Monthly Archives: November 2020

ODSC statement on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

30 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by in ODSC

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(Translated from the original Arabic text)

On the occasion of the forty-third anniversary of the declaration of the United Nations General Assembly on November 29 as an occasion for global solidarity with the Palestinian people and with their heroic struggle that continues for more than a century, “The Campaign for One Democratic State in Historic Palestine” calls on all freedom-loving people of the world to strengthen and expand their solidarity with the cause of Palestine.

These days, a dangerous liquidation scheme, represented by “the deal of the century” and the rush of Arab regimes to normalize their relations with Israel, threatens the just cause of the Palestinian people.  This scheme is more dangerous than any other scheme since the 1960’s, when the Palestinian national movement was rebuilt as a national liberation movement.

We have already lived through 72 years of ongoing Palestinian Nakba, and Israel is still practicing systematic crimes of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people, under the eyes of the international system, which granted legitimacy to the establishment of this colonial regime. We, in the Campaign for One Democratic State, ask, on behalf of the Palestinian people: How long can the official international community continue to turn a blind eye to the crimes of ethnic cleansing and apartheid that Israel is practicing, in flagrant violation of the international law on which it was founded?

Palestine is subject to a brutal colonial apartheid regime that does not respect international law. We have all recently witnessed the collapse of the illusion, cherished by the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization, about the possibility of establishing an independent Palestinian state on 22% of historic Palestine. Therefore, despite the consistent absolute US imperialist support for Israel, and the complicity and inaction of the international community, global civil society is rising again, in sympathy with the Palestinian people and in support of oppressed peoples against oppressive capitalist regimes. In the context of the convergence of peoples’ struggles for freedom, justice and equality, a new horizon opens for the Palestinian struggle and for the return of the Palestinian cause to its natural place on the world’s agenda as a cause of national liberation and social justice.

Our struggle is inspired by the legendary struggle of the Palestinian people and by the movement against the South African apartheid regime. In response to the call by South Africa’s liberation movement, global civil society organized, in the late nineteen-eighties, an effective and influential boycott campaign against the apartheid regime. Israel is a settler colonial entity, and an oppressive apartheid regime, implementing a more brutal version of the defunct South African regime. We believe that the struggle against this racist regime must combine popular resistance on the ground with global civil resistance, represented by the boycott campaign. Civil society, people of conscience and people struggling for freedom all over the world can force Israel to comply with international law and to abandon its colonialist policy.

Just as South Africans called on international civil society to boycott goods and institutions of their oppressors, so do Palestinian institutions, trade unions and mass movements call on all people of conscience in the world to support the Palestinian civil campaign to boycott, divest and impose sanctions on Israel, until it complies with international law and the Palestinian people regain their basic rights. On this occasion, we turn to all the solidarity committees and freedom-loving people in the world to pressure their governments to impose sanctions on Israel, so that it stops its crimes and violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people.

The “The Campaign for One Democratic State in Historic Palestine” believes that the struggle of the Palestinian people should not divide between Palestinians in the territories that were occupied in 1948, areas occupied in 1967 (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) and the diaspora. The time has come to bury the illusion of a “two-state solution” and restore the unity of the Palestinian people around a vision of national liberation and democracy and to develop a strategy for a phased and long-term struggle. The Campaign believes that achieving justice in Palestine requires the establishment of a single democratic state that would guarantee the return of the Palestinian refugees and grant equal rights to all its citizens, regardless of religion, ethnic affiliation, color and gender, on the ruins of the existing colonial apartheid regime.

“The Campaign for One Democratic State in Historic Palestine”

Palestine, November 29, 2020

The Pseudo-Judicial Execution of Maher al-Akhras

02 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by in Administrative Detention, Hungry for Freedom

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(The following article appeared today in Mondoweiss)

Tuesday, November 3rd, will be the 100th day of the hunger strike of Maher al-Akhras. That is, if he will still be alive. His body, deprived of all the vital ingredients for life except for water, is betraying him ever more. He shivers and trembles, suffers from all kinds of pains and sometimes loses his consciousness.

Israel is now waging a deadly campaign, over al Akhras’ decaying body, to rob the Palestinians of their weapon of last resort – hunger strikes. This weapon, which involves endless suffering and dangers, is anyway only used against the harshest and most brutal cases of injustice, like, in al-Akhras’ case, against administrative detention, a detention without indictment, without trial and without an expiration date.

Maher’s challenge to his torturers constitutes a uniting focus for Palestinian struggle in these dark days when it seems that the world hardly notices. Solidarity events were held all over Palestine, on both sides of the green line, and for tomorrow there is a central demonstration planned in front of the Kaplan hospital, where he is held against his will.

As he explained all through his hunger strike, al-Akhras is not striking for his personal freedom but as part of the Palestinian people’s struggle for liberty. The readiness of the striker to suffer, to scarify and to put his life in danger, help to draw solidarity and to concentrate minds. But the goal of the hunger striker and of his supporters is to get him free and alive. For this reason, as his medical condition is deteriorating, Maher is ready to stop his trike with a symbolic step to freedom by being transferred from the Israeli hospital to a Palestinian hospital, still under the same occupation. But, in a twist of events, it seems that the Israeli authorities are trying to use the opportunity and push Maher to his death as a “lesson” for Palestinians in general that their lives have no value at all.

The hierarchy of the Shabak state

The people that decided to put Maher al-Akhras under administrative detention, like many other hundreds of Palestinians every year, has no names and no faces. They are the agents of the all-powerful “Shabak” – the Hebrew acronym for General Security Service (GSS) – which, as far as the Palestinian population is regarded, is running the show unimpeded like a criminal gang.

I read the official protocol of what is called Israel’s “high court of justice”, in its hearing on October 28th, hearing al-Akhras’ lawyer appeal against his detention. The judges describe how “after hearing the arguments of the parties, we held a hearing with one side, with the consent of the petitioner, beyond closed doors, looked at the material presented to us by the security elements, we had a conversation and views-exchange with them.” To describe this “conversation and views-exchange” they use a very special Hebrew phrase, “sig va-siah” (שיג ושיח), that is sometimes translated to “powwow”, implying a special closeness. Unlike “the parties”, whose names appear at the head of the protocol, those “elements” that the judges throw everybody out of the court for a “get together” with them, are not mentioned by name, not even by the name of the organization that sent them.

And what did the “honorable” judges learned from their get together with those nameless elements? In a previous hearing they were presented with a false translation (as exposed in Haaretz) of an interview that al Akhras gave from his hospital bed. On the last hearing, they only say that “in the bottom line we have come to the conclusion that there is not in the petitioner’s arguments any medical advantage in transferring him to al-Makassed Hospital in East Jerusalem, over leaving him at Kaplan Hospital.” And this conclusion comes at the continuation of the very same sentence describing the “get together” with the “elements”!

So, as far as Israel’s “high court of justice” is concern, the Shabak is not only responsible to know how “dangerous” Palestinians are, but also what is best for their health… No doubt, the Shabak “medical” experts found that it is better for Maher al-Akhras to die in confinement at an Israeli hospital (where he refuses any treatment) than to have his life saved at a Palestinian hospital (even if under occupation).

You are not detained so you can’t be freed

The “legal” pretext that is supposed to justify administrative detention is that it is not a punishment for any offence, but a preventive measure against imminent “danger”. In an attempt to save face, the same court decided, on September 23, to suspend al Akhras’ detention as “in his current medical condition he doesn’t constitute a danger, so that the preventive intent of his detention doesn’t currently exist.” But they also decided that he should “stay in the same hospital where he is” and that in case that his medical conditions will improve his administrative detention may be resumed.

On September 30, the court refused another appeal to abolish al Akhras’ detention claiming that he is not under detention. So, on what basis is he held against his will in the Kaplan hospital? They claimed that, as his detention might be resumed, it will be hard for the all mighty occupation to bring him again from his home or from a Palestinian hospital. So, he is not detained but must stay in the Kaplan hospital just in case the faceless people would decide to detain him again.

On Friday, October 23, (as we reported in Mondoweiss before) the hospital management tried to get rid of the uninvited ghost and release itself from the role that was imposed on it as a jail keeper for a potential detainee. The security apparatus renewed the administrative detention, even though al-Akhras’ medical condition has much deteriorated since the court decided to suspend it, and declared its intention to drag him back to Ramleh prison.  This intention was blocked by the court on the same day – and the status quo of limbo leading to slow death was restored.

The punishment for hunger strike is death

On October 12, during another appeal against al-Akhras’ detention, the judges suggested a “compromise”. As his detention was initially set for four months, ending on November 26, they suggested that the detention order will not be renewed after this date. They left an open door for a common Israeli cheat, as they added “if there would not be new information about the danger that he constitutes.” But they demanded that, in order not to renew the detention, al-Akhras will immediately stop his hunger strike. They actually stated, written black on white in the “high court of injustice” protocols, that al-Akhras may be punished with another administrative detention for the crime of starving himself as a protest against his detention.

Armed with more medical evidence about the imminent danger to al-Akhras’ life, lawyer Ahlam Haddad appeared again in the “high court of justice” on October 28. This time, to prevent any excuses of possible hardship to supervise or re-arrest her client, she suggested to transfer him to (the Palestinian) al-Makassed hospital in East Jerusalem, that is under strict Israeli occupation and, according to Israeli annexation laws, an integral part of Israel proper.

Contrary to all logic and law, the judges didn’t bring any reason why Maher al-Akhras should not be allowed to choose the hospital in which he will be treated. In the reverse – the very fact that he is putting his life in danger for his right to get out of the hospital where he was brought and held against his will is their main reason to keep him there. They write: “The petitioner’s claim that in one hospital he “chooses” to go on a hunger strike but not so in another hospital, does not justify granting his request. The petitioner did not bring any reason why the respondent should be required to transfer him to another hospital”.

The judges, or, as we can understand from their own description in the protocol, in fact the Shabak, were stubborn in their insistence that Maher al Akhras should die rather than have even the smallest symbolic achievement to show for his hunger strike.