no win situation.
1) If they give into the demands it could cost the lives of many of the informants, even if they did manage to get them all out their network will be ruined, which will make it that much harder to stop terrorist attacks
2) If they don't and there are deaths, Israel will be blamed international, Fatah will use it as a reason for not continuing the peace talks and there will be a surge in Palestinian violence, for which they and their Western Liberal apologists can blame Israel.
Gee, I guess I missed the hunger strike for the 911 victims.... or those who have been blown to bits by suicide bombers.... or the red cross workers who have been decapitated by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists
I'd love to open a Cinnabon store upwind from the basturds.
I read once the Brits would bring hot food into the rooms of the I.R.A prisoners who were on hunger strikes, tough not to give in.
Martha... you are now one of my favorite people.
Reading these statements makes me very sad. Palestinian deserve to be treated like human begins. Israel treats them like the Nazis's treated them in Germany.
The Nazis treated the Arabs pretty good... see Nazi war criminal Haj Amin Muhammad al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Nazi~Arabs=Simpatico.
What you mean the Israelis have set up extermination camps?
Really?
I must have missed that.
Martha
I think he meant how the Nazis treated the Jews during the war but I could be wrong, either way there is a fundamental flaw in his logic.
Is that a fact Edmund? In most cases the prisioners in Israel have 3 square meals a day, exercise and are able to have a life. The Nazi's used gas chambers to kill old people and women and children, didn't feed the Jewish people. You ignorant fool!
Israel is just as bad as the Nazis, the treatment they received in Germany. How easy people forget.
The Nazis treated the Arabs pretty good... see Nazi war criminal Haj Amin Muhammad al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Nazi~Arabs=Simpatico.
The State of Israel AND The Kingdom of Jordan,
HAVE VERY GOOD Diplomatic Relations
The Jordanians HAVE SEEN, EXACTLY
The Treachery That The Sunni and Their *Muslim Brotherhood*
HAVE Done to Syria AND Egypt !!
Jordan WILL NOT Side Against Israel, in The Future Wars With Israel and The *Sunni Islamist Brotherhoods*,
and IF The Sunni Islamists TRY to BRING to Jordan The Death and Destruction that
The *Brotherhood* DO BRING,
As The *Brotherhood* DID BRING, The Death and Destruction, TO Syria AND Egypt
THEN, The Hashemite (NOT Sunni) Kingdom of Jordan, WILL SIDE WITH ISRAEL !!!!
I never read that Jews used suicide bombers and Scud missiles to kill Nazis
Palestinians killed Israeli children and innocent civilians all through the 70's and 80's.
Edmound you are just an ignorant fool.
The Egyptian-turned-Palestinian, Yasser Arafat, LED His "fellow Palestinian Soldiers", In FIGHTING BATTLES
Against The Hashemite Jordanian Army, AND The Jewish Israeli Army, FOR MANY YEARS, IN Jordan and Israel.
Eeeny meany miny moe, Catch a Palestinian by the toe, if he hollers let him go.
My lamb chops at the club weren't done to my liking tonight. It ruined my day!
Adolph when asked why he was exterminating all the Jews, calmly replied, "If I don't, who will?"
Adolph, said, "if I don't, Who will ?"
and GOD Answered, "NOT YOU, Corporal; ONLY GOD DECIDES",....and I AM WITH THEM !!!!
For YOU, Adolph; Failure and Defeat, and a Bullet in Your Brain,
fired by Eva Braun, A German Woman, but, in the END, much More the MAN than You...!!!!
And when the Roman Catholic priest said to the rabbi, "Irwin, why don't we cross the street and go @!$%# that boy!" Irwin says, "OK, but out of what?"
I seriously can't believe all of you bastards don't see who is oppressed in this situation!! The damn Jews took the Palestinian land by force. I wish Hitler burned them all!
You all keep talking about what you all call "terrorist attacks" which don't compare to the crimes Israel have committed against Palestinians such as Sabra and Shatila and the innocent people and children killed and are still being killed in Gaza , and during the Intifadas not mentioning people who are dying and detained everyday for no reason! How about the Palestinian people who are suffering every hour of their lives living under occupation and passing through checkpoints!!
I support all the Palestinian prisoners who make us all proud!!
Not all Jews are Israelis so
Is antisemitic.
Rula Sami you[ve just been hung in Germany for saying I wish Hitler would have killed them all.That[s what they did to the nazis after the war.And it was Germans as wlil as international tribunals that hung them.The law is still in effect in Germany.but now the Germans don[t hang them .they just throw them in the nearest river,They know that Hitler was responsible for the terrible destruction of his country.Go to Germany where Hitler started an say what you say.Either the noose or drowning awaits you.Even though 90% of all terrorism is done by Muslims, if I said kill all Muslim. I too would be committing a crime.. You are a criminal.What you say is not free speech .it[s a crime..Go to Germany and try it out.They know how to deal with fiends like you.It[s must closer to the truth to say the damn Muslims conquered a large part of the world by the sword and forced lslam down the throats of people or they were killed.That[s the truth..Or are you going to argue about that also..Get he message.. Rula Sami
Okay that's all you have to comment about what I wrote? You know what I mean !! And you know that I'm saying the truth ! Just to make you happy.. correction: " The damn Israelis took the Palestinian land by force"
What you said was antisemitic which quite frankly colours your opinion.
As for the rest, the UN voted on Partitioning, the Palestinians rejected it because they thought they could win all of it by force, they were wrong. Did the newly formed stated of Israel take land that wasn't assigned to them by the UN plan, yes they did but the Palestinians have no cause for compliant as it was what they were trying to do.
If the Palestinians want to see an end to the bloodshed and violence in Gaza/West Bank then they should make peace. They need to give up the Arab dream as it's not going to happen and they never know peace until they do.
Rami, and Another Fine Mess,
Rami, Let US SEE Your *Truth*
When The Victorious British TOOK The Land of The Defeated Turks,
The British Gave a Part of The Traditional Territory of *Roman Palestine* to their Arab Hashemite Allies.
The Hashemites, WERE NOT Native and NOT Indigenous, and NOT Born In, The Region
BUT, The Hashemites and The British WERE Allies against The Turks, and MORE To The British Liking,
and Created The State, that Is Now, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Which, at That Time INCLUDED Jerusalem and *The East Bank*, and, *The West Bank*, of The Jordan River
in 1922.
Only 25 plus, years later, Britain Created The SECOND State, Israel....
<><><><>
okay, Rami, go for it,....speak "YOUR Truth"
Hashemites and Jews ARE NOT Your People
BUT BOTH ARE THERE....!!!!
Technically Britain didn't create the state of Israel, yes I know about the Balfour declaration but we abstained in the UN vote and refused to implement the plan on the ground, this I feel was our biggest mistake during the Mandate.
Another Fine Mess,
Technically you Are Correct.
FROM The *Mandate* of The Victorious British, of The "Land that HAD Belonged To The Defeated Turks;
The British Created The State That Is Known today as The *Hashemite* Kingdom of Jordan
Which INCLUDED *Jerusalem* and The *East Bank* AND The *West Bank* of The Jordan River
and the Sunni "Arab fellaheen",
as they were THEN KNOWN AS, at THAT TIME,
and WHO are NOW KNOWN by The Name,
the (SunnI) "Palestinians";
The Sunni "Arab fellaheen/NOW Palestinians" ACCEPTED OUTSIDER RULERS,
The Hashemite Rulers with The Newly Created State, of,
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, WITH (at THAT Time) Jerusalem, and The West Bank IN Jordan.
The United Nations, 25 years later, Created from another portion of That Mandate, The State of Israel.
....AND WAR ERUPTS, because, Even though the Hashemites Were NOT Sunni,
AND The Hashemites Were "OUTSIDERS,
The Hashemites WERE Muslim
The Israelis were ALSO NOT Sunni
BUT the Israelis, Unlike The Hashemite Jordanians, WERE NOT Muslim
The Israelis WERE Jews !!!!
AND THAT, went against The Muslim IDEA, that IS CENTRAL to Islam
"Once a LAND is Islamic, then, THAT LAND, shall ALWAYS BE Islamic"
Actually, it is TAUGHT To ALL Muslims, that
The Entire World WILL ONE DAY BE Islamic !!!!
and THAT Islamic DESIRE for The WORLD to BE Muslim
IS The CAUSE OF These WARS !!!!
Rula Sami-Are you just a bigot? Or do you believe in the TRUTH? You just sound like a bigot who hates Jewish people? Every post you have is hate, hate, hate. Don't you think that if the Palestinian's really wanted peace then there would be peace and the Palestinian people could start their own state? Why of all the Land that all the Arab nations have nobody wants the Palestinian people? Why are the Palestinian people plight directed against the Israeli's? The Palestinian's werent there before 1948? The one's that were are citizens of Israel! How are they treated? Some are members of the Israeli government and many finish college in Israel and are respected members of society.
Mork
Yes, I believe this is at the root of the problem.
Give Administrative Detention to Obama and Romney and see how quickly things get resolved in the middle east. Heck, throw in the key figures from Israel too (Palestinians are already in there).
Ironical that those who support or stay silent on these things are the ones who never have experienced them. Typical .....ignorant ....spineless.....humans.
Amazing how independent Americans fail to realize how Israel has got them by their ballz. Ironical.
Soon these two won't be a problem. Next.
Dolph 2,
Any particular reason you support Israel's war crimes? I fail to see how anyone calling themselves human can defend such atrocities, as these unlawful administrative detentions are.
Administrative detentions are one of Israel's 1,500 occupation laws that apply to Palestinians only, and are not subject to any type of civilian or public review. Dating back to British Mandate laws, administrative detention permits Israeli Forces to arrest Palestinians for up to six months without charge or trial, and without any show of incriminating evidence. Such detention orders can be renewed indefinitely, each time for another six-month term. Palestinians can be held for their entire lives without being charged with one solitary crime.
Ayed Dudeen is one of the longest-serving administrative detainees in Israeli captivity. First arrested in October 2007, Israeli officials renewed his detention thirty times without charge or trial. After languishing in a prison cell for nearly four years without due process, prison authorities released him in August 2011, only to re-arrest him two weeks later. His wife Amal no longer tells their six children that their father is coming home, because, in her words, “I do not want to give them false hope anymore, I just hope that this nightmare will go away.”
Twenty percent of the Palestinian population of the Occupied Palestinian Territories have at one point been held under administrative detention. Israel argues these policies are necessary to ensure the security of its Jewish citizens, including those unlawfully resident in settlements surrounding Jerusalem, Area C, and the Jordan Valley—in flagrant contravention of the Fourth Geneva
Convention's Article 49(6), which explicitly prohibits the transfer of one's civilian population to the
territory it occupies.
Sherri,
I've read ALL Your posts for today, Saturday, May 12th,....
You are TOO Hilarious....I really enjoy reading ALL your Anti-Israel "Stuff"....
a GOOD example of your Many "gaffs", that bring my Equally Many "guffaws".
IS, your above, #28.1,
"....Twenty Percent of the Palestinian population,....have at one point, Been Held, Under Administrative Detention,...."
HuuuEeee, Sheri, that IS A LOT !!!!
The 2008 Census Figures of The Palestinian Population, IN East Jerusalem, IN The West Bank, IN Gaza,
WAS RECORDED as 3.76 MILLION !!!!
....and THAT, Sheri, Would Mean that IF YOU HAD BEEN Speaking ANY Real Truth, would MEAN,
20% of 3,760,000 Palestinians that, AS YOU SAID, "...had been Held in Administrative Detention...."
Twenty Percent would BE, 752,000 Palestinians in Israeli "Administrative Detention"....
Three Quarters of a Million Palestinians, According To YOUR TRUTH, IN ISRAELI JAILS
Sherri, I can SEE that you like to "write", BUT it's TOO BAD that you skipped your Math Classes....
Hilarious....
Good response, Mork1from1ork!
Sure puts the Israel bashers in their place (and clearly shows they have no idea what they're talking about)!
Israel is a brutal military dictatorship, a racist apartheid state, Hitler would envy it for its continous success in maintainig its racial supremacist apartheid state.
Yes, you are right, on all counts. That is something, how a people who were victims of such atrocities as occurred in the Holocaust are now carrying out their own Holocaust, engaging in ethnic cleansing and genocide on a daily basis. All one has to do to see all the war crimes being carried out is to go to Amnesty Intl, Human Righst Watch, Btselem, and get all the data.
The facts on the ground do not support what you are claiming in post #29.1 above!
Bilal Diab was drug from his home in the middle of the night on August 16, 2011, and his mother has not seen him since. He has become the face of the Palestinian hunger strikers, one of the thousands of unlawfully detained men, women, and children who Israel holds unlawfully under international law, subjecting to egregious daily human rights abuses that violate the Fourth Geneva Convention.
I see in the hunger strike of Palestinian Gandhi Bilal Diab the love of a mother for her son come to life, we see the Inhumanity of Israel and this unholy Occupation, brought into the Light for the world to see, to mourn, to cry out to God over. I think that is what these hunger strikes are more than anything else, the essence of what they are, cries to God for Justice.
And we find ourselves in Day 75 of Palestinian Prisoner Bilal Diab's hunger strike against unlawful administrative detentions imposed by the Isreali Occupier of Palestine, by a man now near death who has not even been charged with the commission of a crime.
What about Gilad Shalit? What about his family who was not even allowed to see him or the Red Cross who was not allowed to see him? Don't talk about mothers of Palestinian prisioners, like they really give a damn about their children. As Golda Meir once said that when the Palestinian mothers love their children more than they hate the Israeli's is when peace will have a chance to work in the middle east.
Alan,
This is not about Gilad Shalit, the one prisoner Palestinians held in this conflict as Israel held thousands of Palestinian prisoners. And Gilad Shalit is a free man today, not held unlawfully in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as over 4000 Palestinian men, women, and children are.
Are you aware Israel regularly imprisons children in their prisons, they have arreseted children as young as Age 7. They arrest them in the middle of the night, dragging them from their beds, they torture them, they sexually abuse them, they threaten and/or apply electic shock to their genitals, they deny them visits with their parents, they regularly today try to recruit young children as collaborators. This is all documented by the human rights groups. Do you really want to defend all of that?
Sherri,
Were you actually there to witness all of this or are you just relying on the claims (AKA PROPAGANDA) made by left-wing pro-Palestinian activist groups?
S c r e w them. Let em die. They're doing it to themselves . Why should anyone care.
These are political prisoners detained indefinitely without charges. They are the modern day Gandhis attempting to gain freedom, equality and independence. They resist with nonviolence.
While Israel takes Palestinian Arab homes, land and human rights, the Palestinians have become the modern day freedom fighter in the traditions of the American Revolution and the European partisans that resisted the German Nazi occupation.
However Israel continues its onslaught against the Palestinian people. It is Zionist Jewish greed for another people's land that sustains the longest occupation. In its unbridled use of violence, Israel has been assaulting an entire Palestinian people ..... men, women, children and infants.
You don't know what the f__— your talking about! Do You? Imbecile.
WGN...Since 1948 Israel is a country as much any other.The same year that Pakistan became one.Are you in favor of delegitimizing Pakistan as well as many new countries that have been recognized internationally and through the U.N and other groups.The Arabs had a chance to get their own state in 48 .They blew it then and are still blowing it now.They commit crimes against the peace as well as humanity by what they are doing to a soverign country.Stop inventing history and making up tall stories.People on newsvine are tired of your 5 cliches!!
WGN,
I agree with your comparison to the prisoners with Gandhi.
These prisoners on their hunger strike to Protest Injustices of the Occupation and demand human dignity and human rights are engaged in acts of nonviolent resistance, self sacrifice out of the love for others.
I have been thinking a lot about how much these prisoners, thousands of men, women, and children, unlawfully detained and unlawfully treated, so much resemble Jesus Christ, sacrificing self for the love of others, in their hunger strikes. I know most are not Christians, but they are living out his teachings as they pour out their lives before us.
I also cannot help but think about how we, the world, we never learn lessons from our history, and how the people today in Palestine are responding to those detained in Palestine today, as Jesus was detained 2000 years ago, the very same way they responded to Jesus 2000 years ago. We, the world, are subjecting them to Injustice and Death.
And history repeats itself, over and over again. I think about India's struggle for Independence, the nonviolent struggle for freedom for the people waged by Gandhi, the opposition it was met with, and how Gandhi was killed in this struggle.
I think about the American Civil Rights Movement in the US, Martin Luther King Jr's struggle for equal rights for black Americans, the opposition he faced, the silence of the white Churches in the South to the injustices of racism and discrimination, and how Martin Luther King, Jr was killed in that struggle.
But, we know from the stories of these three men, that responding to Injustice with nonviolent resistance yields Victory, and this knowledge should fill us all with energy and hope for our Future.
Sherri,
Since you are comparing "apples to oranges" in your post #36.3 above, it's interesting that you mentioned Martin Luther King Jr. who was once quoted as saying: "I can assure you that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism".
You should also be made aware of how the first century Romans dealt with people (like the Rabbi Jesus) within their empire who challenged the supreme authority of the emperor or his designated representatives when his followers publicly declared the Rabbi to be "king of the Jews" and what the consequences were at that time.
Just for your information.