Instead of Auschwitz

The committee coordinating the struggle to free Gilad Shalit went all
the way to Auschwitz where, it is reported, its members distributed
888 yellow flowers. That was in October, and we can only hope that
this media gimmick will not be repeated, either because an agreement
will be reached in the near future or because the organizers will
understand how lacking in taste that move was.The committee is continuing to put non-stop pressure on the government
despite warnings that this is hampering the negotiations. In this way,
the organizers and participants are showing a healthy lack of faith in
the politicians` promises. But the lack of faith stops when we talk
about the policy of repression employed by Israel against the
Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. Here the organizers
(including the kibbutz movement`s missions branch) accept the
government`s approach and merely demand `more!` - more blockading of
food, medicine, fuel and cash; more destruction of industry and
agriculture; more homes without water. That is the logic behind the
demonstrative obstruction of the border crossings initiated by the
organizing committee in October. Now the committee is aiming its
arrows at the families of the Palestinian prisoners. It tried to stop
family visits at the Ashkelon prison and pledges to do so at other jails.

There is no doubt about it, Shalit`s confinement is cruel - the lack
of certainty, lack of information and lack of continuous contact, as
well as the fact that there is no external body that can visit him and
inspect the conditions of his captivity. The committee is demanding
`mutuality,` but it seems more like revenge. And in our naivete we
thought they wanted to see Shalit freed. To that end, the committee
should have done its homework, and not with Defense Minister Ehud
Barak as teacher.

If it is a lack of legality we are referring to, the committee could
have reminded itself and the government that it is forbidden for an
occupying power to imprison in its sovereign territory people from an
occupied territory. The committee heads could have checked and known
that the right to regular prison visits is being withheld from tens of
thousands of Palestinians (including some 1,000 Gaza families). A
perusal of the information which the (Israeli) Association for the
Palestinian Prisoners has would reveal to the committee`s activists
that the Palestinian security prisoners do not have the right to speak
regularly on the telephone with their families, even when they do not
visit them for months or years.

Is this what the committee`s members think - that a little more
cruelty is needed so the population of prisoners and their families
will enlist in the struggle to free Gilad Shalit? Instead of that, why
not listen to the Palestinians?

For the Palestinians, Shalit is not a boy who wrote a touching story.
For them he is a soldier in the Armored Corps, and he and his
colleagues were partners to the shelling of the civilian population.
For the Palestinians, Shalit and the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners have
the same status — prisoners of war.

Instead of going to Poland and Ashkelon, the heads of the committee
can go to Lod and meet with Leila Bourghal, the mother of Mukhlas, one
of the prisoners. His mother is almost 80 and can teach them a lot
about what life is like when your rights have been constantly denied.
They can learn from her about courage and maintaining human dignity
and hope, even though no one in the world knows about her son.

Instead of demanding that the prison service stop visits to the jail,
they can ask for a meeting with Walid Daqqa, who was born in Baqa
al-Gharbiyah and is being held in the Gilboa prison. And as
preparation for the visit, they are invited to read his impressions
which he has put down on paper in recent years. If they are loath to
try the adventure of driving to the village of Qalandiyah (behind the
Qalandiyah checkpoint but inside territory annexed to Jerusalem) they
can meet outside the checkpoint with the parents of the prisoner Ahmed
Amira. If these people had been Jews, they would all have been
released a long time ago, even if their indictments were much more
serious. But because they are Arab citizens and residents of Israel,
the authorities adamantly refuse to discuss releasing them, not even
in exchange for Shalit. Instead of demanding more cruelty, why do you
not demand that the state lift its opposition to freeing them?

Instead of treating them and their families like enemies, it would be
worth the while of the committee organizers who want to free Shalit to
meet with the families and consult with them on how to act logically
and justly to free both Shalit and the Palestinian prisoners, all
prisoners of war.