07 October 2009

First person by Bouthaina Shaaban


I do not know whether the release of Palestinian prisoners was planned to coincide with voting on Richard Goldstone’s report at the UN Human Rights Council; the report which details the crimes committed by Israel in its brutal war on Gaza. The Israeli government could have released the prisoners who have almost completed their sentences, which were illegal and unfair in the first place, just in time to distract attention from the coverage of the report. This coverage exposed to the “civilized” world the truth of the crimes against humanity committed by Israel against Palestinian civilians which many of it friends have found difficult to believe.

There is no secret in the information about the suffering of Palestinian prisoners and their torture in Israeli jails, which are only matched by the American Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Arab TV channels, which mention the case of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit continuously, remember the prisoners only when some of them are released. But these prisoners should be the main concern for such channels, as they are for human rights activists. How could one feel assured of the outcome of one’s work if the Goldstone report and the battle he fought for months have led, because of Israeli pressure, to being postponed till next year, which practically means exonerating the perpetrators of war crimes against civilians in Gaza from being brought to justice.

At a time when the child Yusuf al-Ziq, who was born in prison with fetters on his and his mother’s hands, was the natural candidate to be talked about as the youngest prisoner in the world, we saw that Shalit was the star of political, media, and security activities of the Arab regimes and TV channels. Shalit is a soldier in the Israeli Army which perpetrates all these crimes against Palestinian civilians and who came to Israel with the settlers to kill its people and take their land. He is a soldier taken prisoner in battle not like the pregnant mother Fatima al-Ziq who was kidnapped by Israeli soldiers from her home. Shalit could be one of the soldiers who kidnapped her or could be one of the soldiers who entertain themselves by “hunting” Palestinian children, and could be one of those who killed the child Mohammad al-Durra. Nevertheless, his name became well known all over the world as a result of systematic Zionist propaganda and the complete absence of Arab media when it comes to the cause of Palestinian prisoners.

The reason might be that Palestinians do not have the capacity or the funds to move, in addition to the absence of effective Arab, Muslim and world mechanisms to support them by word or deed. The reason could also be in the way Zionists portray and justify their crimes in international forums and media, while those whose rights are usurped do not have access to such media and forums. Add to that intellectual terrorism, media smearing and political assassination waged by Zionist lobbies against all of those who try to shed light on Israeli crimes.

If somebody like the distinguished judge, Richard Goldstone, a Jew and well known supporter of Israel was subject to this disgraceful campaign just because his conscience could not ignore the enormity of the horrendous crimes committed against innocent civilians, we can just imagine the types of accusations which will be levelled against him had he not been a pro-Israel Jew.

President Jimmy Carter (known for his ideological support of Israel) has been subject to poisonous articles. President Carter was responsible for extracting Egypt from the Arab-Israeli conflict through the Camp David agreement thus rendering Israel a strategic service and enhancing its strength which it used for bringing more oppression on the Palestinians.

Many world personalities have been for years subject to all kinds of intrigues and accusations by the Israeli pressure groups, and many others have been sent to premature retirement as a result of pressure from Jewish lobbies because they refused to cover up the crimes committed by Israel against Palestinian civilians in Jenin, Beit Hanoun, Hebron, Jerusalem and Gaza. We can recall, for example, Mary Robinson, Karen AbuZayd and Anna Lindh who was assassinated in ambiguous circumstances.

What is surprising is that this policy of silencing protesters against wrongs, corruption and forgery has become something of a global policy. Somebody like Peter Galbraith, the international envoy to Afghanistan was sacrificed because he took a stance against vote rigging in the Afghan elections. The point here is that sacking people at this level in order to cover up political corruption, war crimes or torture sends a strong warning message to all of those who could stand up to the general policy of ruling groups, even in the most ancient Western democracies. It brings to mind the dark practices during the horrific Stalin era when opponents used to be silenced using similar methods.

Does Israel contribute to creating a state of global panic so that no one dare shed light on its crimes against humanity? Anyway, the Goldstone report will be always there and available. The same goes for the ruling of the International Court of Justice on the racist separation barrier being built by Israel. All these add to the records of the rulers of Israel in terms of genocide, settlement, oppression, assassination, blackmail and torture. This has been going on since Zionists assassinated the international mediator, Count Bernadotte and committed genocide against Palestinian peasants in Deir Yasin and Kafr Qasim.

It is true that tremendous efforts are made in order to cover Israeli crimes, but who could think, a few years ago, that a British group would call for arresting Israeli war minister, Ehud Barak, for his crimes against Palestinian civilians?

What judge Goldstone and his colleagues have done is one advanced step to that taken by Bishop Desmond Tutu and his fact finding mission to uncover those responsible for the Beit Hanoun massacre. No matter how great the pressure to cover up such massacres against unarmed civilians, women and children, they will always find their way to light and those responsible brought to account.

That is why, saying the truth today and taking a courageous and uncompromising stance towards what is happening, regardless of the amount of terrorizing and blackmail, has become a moral imperative in order to insure that we do not return to a Stalinist age when people are haunted by fear.


Professor Bouthaina Shaaban is political and media advisor at the Syrian Presidency, and former expatriates minister. She is also a writer and professor at Damascus University since 1985, and is a PhD in English Literature from Warwick University, United Kingdom. She was the spokesperson for Syria, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

Copyright The Daily Star 2009.