UPDATE: The Israel High Court announced today (Monday) that it is moving the hearing up to tomorrow (Tuesday) at 3:00pm local time, instead of initial date this Thursday. The Court did not provide reasons for its decision, but there have been assessments in recent days that there is a concrete threat to the prisoner’s life.
This post, criticizing the court for the initial delay, was originally posted yesterday (Sunday)
Khader Adnan has now entered his 65th day of a hunger strike. On Sunday the High Court of Justice (HCJ) decided to postpone dealing with the urgent appeal in his case until Thursday. Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, which supports the appeal, noted that would be Adnan’s 68th day of his 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 would 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, to 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 protester in Tel Aviv: 'What is legal about administrative detention?' (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 has 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 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 have our own judges’ trials.
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David
Campaign for enhanced due process in the legal proceedings, certainly.
But could you not mention that this man is a leader in Palestinian Islamic Jihad? They’re not an organisation known for their concern for legal due process. In fact, they have a record of slaughtering hundreds of civilians.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17079461
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Jihad_Movement_in_Palestine#Activities
Mentioning this background doesn’t undermine the argument for due process.
But failing to mention it in your report, undermines you.
berl
If and what role he is supposed to have in the palestinian islamic jihad is a matter that a real democracy would prove in a process. that’s the point
David
He was detained by the Palestinian National Authority a year or so back. The Palestine Centre for Human Rights identified him as “a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad”.
http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7035:pchr-condemns-continued-detention-of-islamic-jihad-leader-in-violation-of-law-&catid=36:pchrpressreleases&Itemid=194
In the UK, we detain jihadists for as long as we can, pre-trial. Sometimes, we don’t even try them – see, Abu Qatada who we’re desperately trying to send back to your part of the world.
We had another one a few years back – Abu Rideh. He was detained, and went on hunger strike. In doing so, he became the subject of campaigns by Liberty, Amnesty, the Guardian, and the Independent. None of these campaigns reported on the huge flows of money through the bank account of this supposedly unemployed man, or his description of having built “a school for the children of Arabic speakers” in Afghanistan whose fathers were “the world’s most wanted men”.
Within a year of being allowed to leave the UK, Abu Rideh died in an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.
Now, there are arguments to be made about the rightness or wrongness of detaining even very dangerous terrorists without trial. However, when they’re made by pretending that the detained man is a paragon of virtue, a poet, a lovely family man – as opposed to a religious fascist committed to genocide – then it completely undermines that argument.
Most people will just stop caring.
Yossi Gurvitz
David, I never made him a paragon of anything. I find administrative detention abhorrent and inhuman, and I make that argument regardless of who the detainee is. I am pretty certain me and Mr. Adnan would heartily dislike each other. That is totally beside the point.
Soup Kitchen Sam
I don’t care if he is a paragon of virtue, a poet, a lovely family man or a religious fascist committed to genocide. You charge him with something like attempted conspiracy to commit murder. and give him a trial. Doesn’t have to be a jury.
Being he is a leader in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. And that they’re not an organisation known for their concern for legal due process. That they have a record of slaughtering hundreds of civilians.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17079461
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Jihad_Movement_in_Palestine#Activities
attempted conspiracy to commit murder should be easy to prove. One count of that can get you 10 years in America I think. one picture of him with 3 known terrorists could be trumped up into 3 charges. that’s 30 years.
Being an American I just got a hard time letting go of those inalienable rights we are SUPPOSED to have over here. But that has gone to $hit with the indefinite detention act. I am outraged that my country is holding men without trial. I am outraged over a lot of things my country does. Thank god for the #occupiers. They are waking the people up. They woke me up. I’m trying to wake up people every day. At least 3 of the ones I woke up. There waking up people too.
Greg Pollock
Justice Holmes in the US once said “hard cases make bad law.” I would say they break law into new paths.
.
The battle of this man may be for violent ends. But in some battles you cannot pre-define the outcome. I think it likely that bereft of all other options this violent man has become something else. And that may make us as afraid as we were of his past ends.
.
He cannot, at this point, break his fast. He will have to be fed medically.
.
This man has violated our rules of existence, and we don’t know what to do about it. He is imploding, and all we want are the usual pre-packaged answers. So I repeat: our greater fear is that in these 60 odd days he has become something new. Do we allow that? Is it in the instruction booklet?
Sherri Munnerlyn
Khader Adna has become a symbol of Israel’s unlawful detention practices and unlawful trial practices, with respect to Palestinians.. And has anyone read the Amnesty Petition? They are demanding all administratively detained prisoners be released or tried for crimes recognized by intl law in proceedings completely lawful under intl law. All of this nonsense of making membership in a group unlawful has no basis or place in international law, nor do these lifelong administrative detentions!