Blood
On Our Hands
By Uri Avnery
17 April, 2007
Countercurrents.org
At this moment, negotiations
on a prisoner exchange are in full swing.
The term "negotiations"
is really inappropriate. "Haggling" seems more fitting. One
could also use an uglier expression: "trafficking in human beings".
The planned deal concerns
living people. They are being treated like goods, for which the officials
of the two sides are bargaining, as if they were a piece of land or
a load of fruit.
In their own eyes, and in
the eyes of their spouses, parents and children, they are not goods.
They are life itself.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER the signing
of the Oslo agreement in 1993, "Gush Shalom" publicly called
on the Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, to free all the Palestinian prisoners.
The logic was simple: they
are in reality prisoners-of-war. They did what they did in the service
of their people, exactly like our own soldiers. The people who sent
them were the chiefs of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)
with whom we have just signed a far-reaching agreement. Is there any
sense in signing an agreement with the commanders, while their subordinates
continue to languish in our jails?
When one makes peace, prisoners-of-war
are expected to be released. In our case, this would not only be a sign
of humanity, but also of wisdom. These prisoners come from all the towns
and villages. Sending them home would release an outburst of joy all
over the occupied Palestinian territories. There is hardly a Palestinian
family that does not have a relative in prison.
If the agreement is not to
remain just a piece of paper, we said, but be imbued with content and
spirit - there is no wiser act than this.
Unfortunately, Rabin did
not listen to us. He had many positive traits, but he was a rather closed
person, devoid of imagination. He was himself a prisoner of narrow "security"
concepts. For him, the prisoners were goods to be traded for something.
True, before the founding of Israel he himself had been held in detention
by the British for some time, but, like many others, he was incapable
of applying the lessons of his own experience to the Palestinians.
We considered this a fateful
matter as far as the peace efforts were concerned. Together with the
unforgettable Faisal Husseini, the adored leader of the Palestinian
population of East Jerusalem, we organized a demonstration opposite
the Jneid prison in Nablus. It was the largest joint Israeli-Palestinian
demonstration ever. More than ten thousand people took part.
In vain. The prisoners were
not released.
FOURTEEN YEARS later, nothing
has changed. Prisoners have been released after completing their sentence,
others have taken their place. Every night, Israeli soldiers capture
a dozen or so new "wanted" Palestinians.
At any one time, there are
some 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, male and female, from minors to old
people.
All our governments have
treated them as goods. And goods are not given away for nothing. Goods
have a price. Many times it was proposed to release some prisoners as
a "gesture" to Mahmoud Abbas, in order to strengthen him vis-à-vis
Hamas. All these suggestions were rejected by Ariel Sharon and Ehud
Olmert.
Now, the security services
oppose the prisoner exchange deal for the release of the soldier Gilad
Shalit. And not because the price - 1400 in exchange for 1 - is exorbitant.
On the contrary, for many Israelis it seems quite natural that one Israeli
soldier is worth 1400 "terrorists". But the security services
raise much weightier arguments: if prisoners are released for a "kidnapped"
soldier, it will encourage the "terrorists" to capture more
soldiers.
At least some of the released
prisoners will return to their organizations and activities, and that
will result in more bloodshed. Israeli soldiers will be obliged to risk
their lives in order to arrest them again.
And there is something else
lurking in the background: some of the families of Israelis killed in
attacks, who are organized in a very vociferous lobby connected with
the extreme right, will raise hell. How could this pitiful government,
devoid of any public standing, withstand such pressure?
FOR EACH of these arguments,
there is a counter-argument.
Not releasing the prisoners
leaves the "terrorists" with a permanent motivation to "kidnap"
soldiers. After all, nothing else seems to convince us to release prisoners.
In these circumstances, such actions will always enjoy huge popularity
with the Palestinian public, which includes many thousands of families
that are waiting for the return of their loved ones.
From a military point of
view, there is another strong argument: "Soldiers are not left
in the field". This is held as a sacred maxim, a mainstay of army
morale. Every soldier must know that if he or she is captured, the Israeli
army will do everything, but everything, to get him free. If this belief
is undermined, will soldiers be as ready to take risks in battle?
Furthermore, experience shows
that a high proportion of released Palestinian prisoners do not return
to the cycle of violence. After years in detention, all they want is
to live in peace and devote their time to their children. They exercise
a moderating influence on their surroundings.
And as for the thirst for
revenge of the families of "terror victims" - woe to a government
that gives in to such emotions, which, of course, exist on both sides.
THE POLITICAL argument goes
both ways. There is pressure from the "terror victims" - but
there is even stronger pressure from the family of the captured soldier.
In Judaism, there is a commandment
called "ransom of prisoners". It arose from the reality of
a persecuted community dispersed across the world. Every Jew is obliged
to make any sacrifice and pay any price for the release of another Jew
from prison. If Turkish pirates captured a Jew from England, the Jews
of Istanbul paid the ransom for his release. In today's Israel, this
obligation still holds.
Public meetings and demonstrations
are now being held for the release of Gilad Shalit. The organizers do
not say openly that the aim is to push the government to accept the
exchange deal. But, since there is no other way to get him back alive,
that is the message in practice.
One cannot envy the members
of the government who find themselves in this situation. Caught between
two bad options, the natural tendency of a politician like Olmert is
not to decide at all and postpone everything. But this is a third bad
option, and one which carries a heavy political price.
THE STRONGEST emotional argument
voiced by the opponents of the deal is that the Palestinians are demanding
the release of prisoners with "blood on their hands". In our
society, the words "Jewish blood" - two words beloved by the
Right - are enough to silence even many on the Left.
But that is a stupid argument.
It is also mendacious.
In the terminology of the
Security Service, this definition applies not only to a person who himself
has taken part in an attack in which Israelis were killed, but also
to anyone who thought about the action, gave the order, organized it
and helped to carry it out - prepared the weapons, conveyed the attacker
to the scene, etc.
According to this definition,
every soldier and officer of the Israeli army has "blood on his
hands", along with many politicians.
Somebody who has killed or
wounded Israelis - is he different from us, the Israeli soldiers past
and present? When I was a soldier in the 1948 war, in which tens of
thousands of civilians, fighters and soldiers on both sided perished,
I was a machine-gunner in the Samson's Foxes commando unit. I fired
thousands of bullets, if not tens of thousands. It was mostly at night,
and I could not see whether I hit anybody, and if so - who. Do I have
blood on my hands?
The official argument is
that the prisoners are not soldiers, and therefore they are not prisoners-of-war,
but common criminals, murderers and their accomplices.
That is not an original argument.
All colonial regimes in history have said the same. No foreign ruler,
fighting an uprising of the oppressed people, has ever recognized his
enemy as legitimate fighters. The French did not recognize the Algerian
freedom fighters, the Americans do not recognize the Iraqi and Afghan
freedom fighters (they are all terrorists, who can be tortured and held
in abominable detention centers), the South African apartheid regime
treated Nelson Mandela and his comrades as criminals, as the British
did to Mahatma Gandhi and the fighters of the Hebrew underground in
Palestine. In Ireland, they hanged the members of the Irish underground,
who left behind moving songs ("Shoot me like an Irish soldier /
Do not hang me like a dog; / For I fought for Ireland's freedom / On
that dark September morn…")
The fiction that freedom-fighters
are common criminals is necessary for the legitimation of a colonial
regime, and makes it easier for a soldier to shoot people. It is, of
course, twisted. A common criminal acts in his own interest. A freedom
fighter or "terrorist", like most soldiers, believes that
he is serving his people or cause.
ONE PARADOX of the situation
is that the Israeli government is negotiating with people who themselves
have served time in Israeli prisons. When our leaders speak about the
need to strengthen the "moderate" Palestinian elements - they
mainly mean these.
That is a feature of the
Palestinian situation, which I doubt the existence of in other occupied
countries. People who have spent five, ten and even twenty years in
Israeli prisons, and who have every reason in the world to hate our
guts, are quite open to contact with Israelis.
Since I know some of them,
and some of them have become close friends, I have wondered many times
about this.
At international conferences
I have met Irish activists. After several pints of Guinness they have
told me that they know no greater joy in life than killing Englishmen.
I was reminded of the song of our poet Nathan Alterman, who prayed to
God "Give me hatred grey like a sack" (for the Nazis). After
hundreds of years of oppression, that's how they felt.
Of course, my Palestinian
friends hate the Israeli occupation. But they do not hate all Israelis,
just for being Israelis. In prison, most of them have learned good Hebrew
and listened to Israeli radio, read Israeli newspapers and watched Israeli
TV. They know that there are all kinds of Israelis, just as there are
all kinds of Palestinians. Israeli democracy, which allows members of
the Knesset to vilify their prime minister, has made a deep impression
on them. When the Israeli government showed a readiness to negotiate
with Palestinians, the best partners were to be found among these ex-prisoners.
That is also true for the
prisoners that are to be released now. If Marwan Barghouti is released,
he will be a natural partner in any peace effort.
I shall be very happy when
both he and Gilad Shalit are free.
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