By Ted Belman Amnesty International issued a press release today. Gilad Shalit was held captive for five years by Palestinian armed groups The prisoner exchange involving Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and 477 Palestinian prisoners highlights the need for the humane treatment of all detainees in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), Amnesty International said today. While it describes what Shalit went through as an “ordeal”, it describestheir detention under “harsh conditions”. No mention of the conditions for Shalit. And no mention of a very basic difference, Shalit was a hostage, the Arabs were convicted murders. Surely the families would have different expectations given that difference. They assert that rights must be protected without giving evidence of such need. Shalit wasn’t “captured”, he was abducted. There is a difference. And don’t forget that two of his comrades were murdered. I don’t believe that it tried very hard at all to get him properly treated. It certainly didn’t make a big stink about it. I don’t recall one incident where they made such demands. Why does it continue to call them detainees and not convicted murderers? It makes it sound like Israel is “imprisoning Palestinians” rather than Murderers and those that abet them. Besides it starts from the proposition that the Geneva Convention applies but Israel’s position is that it doesn’t.Amnesty International are lying sons-of-bitches
“This deal will bring relief to Gilad Shalit and his family after an ordeal that has lasted more than five years. Many Palestinian families will feel a similar sense of relief today when they are reunited with their relatives, many of whom have spent decades under harsh conditions in Israeli detention,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Director.
“However, more needs to be done to protect the rights of thousands of others who remain in detention. The Israeli authorities, the Hamas de facto administration in Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank must seize this opportunity to ensure respect for the rights of all prisoners and detainees in their custody.”
Gilad Shalit was captured by Palestinian armed groups from Gaza in a cross-border raid on 25 June 2006. Since then he has been allowed no contact with his family, who have campaigned relentlessly for his release. Nor was he allowed access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, despite repeated appeals by Amnesty International and other organizations, which made it impossible to verify the conditions of his captivity.
Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Hamas authorities not to treat Gilad Shalit as a hostage and a bargaining chip, in violation of their obligations under international humanitarian law.
It has also consistently raised concerns with the Israeli authorities about the prison conditions of Palestinian detainees, and the fact that Israel continues to imprison Palestinians from the OPT inside Israel, in violation of its obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Obviously it wants to show equivalence. God forbid it should criticize only Hamas. It was not a “prisoner exchange”. It was an outrageous ransom paid for a hostage. It only mentions the 477 terrorists that were released calling them “prisoners rather than terrorists. What about the other 550? Then it lumps them all into “detainees” in the OPT which I surmise includes Gaza.
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