By Shahd Abusalama

(source: Electronic Intifada)

Palestinian political prisoners are not only numbers

Last night, a new friend of mine noticed that I try to highlight the issue of Palestinian political prisoners in my writings. That led to a long chat about my interest in bringing out their stories. I started by describing how being the daughter of a former detainee has inspired a passion toward my homeland and the feeling of having a duty toward my people, especially our forgotten prisoners, within me.

I told him how attending the weekly protest with prisoners’ families in the Red Cross has turned to be a psychological cure for my own pains. It’s true. Sometimes I feel very sad, but as soon as I see a prisoner’s mother, wife, or daughter smiling, my spirit strangely rises. Interacting with the prisoners’ families and listening to their stories, full of suffering and pride, has created a warm relationship between us. They have become an important part of my life, and a reason to live.

I’ve always criticized the way prisoners are presented as numbers. Reports often show them as mere statistics, omitting that behind these figures there are humans desperate for dignified life and justice. Humanizing their issue by making their stories heard has been the main goal of my writings, with faith in humanity preserving my hope that their stories may wake the sleeping to take action.

Unconsciously, my life has recently centered on Khader Adnan. He is an administrative detainee who has been on hunger strike since December 17 to protest his illegal detention without trial. I have followed updates about his continuing hunger strike, his silence, his deteriorating health, the ban on his family visiting him, and the Israeli Prison Service (IPS)’s indifference and neglect of his situation. Gaza has held many events in solidarity with him and his family, who are terrified that each new dawn could bring news of his death.

Israel’s Deportation of South Sudanese

By Ryan Rodrick Beiler

(source: Electronic Intifada)

Israel has announced it plans to deport thousands of refugees from South Sudan. The reasoning behind the move suggests it could be a rehearsal for the expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel if an independent Palestinian state is ever established.

AP reports:

Israel’s Interior Ministry says thousands of people from South Sudan must leave or face deportation.

Spokeswoman Sabine Haddad says since the Southern Sudanese have an independent state, they will no longer be given protected status in Israel. The country gained independence from Sudan in July.

Some 7,000 South Sudanese are believed to be in Israel, part of a larger influx of African migrants who have poured into the country in recent years. Some are refugees, while others are seeking employment.

The report also says that the refugees “will be offered voluntary deportation and around $1,300.”

Ominous sign for Palestinians in Israel

This is bad enough for refugees from South Sudan – who whether or not they now have an independent state – come from a country still torn by war and violence. But Israeli leaders have already hinted that they could use the same type of logic to justify removal of Palestinian citizens of Israel if a nominally independent Palestinian state is established on scraps of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Unrepresentative NTC is unable to control militias, tribes and factions, which are committing human rights abuses in a bid to settle scores

By Ramzy Baroud

(source: Gulf News)

 A US soldier with the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) looks for evidences, as others walk at the scene of a suicide attack in Kandahar south of Kabul, Afghanistan. A suicide attacker blew himself up yesterday at an entrance to a sprawling base for US and Nato operations, killing seven civilians, police said.

The British Foreign Office and the US State Department are seriously concerned. Human rights officers in the United Nations are angry. Canada, for some reason, seems particularly enraged. The target of all this fury is Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC), which is berated for failing to curtail widespread human rights violations throughout the country.

The story sounds somewhat typical. Rights watchdog groups sound the alarm regarding violations in some third world country. Western powers respond by demanding accountability. The media reports on the story until it eventually fades away.

However, this story requires more than a mere acknowledgement of the self-serving approach to human rights violations. The accusers include the UN and leading members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato). It was the selective wording and interpretation of UN Security Council Resolution 1973 that led to a devastating war against Libya. The war destroyed one brutal regime and replaced it with another — at the expense of tens of thousands of Libyan lives.

As for the accused, it is no other than the NTC, which itself was a Nato political construct aimed at leading the political transition in Libya to serve western interests.

By Ali Abunimah

(source: Electronic Intifada)

The relentless drumbeat for war against Iran got a little bit louder last night with comments by US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on CBS’ 60 Minutes that Iran is only a year from making a nuclear bomb if it decided to proceed. Panetta emphasized that Iran having a bomb is a “red line for us, and it’s a red line obviously for the Israelis. So we share a common goal here. If we have to do it, we will do it.”

The interviewer, Scott Pelley, had to ask what the “it” meant – but the clear implication was a military attack.

It is hard to avoid the suspicion that Panetta’s comments were part of efforts by the Obama administration to appease and placate the Israel lobby as President Obama faces a tough re-election battle and constant Republican attacks that he is too soft on Iran and not pro-Israel enough.

Just weeks ago, Panetta admitted Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons

While Panetta did not say that Iran has decided to proceed with making a bomb he did not repeat comments he made just weeks ago that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons (video above).

Speaking on CBS Face The Nation on 9 January, Panetta let slip, as Raw Story put it:

the big open secret that Washington war hawks don’t want widely known: Iran is not developing nuclear weapons.

On that occasion Panetta said:

I think the pressure of the sanctions, the diplomatic pressures from everywhere, Europe, the United States, elsewhere, it’s working to put pressure on them, to make them understand that they cannot continue to do what they’re doing. Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability, and that’s what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is, do not develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us.