Israel's Math: 200 prisoners released; 50 new ones to replace them...so far

As I walked into Ramallah this morning, I noticed a van covered with flags and posters. The driver kept honking the horn and young men hung out of the windows shouting. They seemed to be celebrating, but I didn't understand what. I saw a few more decorated cars and noticed kids holding flags and wearing keffiyas. I still didn't understand why.

This evening I finally got online to check the news and noticed that the Palestinian prisoners Israel promised to release have been freed. It clicked.

As I read through the story, I got this sense that Israel had done something so kind and generous. And as I watched the video I saw a dozen Palestinian men in jeans with sneakers, standing in a line and wearing handcuffs, waiting to return to their pasts. They didn't look like criminals, not even those scary, dangerous two that are labeled as having "blood on their hands." And then I got pissed off. I thought, "What the hell?!" Most aren't criminals. In fact, 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons are political prisoners. This is occupation my friends. Those with power can arrest whomever they want. I've seen it happen with my own eyes. And Israel is generous for releasing these people, most of whom are in prison because they object to occupation and injustice?



What happens next? Have you heard of administrative detention? So many Palestinians are held under this category and denied trial; moreover, their status in administrative detention can be extended again and again, indefinitely. It's a violation of fundamental human rights.

And I mused: If Palestinians who are living day to day, going to work or school and coming home to family and friends, are denied their fundamental human rights, how are prisoners treated under occupation? Consider too that so many are children. And then I remembered the wedding music from last night, and from every other night this summer. And I thought to myself, how amazing that these people come out of years and years of deprivation, torture, suffering...and they live. They not only survive it but they return and then they affirm and re-affirm life. They marry. They make babies. They go back to school or work. They affirm this god forsaken life under occupation, this hell called Palestine. That is resistance. That is hope and that is beautiful.

But even this hope is destroyed the same day when Israel invades Ramallah and kidnaps 50 new prisoners. They are quick to replenish those they freed and will not only break even, but surely add to the numbers of Palestinians rotting away in Israeli prisons.