Dear All,
My heart dropped when I read this a few moments ago. Am sending this apart from the rest, because it deserves a place of its own. I was checking to see if there was anything that needed adding to my usual message, which is already bursting to overflowing. And found this. So it goes here. The Israeli Supreme Court almost always—though not always–backs the government and military (especially the military) in cases where Palestinians are involved. Its decision to hold off till Thursday is almost a death warrant for Khader Adnan. And if on Thursday the High Court reaches no decision, his case will wait till Sunday, because who works on Friday and Saturday here? I admit—I’m out of ideas on what to do more. All that I can say is that this is so painful, both because of Khader, and also because I would have liked to have thought that the High Court has a teensy tinge of humanitarianism. But it does not. Would the High Court have treated an Israeli Jew on hunger strike the 64th day in this way?
Dorothy
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Sunday, February 19 2012
Independent commentary and news from Israel & Palestine
Sunday, February 19 2012|Yossi Gurvitz
http://972mag.com/high-court-of-justice-delays-urgent-adnan-appeal/35796/
High Court of Justice delays urgent Adnan appeal
The High Court of Justice decided to delay the urgent appeal in the case of Khader ‘Adnan to Thursday – and may not reach a decision even then
Khader ‘Adnan is on his 65th day of a hunger strike, and today the High Court of Justice (HCJ) decided today to delay dealing with the urgent appeal in his case to Thursday. Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, which supports the appeal, noted that that would be ‘Adnan’s 69th day of a hunger strike, and there is no guarantee that the justices will bother to make their decision then. It’s a Thursday, you know, and the weekend is so close, and this is just a Palestinian in administrative detention, and he must be held for a reason. Irrecoverable dying begins on the 70th day of a hunger strike. That would be Friday.
Now, the HCJ knows, when it wants to, how to hold swift hearings. Before the evacuation of the settler outpost Amona, it held a marathon debate till morning before making its final decision. But that was an illegal outpost, built on private Palestinian land; the debate was on something important, such as the theft rights of settlers. Not something petty like the most essential rights of a non-Jew.
People tell me: ‘Adnan can stop his hunger strike whenever he wants. This is very true. He can also solve most of his other problems and simply sign whatever his interrogators want him to sign. He just has to lie to himself. Whoever makes that claim has no clue as to what human dignity is, the basic right to not have a jackboot at your throat; or, perhaps, he thinks Palestinians denuded of human dignity.
‘Adnan’s detention serves no practical purpose. He is not interrogated as he lies chained in a hospital. Even were the security apparatus to discharge him now, he will not be a danger to anyone anytime soon. He has already suffered severe damage. There is no reason to keep him detained, but one: his release will embarrass the apparatus. It will testify that there was no cogent reason to hold him in the first place. It will put the entire system of administrative detention in question.
So what we basically see is a pissing contest between a dark apparatus, the strongest in Israel and quite likely in the entire Middle East, and a sick, dying man, under guard, chained to his bed, with nothing but his faith to drive him on. The HCJ was supposed to be a bulwark of this man, stand between him and the apparatus, and defend him. That, after all, is the legend they keep telling us about the HCJ: that it is comprised of wise, all-knowing judges, standing undaunted in defense of human rights against the government. The thin line of black robes.
A pro-Adnan protster in Tel Aviv (Photo: Yossi Gurvitz)
The court made excellent use of this legend, and used it in the political struggles of the 1990s and 2000s. Some Israelis actually received aid from him. But it never defended the Palestinian. Every Palestinian had the right to appeal to the HCJ against the demolition of his house; the court never prevented any. Not a single one. The court approved one administrative detention after another, even though this basically took us to pre-Magna Carta law. Even when the apparatus decided to exile 400 people suspected of being Hamas members to Lebanon, the HCJ approved the decision – admittedly, it held a swift hearing on the urgent appeal of the deportees.
The justices know precisely where they sit. If they hear the petition, they will also have to make a ruling. If they reject the petition, ‘Adnan’s blood will be on their hands, which can be quite uncomfortable the next time they visit Europe. If they accept it, on the other hand, they will face the wrath of the Israeli mob, which does not understand what’s all the noise about some Ay-rab. So they postpone the hearing. As the old joke went, perhaps the dog will die; perhaps the baron (the apparatus) will. Perhaps someone else will deal with this hot potato for them.
And that is evil couched in cowardice. And that, too, should be borne in mind when we shall have our own judges’ trials.
administrative detention, High Court of Justice, hunger strike, Khader ‘Adnan
File UnderNews
I am Yossi Gurvitz, a 40-year old journalist, blogger and photographer.
I write for several Israeli publications, including the influential financial daily Calcalist and the Nana portal. In the past, I’ve been deputy editor of Nana News, and with Itamar Shaaltiel edited its 2006 Knesset elections section.
I was raised as an Orthodox Jew, graduated from a Yeshiva (Nehalim), but saw the light and turned atheist at about the age of 17. After the mandatory three years in the military, much more strictly enforced in 1988 than now, I studied history and classics, earning a BA degree, and studying three additional years towards an MA, but abandoned the project in favor of earning my living as a journalist. [It seemed a good idea at the time.]
