[Ppnews] Why is an Israeli soldier worth more than a Palestinian child?

[Political Prisoner News]

Why is an Israeli soldier worth more than a Palestinian child?

<http://electronicintifada.net/people/dana-halawa>Dana Halawa
http://electronicintifada.net/content/why-israeli-soldier-worth-more-palestinian-child/10566#.Trlrd7LZdBk
8 November 2011

I have read countless articles and watched 
numerous videos about 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/gilad-shalit>Gilad 
Shalit being reunited with his family five years 
after his abduction. One typical report noted he 
was “just 19 years old in 2006 when he was 
cruelly and illegally abducted by 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/hamas>Hamas.” 
I have been hearing of him for the past five 
years. I know Gilad Shalit’s name better than I 
know the names of my classmates.

What I have already forgotten, however, is the 
names of the 477 Palestinians that were freed. 
What I will never know are the stories of the 
thousands of Palestinians who are spending their 
entire lives behind bars away from their family 
and friends. The thousands of children, women and 
men still captivated unjustly in Israeli jails. 
The children that grew up in cages. The parents 
that watched their children seized out of their 
hands and taken away without their consent, 
forced to watch from afar awaiting news on their 
child’s whereabouts, praying that their child 
wouldn’t be tortured ­ too much. Those are the 
things, the stories the world has never learned 
and will never learn. Those are the nameless, 
faceless heroes that were freed in this exchange, 
while thousands more continue to languish in Israeli jail.

Ashraf Baluji, Imad Abu Rayyan, Imad al-Masri and 
Yusuf al-Khalis were only 18 and 19 years old 
when they were arrested back in 1991. They were 
part of the first 477 prisoners of war to be 
released in exchange for Gilad Shalit after 
spending over 20 years in Israeli jails. Crazily, 
1991 was the year I was born. Every breath I have 
ever taken, every moment I have known of life, 
they were locked up and tortured.

In every article I’ve read referring to Shalit by 
his name and the 1,027 Palestinians being 
released in exchange as a number or as 
“militants,” the journalist has forgotten to 
mention that Shalit was an armed and trained 
soldier that was “kidnapped” from a military 
occupation vehicle, that the majority of 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/palestinian-prisoners>Palestinian 
prisoners never engaged in military or criminal 
acts against Israel, and were only accused of 
resistance to the Israeli military occupation. 
They have conveniently left out the numerous 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/child-prisoners>Palestinian 
children abducted from their homes and taken far 
away, usually denied even visits from their parents or lawyers.

In 2009, Time magazine published a story about 
Walid Abu Obeida, a Palestinian farm boy who was 
only 13 years old when he was stopped on his way 
home by two Israeli soldiers aiming their rifles 
at him. They punched, beat, and arrested him 
while his parents wondered where he was and why 
their son wasn’t home yet 
(“<http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1906664,00.html>Does 
Israel mistreat Palestinian child prisoners?,” 30 June 2009).

Alas, Abu Obeida’s treatment was far from an 
isolated incident. As of the latest figures 
recorded by 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/defence-children-international-palestine-section>Defence 
for Children International-Palestine Section, as 
of October 2011, 164 Palestinian children between 
the ages of 12 and 17 years old are behind bars, 
including 35 aged between 12 and 15 years old 
(<http://www.dci-palestine.org/content/child-detainees>Child 
detainees, accessed 7 November 2011).

Many are being held without trial or conviction, 
while others are ­ often falsely ­ convicted of 
throwing rocks at Israeli tanks occupying their 
land and demolishing their homes.

Key facts forgotten

Israel has arrested more than 650,000 
Palestinians, a number equal to about 20 percent 
of the population, since the 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/1967-war>occupation 
of the West Bank began in 1967. We tend to forget 
that Israel is occupying Palestine when we speak 
of the two. Palestinians are killed and arrested 
every day under the pretext of “protecting 
Israeli security.” Palestinians are kidnapped 
from their homes and stand trial in Israeli 
courts, where even Palestinian witnesses have no 
right to testify, while others are jailed, 
without trial or charge, under 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/administrative-detention>“administrative 
detention”.

Looking through the list of released prisoners, I 
found the name of Akram Mansour, who was arrested 
at the age of 18. He has spent over three 
torturous decades languishing in Israeli jails 
for resisting the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. 
At 51, he finally gets to taste a bit of freedom 
­ although without his mother, father or sister 
who died while he was in Israeli custody ­ before 
the brain tumor he developed in Israeli jails 
takes life itself from him. [[In an online 
Arabic-languge interview with Mansour, he says he 
currently suffers from paralyzed fingers, missing 
teeth and blackouts because of the 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/torture>torture 
he was subjected to, which varied from hammering 
his fingers to a nail in his forehead to having 
urine spilled over him and, after filing a 
complaint, being forced to strip naked in the 
cold as buckets of freezing water were spilled 
over him 
(“<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDiRn6RO83Q>The 
suffering of the liberated prisoner Akram Mansour,” 24 October 2011 [Arabic]).

Robbed of childhood

Twelve-year-old Palestinian boys are robbed of 
their innocence and childhood behind bars. 
Sixteen-year-old Palestinian children are tried 
as adults by Israel, even though the legal age 
under international and even Israeli law (for 
Israelis) is 18. Mothers and sisters are arrested 
and convicted of terrorism for standing up to the 
occupation. Children are forced to grow up 
without parents. Men are convicted and sentenced 
to as many as 36 life sentences for resisting 
their genocide. In total, 1,027 will be freed while 5,000 remain captive.

Gilad Shalit will be remembered as a hero that 
endured five years of kidnapping, during which he 
had regular medical checkups and was placed in as 
good a condition as Gaza could provide under the 
Israeli blockade. This is more than I can say for 
the Palestinian prisoners, who have often been 
deprived of basic services, including medical attention when needed.

Today, Shalit is a free man with no conditions on 
his freedom. However, the 477 Palestinians freed 
in the first part of this exchange were either 
allowed home, provided they report to Israel 
monthly and not travel between Palestinians 
cities; or 
<http://electronicintifada.net/content/mother-still-restricted-visiting-son-after-his-release-prison/10502#.Tqhzu3HTOKs>exiled 
to Gaza where they may not see their families in 
the West Bank (who are not allowed into Gaza); or 
even exiled outside the entire country and banned 
from ever returning home. Through preventing 
released prisoners from returning home, Israel 
violates the most basic of human rights. Article 
12 of the International Convention on Civil and 
Political Rights states: “No one shall be 
arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.”

A life is a life, and a human being is a human 
being. So, many now ask why Gilad Shalit’s life 
is worth 1,027 Palestinian lives. To ask that is 
to not understand Israel. An Israeli life’s value 
cannot be estimated, whereas a Palestinian life 
is of very little to no value. I think I speak 
for most Palestinians when I say, I’m glad Gilad 
Shalit is home, safe and with his family, that 
Palestinians more than anyone understand what 
it’s like to lose a father, mother, brother, 
sister, daughter and son. More than anyone, 
Palestinians understand the joy he and his family must feel now that his back.

Personally, I believe a fair exchange would have 
been to release all Palestinian prisoners for all 
Israeli prisoners, namely just Gilad Shalit, 
rather than making one life worth 1,027 lives. 
However, knowing that Israel would never agree to 
that, I congratulate Hamas and the Palestinian 
people on their victory. And I pray for the 
remaining 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli custody, 
and many more currently being arrested to fill 
the cells being emptied of 1,027 prisoners.

Dana Halawa is a twenty-year-old 
American-Palestinian medical student at the 
Jordan University of Science and Technology in Jordan.




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