Woke up this morning to a phone call from detained UK journalists and human rights activist, Ewa Jasiewicz - who remains in detention at the Ben Gurion Detention facility in Israel's main airport. Ewa's appeal hearing in the supreme court will now take place on Wednesday, by which time Ewa will have spent 3 weeks imprisoned be "the only democracy in the Middle East."
Despite being a "card-carrying" accredited journalist, commissioned by Red Pepper Magazine to portay the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by focussing on Israeli's reactions to the Apartheid Wall and by reporting on the radical Israeli groups who are fighting for the liberation of the Palestinians, Ewa is one of many Internationals who have been refused entry and imprisoned for having links to Human Rights Groups, and for counting Palestinians amongst their friends.
The treatment of Ewa and other Britons who are refused into Israel because of their political beliefs, has received very little coverage in the UK, with the exception of the Guardian, which has printed a statement by Ewa, and has written a leader urging Jack Straw to take up Ewa's case with the Israeli state.
So too has the "Intifada of the Empty Stomach", the hunger strike by thousands of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees - who are demanding that they be allowed more contact with their families, access to telephones and an end to humiliating public strip searches. Today the hunger strike enters its fourth week, and the Red Cross has reported that a number of prisoners have already had to receive medical attention- Israel's offical line so far has been a declaration by the Prison Minister, Hanegbi (a man with a history of violent activism) that as far as he concerned, Palestinian Prisoners can starve themselves to death. The strategy of the Prisons Department has been to concoct a plan to barbeque meat outside the hunger-strikers cells, and to get warders to eat the meat in front of the prisoners.
The recent International Court of Justice ruling regarding the Apartheid Wall, indicates that the Fourth Geneva Convention does apply to the Palestinians, and therfore they should be treated as prisoners of war. Mazuz, the Attorney Genral has created a storm of discontent by suggesting that Israel should apply the terms of the 4th Convention to Palestine, as the ruling is likely to lead to a growing call for Israel to be isolated and for sanctions to be applied in protest at their blatant disregard for the rights and lives of the people that they have abused occupation for almost four decades.
In an article on David Ben Gurion, the World Zionist Organisation notes that:
"From the tragic years of l936 to 1947, while millions of Jews were murdered by the Germans, denied asylum by almost all nations and barred by the British from coming to Palestine, Ben Gurion declared a simple strategy. He inspired tens of thousands of young Jews from Palestine to join the British army in fighting the Nazis. At the same time he authorized an underground agency to ship Jewish refugees into the country. As the British intercepted, deported and locked away these survivors of the Nazi inferno in barbed-wired detention camps, world opinion grew more and more sympathetic of the Zionist plan for the plight of the Jews. Ben Gurion's strategy helped foster a favorable atmosphere, and led to the l947 United Nations' resolution, partitioning Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State. The War of Independence was the worst of several Israeli-Arab wars."
(Source:
http://www.wzo.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=995)
And now, it is Israel who incarcerates people behind barbed wire to silence and punish them for their political views and for engaging in struggle against their own oppression.
It is time for us to stand with the prisoners of a bankrupt and failed political doctrine, and to demand a future which offers equality and dignity for all.
The treatment of Ewa and other Britons who are refused into Israel because of their political beliefs, has received very little coverage in the UK, with the exception of the Guardian, which has printed a statement by Ewa, and has written a leader urging Jack Straw to take up Ewa's case with the Israeli state.
So too has the "Intifada of the Empty Stomach", the hunger strike by thousands of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees - who are demanding that they be allowed more contact with their families, access to telephones and an end to humiliating public strip searches. Today the hunger strike enters its fourth week, and the Red Cross has reported that a number of prisoners have already had to receive medical attention- Israel's offical line so far has been a declaration by the Prison Minister, Hanegbi (a man with a history of violent activism) that as far as he concerned, Palestinian Prisoners can starve themselves to death. The strategy of the Prisons Department has been to concoct a plan to barbeque meat outside the hunger-strikers cells, and to get warders to eat the meat in front of the prisoners.
The recent International Court of Justice ruling regarding the Apartheid Wall, indicates that the Fourth Geneva Convention does apply to the Palestinians, and therfore they should be treated as prisoners of war. Mazuz, the Attorney Genral has created a storm of discontent by suggesting that Israel should apply the terms of the 4th Convention to Palestine, as the ruling is likely to lead to a growing call for Israel to be isolated and for sanctions to be applied in protest at their blatant disregard for the rights and lives of the people that they have abused occupation for almost four decades.
In an article on David Ben Gurion, the World Zionist Organisation notes that:
"From the tragic years of l936 to 1947, while millions of Jews were murdered by the Germans, denied asylum by almost all nations and barred by the British from coming to Palestine, Ben Gurion declared a simple strategy. He inspired tens of thousands of young Jews from Palestine to join the British army in fighting the Nazis. At the same time he authorized an underground agency to ship Jewish refugees into the country. As the British intercepted, deported and locked away these survivors of the Nazi inferno in barbed-wired detention camps, world opinion grew more and more sympathetic of the Zionist plan for the plight of the Jews. Ben Gurion's strategy helped foster a favorable atmosphere, and led to the l947 United Nations' resolution, partitioning Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State. The War of Independence was the worst of several Israeli-Arab wars."
(Source:
http://www.wzo.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=995) And now, it is Israel who incarcerates people behind barbed wire to silence and punish them for their political views and for engaging in struggle against their own oppression.
It is time for us to stand with the prisoners of a bankrupt and failed political doctrine, and to demand a future which offers equality and dignity for all.
