Today the New York Times has a story about the possible prisoner exchange between Israel and the Palestinians that involves Gilad Shalit, of course, in exchange for "hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, including many convicted of organizing suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism."
I searched this article in vain for basic information: How many Palestinians are in Israeli jails, and under what conditions. I want to know how many Palestinians are locked up, how many are actually convicted of things and how many are just detained and for how long. Including Mohammad Othman, a human rights worker imprisoned for two months now without charges after visiting Europe.
Mondoweiss readers, please do for me what the Times didn’t do for me when I bought my newspaper this morning. In a story about the prisoner exchange, the Times left out relevant facts. Can you supply them? I’m sure that Shmuel and others will know the answer to this question.
And would anyone with a few spare moments like to bring this failure to the attention of the Times ombudsman? Routine mainstream journalism should have included these facts.
Update: A reader sends this link:
Israel is currently holding 335 Palestinians without trial in breach of international law, two Israeli human rights groups said [last month].
Of the 335 Palestinians held in so-called administrative detention, one is a minor and three are women. One of the prisoners has been held for more than four and a half years without trial and another 28 have been in detention for between two and four years, HaMoked and B’Tselem said.
B’Tselem is probably the best source for this kind of information. They have statistics by month and year for the various kinds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by the IDF and the Israel Prison Service. The latest available fgures are from 31 October, 2009:
Total: 7,058
Serving sentence: 5,076
Detainees: 202
Detained under Illegal Combatants Law: 9
Detained until the conclusion of legal proceedings: 1,449
Administrative detainees: 322
There is also more specific information regarding minors and administrative detentions.
link to btselem.org
I’m guessing Ethan Bronner has heard of B’Tselem. It took me about 2 minutes to find the information and copy it out (couldn’t paste a table in the comments section). I’m also guessing that Mr. Bronner has an assistant for this sort of thing, in case he can’t personally spare the time.
Thanks, Shmuel. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a profile of B’Tselem in the mainstream press, although they would be a fantastic story even just from the purely journalistic standpoint. My understanding is that the name means “in his image” in Hebrew. I think I can guess the origins, but can you or anyone else help?
Exactly. Genesis 1:27: And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
It is the basis of Jewish humanism in the Bible and Rabbinic tradition.
As a sidebar, Israel’s detention policies vis-a-vis those of the United States, post 9/11, are becoming a big issue for the American Progressive movement as well. It’s not hard to see how the Bush era military detention policies were modeled after Israel, so speaking out about one is conducive to speaking out about the other.
Chaos, to support your comment I offer Glenn Greenwald’s column “Greg Craig and Obama’s worsening civil liberties record” from today:
link to salon.com
Some quotes:
“The administration’s actual position — we’ll give trials to a handful of people we know we can convict and will continue to imprison them even if they’re acquitted, while affirmatively denying trials to the rest — is about as far from a principled or even cogent position as it gets. Worse, it’s impossible to defend Holder’s decision to give a trial to Mohammed by appealing to “the rule of law” given that many of the detainees are being denied trials. If (as Obama defenders insist) the “rule of law” requires trials, doesn’t that mean, by definition, that Obama and Holder — by using military commissions and indefinite detention — are trampling on “the rule of law,” not upholding it?”
Sounds mighty similar to the situation in Israel, except that israelis have perfected this shadow detention system that’s operating outside the law, using the always-convenient “security” argument to justify it.
Glenn goes on to quote from a times article:
link to time.com
“The President was moving away from some promises he had made during the campaign and toward more moderate positions, some favored by George W. Bush. At the same time, he quietly shifted responsibility for the legal framework for counterterrorism from Craig to political advisers overseen by Emanuel, who was more inclined to strike a balance between left and right.”
And back to Greenwald:
“Note how abandoning one’s campaign promises and adopting Bush/Cheney detention and secrecy policies is now deemed “moderate” — or, as the Time photo caption calls it, “pragmatic.”
And finally,
“to recap: we have indefinite detention, military commissions, Blackwater assassination squads, escalation in Afghanistan, extreme secrecy to shield executive lawbreaking from judicial review, renditions, and denials of habeas corpus. These are not policies Obama has failed yet to uproot; they are policies he has explicitly advocated and affirmatively embraced as his own.”
The interesting part – one that Glenn has often highlighted, and what you are refering to, is the way this is splitting the progressive community, pitting the “Obama defenders” against the civil rights community, of which Glenn is but one representative. What is left unsaid is just how similar the travesty of justice is to the israeli system (where justice is neither swift nor seen for palestinians). Whenever anyone tried to draw this parallel on a selectively progressive blog like DK, or crooks and liars, they get piled upon, and their voices are made to “disappear. I participated [blissfully, most briefly] in a discussion about greenwald at DK and it got might ugly very quickly. Mostly because the “Dear leader” hoardes were quick to draw their desperate little barricades. And that discussion did not even bring the Israeli system up.
But I do believe that what we are seeing is an “Israelization” of the american justice system. Hardly a surprise, given that Iraq was never called by its true name ” a war crime” . And that’s the nature of the slippery slope – since Iraq was largely done at the behest of Israel, it is to be expected that the progressive community which elected Obama – and has a large number of jewish activists – will fall prey to the same twisted judicial logic that infected Israel itself. I say, watch it all play out over there, and you’ll know what will transpire over here in due course.
Thus has america’s left been hijacked. A scary thought: will america’s left follow in the footsteps of the [disappeared] Israel’s left?
Well… not to give too heartbreaking a response to your question, but Shmuel has said he eventually felt he had to leave Israel. Likewise, I have long range plans to leave the United States, myself. This is no longer the country my grandfather fought to protect, and I’ve run out of motivation to try to change a system that rejects reform and honesty at every turn. I’m not even sure there is any fixing the US government anymore.
Chaos, I understand how you feel, but where in the world do you expect to find the kind of commitment to justice and principles of human dignity that would leave you in a state of peace? yes, there are a number of decent European countries (mostly in Scandinavia) but they have other issues you may find difficult to adjust to (the high tax rate really is a shock. no matter one gets their “money’s worth, it’s just hard to adapt to coming from the US). Canada comes to mind as well, but they are hobbled by adherence to US guidelines – like the poor little rich neighbour to the north that they are. Plenty of other great countries around – especially in latin america, pacific and south asia- but which of them are free to float their own boat without the great meddler looking over their shoulders?
Not saying there aren’t great countries around the world to live in. But to thrive in – both spiritually and perhaps materially – is not easy.
I don’t mean to discourage you from long term plans, myself having moved about on the planet quite a bit – and being none the worse for wear. Am just wondering whether certain battles can best be waged in the US – warts and all.
We’re not making progress in the US anymore — at this point, those of us who are fighting for reform are fighting to get back something we lost.
I guess I’d rather go help people who need to find it in the first place, rather than mollify people who didn’t know how good they had it and still can’t understand what they’ve sacrificed out of ignorance.
I can tell you right now, I, nor any of my friends, are really thriving in the US right now. All other things being equal — living in a country that tortures, that bombs civilians indiscriminately, that has racial and religious intolerance — I’d rather move. At worse, at least there will be a change of scenery.
Chaos,
you are so naive and clueless, its almost cute.
“the Times left out relevant facts” Again? When will they learn that bias doesn’t sell papers. No wonder they need to sell the all the building floors of a new building. Nice work Sulzberger.