“The concept of unpeople is central to tonight’s topic. Israeli Jews are people. Palestinians are unpeople”.

We finally have pictures of Palestinian men and women “released from Israeli prisons, What we do not have are the names of most of them. And we still do not know where most of them “come from”.

There are also other people who have been in prison exactly as long as Gilad Shalit—in fact, one day longer. The day before Gilad Shalit was captured at the border, Israeli troops entered Gaza, kidnapped two brothers, the Muamar brothers, spirited them across the border, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, of course. And they’ve disappeared into Israel’s prison system. I haven’t a clue what happened to them; I’ve never seen a word about it. And as far as I know, nobody cares, which makes sense. After all, unpeople. Whatever you think about capturing the soldier, a soldier from an attacking army, plainly kidnapping civilians is a far more severe crime. But that’s only if they’re people.

According to the Palestinian Monitor,http://bit.ly/o8UpCu Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, sees the release of the Palestinian prisoners as “an incentive to continue the struggle for the more than 6000 prisoners still in captivity.

Mustafa Barghouthi also “cast [Prime Minister] Netanyahu’s refusal to release leaders of signifiant popular and political importance–such as Marwan Barghouthi and Ahmed Sa’adat–as a sin”.

Shalit is returning to a state in psychosis – Haaretz Gideon Levy http://bit.ly/pNywjK
Gilad Shalit released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners | FP Passport http://bit.ly/psgxdW

John Whitback introduced Uri’s piece:
Whitbeck is an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel.

So far as I am aware, none of the 22 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (Parliament) whom Israel has still been holding hostage in its prisons (roughly half the number initially rounded up as “bargaining chips” after the capture of Gilad Shalit) were among the 450 men and 27 women released by Israel this week. The Western states which find the State of Palestine’s UN membership application inappropriate and insupportable have never seemed to find the arrest and indefinite detention of these democratically elected parliamentarians for the sole crime of having been democratically elected either inappropriate or insupportable — or, indeed, deserving of the slightest criticism.

The Institute for Middle East Understanding, based in Washington, DC,

IMEU, OCT 17, 2011

http://bit.ly/r4COCV
Uri Avnery, the dean of Israel’s peace activists, brought immediate clarity to the issue.

Immediately after the Oslo agreement, Gush Shalom, the peace movement to which I belong, proposed releasing all Palestinian prisoners at once. They are prisoners-of-war, we said, and when the fighting ends, [prisoners of war] are sent home. This would transmit a powerful human message of peace to every Palestinian town and village. We organized a joint demonstration with the late Jerusalemite Arab leader, Feisal Husseini, in front of Jeneid prison near Nablus. More than ten thousand Palestinians and Israelis took part.
But Israel has never recognized these Palestinians as prisoners-of-war. They are considered common criminals, only worse.
This week, the released prisoners were never referred to as “Palestinian fighters”, or “militants”’ or just “Palestinians”. Every single newspaper and TV program, from the elitist Haaretz to the most primitive tabloid, referred to them exclusively as “murderers”, or, for good measure, “vile murderers”.
One of the worst tyrannies on earth is the tyranny of words. Once a word becomes entrenched, it directs thought and action. As the Bible has it: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). Releasing a thousand enemy fighters is one thing, releasing a thousand vile murderers is something else.
Some of these prisoners have assisted suicide bombers in killing a lot of people. Some have committed really atrocious acts – like the pretty young Palestinian woman who used the internet to lure a love-sick Israeli boy of 15 into a trap, where he was riddled with bullets. But others were sentenced to life for belonging to an “illegal organization” and possessing arms, or for throwing an ineffectual home made bomb at a bus hurting nobody.
Almost all of them were convicted by military courts. As has been said, military courts have the same relation to real courts as military music does to real music.
All of these prisoners, in Israeli parlance, have “blood on their hands”. But which of us Israelis has no blood on his hands?

Photograph by: Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images
Schalit free in Israel-Palestinian prisoner swap – World Watch – CBS News http://bit.ly/nVTchg

An intense media campaign to free Schalit made him a national symbol in Israel, and all local radio and TV stations held special live broadcasts Tuesday, following every step of the exchange. The voices of Israeli broadcasters cracked with emotion as news of his return became clear.

Israel and Hamas have held numerous rounds of talks through German and Egyptian mediators. But officials on both sides have said that conditions prompted in part by the recent Egyptian revolution helped drive them to an agreement. Both sides have been eager to have good ties with the new Egyptian leadership.

News of the deal was welcomed by the U.S., Britain, France and Germany, among others. Schalit holds French citizenship, while a German mediator was closely involved in the years of negotiations.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking while on a stop in Tripoli, Libya, Tuesday, said the U.S. was pleased the ordeal was over.

“He was held for far too long in captivity,” Clinton said.

mukataa – an Arabic word for headquarters or administrative center; “Arafat was holed up in the mukataa of his West Bank compound”

The Israel Prison Service reported, at the end of August 2011, that Israeli prisons held approximately 5200 Palestinians, including 272 prisoners held in “administrative detention without charge or trial”. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights the number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons is actually more than 6000.

Those who are charged are subjected to Israeli military courts that human rights organizations have criticized for failing to meet the minimum standards required for a fair trial. IMEU: Palestinian Prisoners in Israel http://bit.ly/q8NZlg