Saturday, July 5, 2008

Shalit is not more important than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners


Comment by Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem

"One of the most repulsive expressions of Israeli racism is the firmly-held belief that a Jew is superior to and more important than a non-Jew.

According to this unholy principle, which most Israeli Jews see as an unquestionable truism, a Jewish life is more important than a non-Jewish life, and a Jewish blood is far more important than a non-Jewish blood.

Unfortunately, it is upon this manifestly racist concept that the entire Israeli justice system is based......

In truth, Shalit, a prisoner of war, could have been released from the very inception had Israel shown any modicum of good will, respect and above all some justice toward her Palestinian victims.

However, as always, and consistent with the Chosen People complex, the Israeli government acted arrogantly and impetuously on the racist premise that a Jew’s right to freedom exceeds and overrides the entire Palestinian people’s right to life and freedom......

Today, as many as 10,000 Palestinians (or untermenschen) are detained in Israeli detention camps in obviously inhuman conditions, many of them because of their thoughts, views and non-violent political activities......

This writer knows academics and college professors whose originally unjust prison terms ended six years ago, but are non the less still languishing in Israeli jails and detention camps due to the mood of the “judge” who with a strike of a pen can extend the incarceration of a given detainee for six more months or even six more years......

Then Sarmad asked the prisoner: “do you go to the Mosque?”
The Prisoner answered “Yes, I do.” Then Sarmad told the prisoner rather unhesitatingly “that is it…you are guilty of going to the mosque and praying there. This is why you are here.”

Needless to say, entrusting Jewish settlers, who are inculcated with indescribable hatred for non-Jews in general and Palestinians in particular, is very much like entrusting Nazi judges with the administration of justice for Jews......

Israel can get Shalit released from Hamas’s custody the moment it realizes that Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody are as human as Shalit, and have beloved ones awaiting their release from jail.

But then such a realization would contradict and even undo Zionism, an evil ideology that is based on racism and brutality.

Hence, the problem. "

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