Tonight They Martyred the Moon (Based on a True Story)

The fishermen were attacked again today,

As everyday on the Gazan sea.

Not once in recent memory

have they been left in peace.

The gunboats show no mercy

As they loom over the hasakas

They shoot randomly and with glee,

As the fishermen flee.

F-16’s crisscross the sky,

As everyday in the Gazan sky.

The sonic booms shake me as

i sit on my balcony

watching the crescent moon

as it falls to the sea.

i walk inside to refill my tea,

the windows rattle ferociously.

i return to my seat

tea in hand

the moon has vanished from the sky.

Damn, i shout, come quick,

the Isareli’s have martyred

the moon.

I scan the sea to the north

i see a rope around the moon

a Israeli gunboat laboring far below.

They are towing the moon to Ashdod.

It’s not allowed in the sky

over Gaza.

I wonder who decides?

As the world pretends to hide?

A Tale of Two Bullets in Gaza

On Sunday it was reported that a young boy had been shot on farmland near the Rafah crossing. The details were unclear. Several colleagues and I traveled to Rafah to find out what happened. After making several inquiries, we entered a Bedouin area several hundred meters north of Gaza’s border with Egypt and three kilometers from the Karm Abu Salem area of the Israeli border on the East. We follow a young man on a motorcycle down dusty roads with small plots of crops and olive trees on one side and dilapidated homes made of corrugated metal, cinder block and plastic on the other.

Standing outside a rickety gate, three boys explain that we need to wait, as there are only women at home. A child runs off to summon a male family member.  Someone calls from inside asking us to enter. We pass through a dusty courtyard and are directed to a small dark room with nothing but mats on the floor. A bare light bulb hangs overhead. A plastic clock hangs on the wall. Despite all the children on the street and in the home, there are no toys. A young boy sits in the corner, playing with the fringe on a woman’s coat, shy and surprised at the strangers in his home. A woman with a child clutching her leg peeks from behind a curtain. Plastic chairs are brought in for the guests.

Faiza, the boy’s forty-four-year-old mother enters and sits on the mat next to the boy. He is six-year-old Sohab Sultan. He is the victim of the shooting, but he looks uninjured. Faiza pulls down his pants to show the fresh bandage on his left buttock. She explains that on Saturday evening at seven o’clock, they heard gunfire from the border. Sohab was sitting exactly where we sat, playing on the floor with his brothers when the bullet pierced the corrugated metal roof and struck him. She points to the hole in the ceiling just above my head.

She produces his x-ray, showing a large caliber bullet lodged inches from his pelvis. If he had been sitting in a slightly altered position he could easily be dead. As it was, the bullet did little damage. His mother explains that the bullet hasn’t been removed yet. They need to schedule surgery with the hospital.

Sohab’s father, Majd, enters the room and sits beside me. He explains the family’s circumstances. He is unemployed and his wife suffers from kidney disease. There is little income and very little support from the government. He and his wife have nine children. Sohab is the youngest. It is the first time a family member has been injured, although there is often the sound of gunfire from the border and bullets have struck neighbor’s homes in the past.

He said, “We are often afraid, we never know when a bullet could come down.”  He continues, “To the Israelis we say, “Please don’t shoot us, we are civilians here, we have no weapons, we live a civilian life. We just want to live like humans. We want to live in peace.”

Baraka al-Morabi was not as lucky as Sohab Sultan. He lived in Zeitoun camp with his mother, father and two sisters as well as his grandmother and three aunts with their families.

I attend his funeral. I watch as a father stumbles carrying his seven-year-old child to his grave. Baraka is wrapped in a white shroud and lowered into the ground. A short ceremony is held. A Palestinian flag is draped over the fresh mound of dirt and a cardboard placard identifies the grave. His is the last in a line of fourteen new graves of fighters and civilians. You can see a short video of the funeral here.

Several days after the funeral we visited with Baraka’s father, Mohammed Osman al-Mograbi. He led us down rutted dirty streets, past the gaggles of bare foot children, to his home in Zeitoun camp. We sat in a small concrete enclosed courtyard adjacent to a small stable that contained a horse and a small pony. The pony was born just weeks ago, a gift for Baraka.

As the family joins us under martyr posters of the young boy and his neighbors, we learn the story of Baraka’s death.

On Saturday March 17^th there was a funeral in Zeitoun for three fighters who had been killed the day before in an Israeli bombing. Baraka was walking in the funeral procession. Many people were firing pistols and Kalashnikovs into the air, as they will during both funerals and celebrations. Suddenly Baraka stumbled to the ground. He was struck in the back of the head by a bullet falling from the sky. He was hospitalized for four days before he died.

Mohammed tells us, “Baraka was a happy child. He did well in school and was always smiling.” Now, he is gone, but not forgotten.

In Gaza, reminders of war and violence are everywhere. It is normal to hear the sound of drones and F-16’s crossing the sky. The sound of machine gun fire from Israeli gunboats often punctuates a day at the beach or disrupts ones sleep. Building facades made of plaster and cinder block are scored with large caliber bullet holes, or even larger holes from mortars. Weeds grow around twisted metal and chunks of concrete in lots where buildings were reduced to rubble in Cast Lead, and there are the newly flattened buildings from last week’s attacks. And often, the bullets find much softer targets. Posters of the newly dead replace martyr posters faded and torn. Then there is the one legged man in the market, the burned woman I pass on the street, the pock marked arms and faces of shrapnel victims, and the men forever bound by wheelchairs.

Now there is a new poster, of a young boy who was killed in an act of senseless violence where violence and destruction seem the norm. His death just a footnote in the context of the larger systemic violence waged on the people here, but just last week he was not a footnote, he was a smiling vibrant seven-year-old boy who did well in school and had a new pony.

Baraka’s grandmother appears heartbroken. Baraka’s mother is less than reassured. She is pale and drawn. She is also carrying her fourth child, and on the day Baraka died, she thought she was ready to deliver and was rushed to the hospital, but the doctors sent her home to wait, and grieve.

Mohammed smiled. “Do not be sad,” he said to me, “Baraka is in paradise, it is a better place than here.” Mohammed seemed at peace. “We don’t worry,” he said, “We are a happy family.”

They Will Never Beg

I have read several accounts over the last few days of how life in Southern Israel has become unbearable for the people living there. In retaliation for the latest provocation by Israel over 200 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. 11 people were injured, one seriously. Most were suffering from “shock”. Two were injured when they tripped on the way to secure areas.

Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Yaalon on Thursday said, "Anyone threatening us is risking his life. We will retaliate until they beg us to stop.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said Israel makes its "best effort to target terrorists and not the civilian population," but added: "We will not accept the constant disruption of life in the south of Israel, and I advise all heads of terror to think well about their actions."

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland condemned "in the strongest terms" the rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel. "We call on those responsible to take immediate action to stop these cowardly acts," she said in a statement Saturday.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. Meeting with opposition leader Tzipi Livni in New York, Clinton said Israel has the right to defend itself.

Why is it that the Palestinians have no right to respond to Israeli aggression? If rocket fire into Israel is a “cowardly” act, what exactly is bombing with F-16’s and drones? Why does Israel have a right to defend itself, but no such rights extend to the Palestinian people?

With the exception of the two men Israel assassinated on Friday, Zuhair al-Qaisy, secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees, and Mahmoud Ahmad Al-Hanini, a Hamas military leader, the Palestinians killed remained nameless in all mainstream media accounts.

But i assure you, those killed have a name, and each has a family that grieves for them.

Adel Alessy, sixty-one-years-old, was working as a watchman on a piece of farmland. Saleh, his son, said people came to his house to tell him his father had been killed in an air strike on Sunday morning. “My father was known by all the people in this area and everyone liked him,” said Saleh, “He was working hard, trying to feed his family.” He added, “There were no rockets shot from the farm that day. The Israeli’s know that, but they wanted to do this crime to prevent our farmers from working on their land.”

Adel's brother Mohammed and his son Saleh.

Adel’s brother Mohammed added, “He worked hard his entire life, and he never refused to help anyone who asked for help.” Adel Alessy is survived by his wife and seven children.

On Tuesday morning Muhammed Mostafa El-Hasami, seventy-two-years-old, and his daughter Fayza, thirty-five-years-old, went to spend the day planting at their small farm. Dr Abed Allalah, his son, explains, “My father was a teacher as well as a farmer for the past 40 years.” Two rockets were fired from the adjoining property. One rocket failed and crashed into a greenhouse, starting a fire. Abed says, “My father and sister went to put out the fire when an Israeli drone targeted them. When we heard the bombing, we went to see what happened and found both my father and sister on the ground in pieces. Fayza’s mother heard her last words, “I am dying.” Her husband died within minutes of arriving at the hospital.

Abed told me, “Israel must be pressured to stop targeting innocent civilians. They must stop killing women, children, and old men. I believe Israel knows they are killing innocent people but they don’t care, because no one in the world is confronting them.” A wife, three sons and four daughters remain to grieve the loss of a beloved father and sister.

Ayoub's martyr poster in the courtyard of his home.

Um Mohammed, the mother of twelve-year-old Ayoub Asalya told me how her son was afraid when the air strikes began, and how he slept restlessly by her side the night before his death. Before he left for school he bargained with his mother. She would buy new sandals for him and he’d buy her a gift on mother’s day. A few minutes after he left the house his mother heard an explosion.

She found Ayoub’s cousin, Wafi, face down in the street. Ayoub’s body was found less than fifty yards from the house in the orchard, under a lemon tree. One of the neighbors said he couldn’t recognize Ayoub. Um Mohammed said, “I can’t imagine my son, who I was just talking with, lying in pieces.” Both legs were severed. One leg was not recovered.

Ayoub's mother in the lemon grove.

A breeze rustles through the lemon trees. Um Mohammed picks a lemon from a tree that is splattered with Ayoub’s blood. Shreds of his clothing lie scattered on the ground. “The Israeli’s claimed they targeted fighters,” she said, “Do they think Ayoub was shooting rockets? Where are the human rights of the Palestinian people?” Ayoub was the third child of Um Mohammed killed by the Israelis. “Now who will bring me a gift on Mothers day?” she asks.

The injured also have names, dreams, and memory. I was unable to lift my camera to record their injuries, but stood alongside them, silent. A friend did document the injured. You can view photographs of them here: http://palsolidarity.org/2012/03/casualties-of-the-last-attacks-on-gaza-visit-to-shifa-hospital/. No one was crying.  Their injuries were severe. Moath Abo al-Eash, twenty-years-old, suffered burns to his face and hands, smoke inhalation, and shrapnel wounds to his chest, torso, hands and face. When asked what message he would like to send to the world, he said, “My picture is enough to tell the world.”  

But I am afraid it is not enough. The Clintons, Nulands, Yalons, and Libermans of the world are not so easily swayed. The human misery they inflict on Palestine and the rest of the world does not influence their political calculations. They have the power, the money, the sophisticated weapons, and a complicit media. But I can also tell you this; the Palestinian people bear their burden with dignity. Like the people of Libya, the people of Egypt, the people of Bahrain, the people of Syria, and people around the world, they demand their freedom. They will never beg.

Death and Democracy

Yesterday, 32 people were killed at a Shia funeral, the day before 17 killed in a bombing in a predominately Sunni neighborhood. Iraq remains on the brink, the brink we led them to.

On Jan 26th, 2012 Hilary Clinton answered a question regarding Iraq. She schooled the Iraqi's on democracy, compromise, and the inappropriate use of power at a Town Hall Meeting on the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review.

"The United States, led by our very able, experienced Ambassador Jim Jeffrey – I don’t know if the man has slept more than an hour or two, because he is constantly, along with his able team, reaching out, meeting with, cajoling, pushing the players, starting with Prime Minister Maliki, not to blow this opportunity. Let me just be very clear: This is an opportunity for the Iraqi people of all areas of Iraq, of all religious affiliation, of all backgrounds – this is an opportunity to have a unified Iraq, and the only way to do that is by compromising.

And one of the challenges in new democracies is that compromise is not in the vocabulary, especially in countries where people were oppressed, brutalized over many years. They believe that democracy gives them the opportunity to exercise power...

But at the end of the day, Iraq is now a democracy, but they need to act like one, and that requires compromise.

And so I’m hoping that there will be a recognition of that, and such a tremendous potential to be realized. Iraq can be such a rich country – it’s already showing that with the oil revenues starting to flow again – but problems have to be resolved. They cannot be ignored or mandated by authoritarianism; they have to be worked through the political process. (Applause.)" http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2012/01/182613.htm

Clinton's equating richness with oil revenue rather then equating it with the ability to live lives of dignity, respect, and peace with your neighbors makes me wonder if she has any concept of peace whatsoever. It is obvious she is utterly clueless as to what richness is.

Unrepentant

Demanding to be allowed to sail. Athens, Jun 27, 2011

In the late spring of 2011, I was one of 37 passengers and 4 crewmembers on the Audacity of Hope, the U.S. boat to Gaza.

I had spent the prior month in Gaza and actually left Gaza to join the flotilla sailing from Greece. I was hoping to use my modest skills as an EMT in the event that Israeli naval forces began shooting people on board as they did in May 2010, when they killed nine people on board the Mavi Mamara. Many of these victims, including 19-year-old US citizen Furkan Doğan, were shot point-blank in the head. Doğan was shot five times from less than 45 cm (1.5 ft), in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. He was filming the attack when he was murdered. He was unarmed.

When it was announced that there would be a boat from the U.S. participating in the next flotilla, I applied immediately.

Preparing to sail. Athens, Jun 30, 2011

On June 29^th as we were preparing to sail from Athens to Gaza, I read with amazement – and some amusement – that the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, had asked that the Justice Department to "take immediate steps" against those found to be violating U.S. law, including providing "material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization." Having never heard of Rick Perry, I assumed that he was just pandering to AIPAC. Little did I know he was pandering ahead of entering the Republican race for President.

On October 6^th, I was in Afghanistan meeting with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPV) with members of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (VCNV) when Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL9) introduced HR 3131 in Congress. In summary, this bill “Expresses the sense of Congress that the United States should take diplomatic steps to express gratitude to Greece for upholding the rule of law in preventing hostile forces1 from violating a legal naval blockade2 of Gaza by Israel and thereby advancing the security of its ally Israel. Directs the Secretary of State to report to Congress on whether any support organization that participated in the planning or execution of the recent Gaza flotilla attempt should be designated as a foreign terrorist organization.”

The bill is a frightening reminder of how some people in power are entirely too eager to throw around a “terrorist” designation for non-violent activists. Only in uninformed, closed minds can carrying letters of support from Americans to those trapped in Gaza constitute support of terrorism, yet this is what the bill suggests.

 

Our largely ignorant Congressional representatives are quite willing to assume that any information from Israeli sources is infallible to the exclusion of other factual findings, such as evidence that Israeli soldiers summarily executed participants on the Mavi Marmara. Israel maims and kills Americans such as Emily Henochowicz, Brian Avery, and Rachel Corrie with impunity. There is no house resolution pending that condemns the maiming or killing of American citizens by Israeli forces.

 

In a recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine, Mark Perry reported that Israeli Mossad agents posed as CIA agents to recruit from Jundallah, an Iranian dissident group that is currently on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. On January 11, the fourth Iranian nuclear scientist in two years was blown up by a magnetic bomb attached to his car door. Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, Israel's military chief of staff, was quoted as saying on January 10^th. "For Iran, 2012 is a critical year in combining the continuation of its nuclearization, internal changes in the Iranian leadership, continuing and growing pressure from the international community and things which take place in an unnatural manner." None of the 14 co-sponsors3 of HR 3131 have called for a resolution to condemn Israeli state-sponsored terrorism. 

Filming our detention by the Greek Coast Guard. Jul 1, 2011

HR 3131 is a prime example of the danger facing American citizens. Citizens participating in nonviolent acts of dissent are targeted while other violent actions of the US and Israel are simply ignored.  This is less about objective political reality than pursuing political enemies.

With President Obama’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act, American citizens have lost a fundamental right of citizenship, the right to habeas corpus. The NDAA codifies indefinite detention of American citizens on the “battleground” of America. It is extremely troubling that President Obama would sign this into law, declare he has no intention of using the powers, yet authorize such powers for all those who follow him, including the likes of Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and other future apologists for the Israeli occupation – an occupation which the RNC recently denied even exists.

In October of 2006, after the “Enemy Combatants Bill” passed our Congress and was signed into law I wrote,

“I, for one, am facing my so called “leaders” in Congress, and this corrupt, morally bankrupt administration that would strip the Constitution, suspend habeas corpus, and destroy the very foundation this country was built on while in the same breath promising the world that democratic reform will reduce tyranny. I, for one, will not be silent in these dark days of our dying democracy.”4

Today, an action I assumed was an aberration by fearmongers and torturers in the Bush administration has become further codified into American law. I stand by my statement as our rights and freedom continue to erode.

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1 There is no evidence of any sort that the Flotilla was comprised of “hostile forces”. The U.S. boat was comprised of 37 nonviolent peace activists.

2 This is based on the Palmer report released on July 7^th, 2011. The committee responsible clearly states in the document “We must stress we are not asked to determine the legality or otherwise of the events. What we express are our views on what took place.” The findings of the Palmer report on the legality of the blockade were disputed by a panel of five UN human rights experts, who said that the blockade amounted to a "flagrant contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law"

3 Co-sponsors: Shelley Berkley (D-NV1), John Carter (R-TX31, Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL21, Eliot Engel (D-NY17),Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ11), Michael Grimm (R-NY13), Peter King (R-NY3), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY14), Peter Roskam (D-NJ9),
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL18), Steven Rothman (D-NJ9)
, John Sarbanes (D-MD3), Albio Sires (D-NJ13), Bill Young (R-FL10).

4 http://www.oneBrightpearl-jb.blogspot.com/2006/09/i-shall-not-be-disappeared.html

Guantánamo and Inflaming Passions in the Courthouse and the World

Four members of Witness Against Torture were found guilty in a jury trial at D.C. Superior Court on January 5, 2012. The jury brought back guilty verdicts in the cases of defendants Brian Hynes of the Bronx, NY, Mike Levinson of White Plains, NY, Judith Kelly of Arlington, Virginia, and Carmen Trotta of New York City, NY. Josie Setzler of Fremont, Ohio was acquitted mid-trial after the prosecution’s witnesses failed to identify her.

The demonstrators were charged with one count of disorderly and disruptive conduct on Capitol grounds. The charges stemmed from protests against a Defense Appropriations Bill—a precursor to the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA)—that took place in the citizen’s gallery at the House of Representatives on June 23, 2011. The protests were in response to provisions in the bill that make it essentially impossible to close the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and that legalize indefinite detention. 

Prior to the start of the trial, the Prosecutor Brandon Long asked District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Gerald Fisher to disallow any statements regarding Guantánamo into the courtroom fearing that mentioning the detention center and the torture that occurred there “could possibly inflame the jury”. Judge Fisher readily agreed, saying, “Speaking about Guantánamo is inappropriate for the purposes of this trial.” Carmen Trotta responded that it was vital for him to mention Guantánamo Bay because “due process everywhere is being threatened and we have the privilege of due process here, right now.” The judge rejected Trotta’s argument, saying, he “does not want an improper politicization of the defendants’ charge.”

In addition, the judge barred any mention of indefinite detention, torture, President Obama and his policies, including the recently signed NDAA, or the former President Bush and his establishment of Guantánamo, Bagram and various CIA black sites around the world.

Defendants were also unable to appeal to international law as justification for their actions. The Nuremburg principles?  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights? These defenses are not appropriate in DC Superior Court.

The judge even disallowed a reading of the statement the defendants were attempting to deliver to Congress, saying, “The statement made from the gallery is not appropriate for the purposes of this trial.”1

As the trial progressed the prosecutor was intent on focusing on the minutia of the regulation. What is important is a regulation was broken. Decorum was lost! Voices were raised! When the prosecutors claimed that distracting Congress members “causes inefficiencies in the process” I laughed out loud.

The prosecutors relied on the tried and true “time and place” restrictions on free speech, saying the House of Representatives was neither the time nor the place to voice disapproval of Congress, even though they were in fact voting on a bill with provisions to keep Guantánamo open, the very issue the activists went to Congress to discuss.

In closing, Prosecutor Long said, “Rules are rules, the law is the law.” He asked the jury, “Why does it matter? Why should you care that the four defendants stood up and yelled in the House of Representatives?” Answering his own question he said, “It matters because it is the law, the law is important.” Apparently the complete hypocrisy of this statement eluded him. For 10 long years the very government Brandon Long represents have been breaking international and domestic law. There have been no repercussions, no accountability and the current administration continues to act with impunity. After 10 years Guantánamo remains open, 89 men cleared for release remain imprisoned there, many others are imprisoned without due process, and the recently signed National Defense Authorization Act makes their release virtually impossible. Rules are rules, laws are laws!

Bahraini national Jumah al-Dossari was taken into custody by the Pakistani army while trying to leave Afghanistan. According to the testimony he gave Amnesty International, he was imprisoned, robbed, tortured, and then sold to American soldiers searching for potential terrorists. He was detained in Guantánamo for over five years. According to the US military, he attempted suicide at least 12 times during his detention. In a letter written to his lawyer and published in the Los Angeles Times newspaper on 11 January 2007, Jumah al-Dossari wrote, "The purpose of Guantánamo is to destroy people, and I have been destroyed. I am hopeless because our voices are not heard from the depths of the detention centre." He wrote this poem as part of a suicide note sent to his lawyer:

Take my blood.

Take my death shroud and

The remnants of my body.

Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely.

Send them to the world,

To the judges and

To the people of conscience,

Send them to the principled men and the fair-minded.

And let them bear the guilty burden before the world,

Of this innocent soul.

Let them bear the burden before their children and before history,

Of this wasted, sinless soul,

Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the "protectors of peace."

Indeed. The point of our witness is to enflame passion in the courthouses and the streets! The time and place is here and now, always and everywhere, until Guantanamo is closed and torture is not the law of the land. Join us in our continuing fast and witness and culminating in a mass mobilization in Washington DC Jan 11, 2011. See www.witnesstorture.org for additional information and ways you can support this effort.

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1 The statement barred in the House of Representatives and in court as irrelevant read as follows: “Today the House of Representative is in the process of contemplating not the passage of a bill but the commission of a crime. Provisions in the proposed Defense Appropriations Bill grant the United States powers over the lives of detained men fitting of a totalitarian state that uses the law itself as an instrument of tyranny. The law would make the prison at Guantánamo permanent by denying funds for the transfer of men to the United States, even for prosecution in civilian courts.”

Thanksgiving 2011

on this Thanksgiving day i remember all i am thankful for.

And i remember the first peoples of this land and the fact that 'til this day, i too, occupy a land that was taken by fraud, manipulation, theft, destruction and death from it's original inhabitants. And all the casinos (so called economic opportunity) across this beautiful land will not make it right.

on this Thanksgiving day i honor those native people who still struggle for their freedom.

on this Thanksgiving day, i recognize the fact that native children from the Pine Ridge reservation and across South Dakota are still being stolen from their families thru the state run foster care system.

on this Thanksgiving i realize the role i play.

i don't often pray, but on this day i pray that i may be a force for change. i pray that am granted the good grace to change myself. That all my greed, hatred and ignorance may dissipate in the powerful light of love. That i may give more than i receive. That i have the strength to stand courageously with those fighting for justice.

Whatever Happened to Women & Children First?

 “All wars, whether just or unjust, disastrous or victorious, are waged against the child.” Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save the Children, 1919.

In Kabul, the children are everywhere. You see them scrounging through trash. You see them doing manual labor in the auto body shops, the butchers, and the construction sites. They carry teapots and glasses from shop to shop. You see them moving through the snarled traffic swirling small pots of pungent incense, warding off evil spirits and trying to collect small change. They can be found sleeping in doorways or in the rubble of destroyed buildings. It is estimated that 70,000 children live on the streets of Kabul.

The big news story on CNN this morning is the excitement generated as hundreds of people line up to buy the newest iphone. I can’t stop thinking of the children sitting in the dirt of the refugee camp, or running down the path pushing old bicycle tires, or the young boy sitting next to his overflowing sacks of collected detritus. He has a deep infection on the corner of his mouth that looks terribly infected. These images contrast with an image of an old grandfather, dressed in a spotless all white shalwar kameez squatting on the sidewalk outside a huge iron gate, embracing his beautiful young grand daughter in a huge hug, each smiling broadly, one of the few moments of joy I have witnessed on the streets of Kabul.

In Afghanistan, one in five children die before their 5^th birthday, (41% of the deaths occur in the first month of life). For the children who make it past the first month, many perish due to preventable and highly treatable conditions including diarrhea and pneumonia. Malnourishment affects 39% of the children, compared to 25% at the start of the U.S. invasion. 52% don’t have access to clean water. 94% of births are not registered. The children are afforded very little legal protection, especially girls, who are stilled banned from schools in many regions, used as collateral to settle debts, and married through arranged marriages as young as 10 years old. Though not currently an issue, HIV/AIDS looms as a catastrophic possibility as drug addiction increases significantly, even among women and children. Only 16% of women use modern contraception, and children on the streets are vulnerable to sexual exploitation. This is why the “State of the World’s Mothers” report issued in May 2011 by Save the Children ranked Afghanistan last, with only Somalia providing worse outcomes for their children.

Retired Army Col. John Agoglia said, “A key to America’s long-term national security and one of the best ways for our nation to make friends around the world is by promoting the health of women and children in fragile and emerging nations”–in Afghanistan, this strategy is failing. Not a single public hospital has been built since the invasion. It is not an impossibility; it is a matter of will. Emergency, an Italian NGO, runs 3 hospitals and 30 clinics throughout Afghanistan on a budget of 7 million dollars per year. This is ISAF’s (NATO’s International Security Assistance Force) monthly budget for air-conditioning.

Polls have consistently shown that over 90 percent of Americans believe saving children should be a national priority. Children comprise 65% of the Afghan population. Afghanistan was named the worst place on earth to be a child. In Afghanistan children have been sacrificed by the United States, collateral damage in our “war on terror”.

The mothers of these at risk children are not faring any better. Most are illiterate. Most are chronically malnourished. 1 woman in 11 dies in pregnancy or childbirth, this compares to 1 in 2,100 in the US (the highest of any industrialized nation). In Italy and Ireland, the risk of maternal death is less than 1 in 15,000 and in Greece it’s 1 in 31,800. Skilled health professionals attend only 14% of childbirths. A woman’s life expectancy is barely 45 years of age.

Women are still viewed as property. A law has been passed by the Karzai regime that legalizes marital rape, and requires a woman to get the permission of her husband to leave the house. Domestic violence is a chronic problem. A women who runs away from home (even if escaping violence) is imprisoned. Upon completion of her sentence she is returned to the husband. Self-immolation is still common as desperate women try to get out of impossible situations.

Shortly after the U.S. invasion, Laura Bush said, “The plight of women and children in Afghanistan is a matter of deliberate human cruelty, carried out by those who seek to intimidate and control.” President Bush said, “Our coalition has liberated Afghanistan and restored fundamental human rights and freedoms to Afghan women, and all the people of Afghanistan.” Actually, the former warlords responsible for the destruction, pillage, and rape of Afghanistan were ushered back into power  by the United States. In 2007, these very same warlords, now Parliamentarians, passed a bill that granted amnesty for any killings during the civil war. A local journalist said, “The killers are the ones holding the pens, writing the law and continuing their crimes.”

When Malalai Joya addressed the Peace Loya Jirga convened in December, 2003, she boldly asked, “Why are we allowing criminals to be present here?” She was thrown out of the assembly. Undeterred, she ran for Parliament, winning in a landslide. She began her maiden speech in Parliament by saying, "My condolences to the people of Afghanistan..." As she continued speaking, the warlord sitting behind her threatened to rape and kill her. The MP’s voted her out of Parliament and Karzai upheld her ouster. In hiding, she continues to champion women’s rights. She has stated that the only people who can liberate Afghan women are the women themselves. When we spoke briefly to her by phone, she stated that she was surprised to still be alive, and needed to cancel our meeting, as it was too dangerous in the current security situation. The Red Cross states that the security situation is the worst it has been in 30 years.

In America, as our total defense budget balloons to 667 billion dollars per year, women and children are faring worse as well. In the “State of the World’s Mothers” report, America has dropped from 11^th in 2003 to 31^st of the developed countries today. We currently rank behind such luminaries as Estonia, Croatia, and Slovakia. We fall even farther in regards to our children, going from the 4^th ranked country to the 34^th. Poverty is on the increase with an estimated 1 child in 5 living in poverty. More than 20 million children rely on school lunch programs to keep from going hungry. The number of people living in poverty in America has grown by 2.6 million in just the last 12 months.

Dear reader, I hesitate to bother you with so many statistics, I eliminated the pie charts and graphs, and this report is still dull. After all, the new iphone has Siri, a personal assistant that understands you when you speak. You can verbally instruct it to send a text message, and it does! Now that’s excitement! CNN states there is no need to panic; the Atlanta store has plenty of phones to fill the demand.

Looking only at numbers it is easy to avoid the truth of the enormous amount of human suffering they envelop. Drive through the streets of any American city and these statistics come alive in the swollen ranks of the homeless. Drive through the streets of Kabul and these statistics come alive in the forms of hungry children begging for change.

It is difficult to ascertain what benefit America is deriving from our continued military presence in Afghanistan, though exploitation of natural resources certainly plays a role. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent in a military strategy that is failing by all indicators. Yet the politicians in this country continue to back this strategy. Arms dealers and contractors, like G.E. and Boeing, all with lobbyists on Capitol Hill, continue to reap big financial rewards and in turn reward politicians with financial support. Our politicians claim to be “tough on terror” and profess we are “winning”. But by what measure do they ascertain this? The only Afghan people benefiting from our presence are the people supporting the occupation forces, the warlords, and the drug lords. As the poppy fields produce record yields “poppy palaces” are springing up all over Kabul, ostentatious signs that someone is benefiting from our interference.

One measure to judge the success of a nation is its ability to protect its most vulnerable populations. America is not succeeding. The plight of women and children in Afghanistan is still a matter of deliberate human cruelty, carried out by those who seek to intimidate and control. When will our politicians hear the desperate cry of the street children of Afghanistan, who, with all the incense in the world, simply can’t ward off the evil of our occupation?

To support the vital work of Voices for Creative Non-Violence please see www.vcnv.org

Message to Freedom Square on the Anniversary of the Invasion of Afghanistan

Good evening from Afghanistan.

We are sorry we cannot be with you in body, know we are with you in spirit.

What you are doing in Freedom Square is critically important, not only for Afghanistan, and America but for the entire world.

After 5 days in Afghanistan, one thing is painfully clear. The impetus for change needs to come from Washington DC. Our job is clear, we must continue to demand an end to occupation and war from our government. The status quo is unacceptable.

10 years of occupation and things are getting worse. The Red Cross has said that the security situation in Afghanistan is the worst it has been in 30 years.

In 10 years of occupation, and hundreds of billions of dollars spent, not a single public hospital has been built for the people of Afghanistan. The only things that have been built in Afghanistan are security barriers and prisons.

UNICEF has claimed that Afghanistan is the worst place in the world for children. 65% of the population is children.

The question must be this: If after 10 years, countless lives lost, hundreds of billions spent, nothing is going right in Afghanistan, when is it time to change direction? This is the question the people of Freedom Square must help our government answer.

The Darkness Approaches, A Light Shines Bright

Today in Afghanistan people feel an unnamable horror lurking just below the surface of their everyday lives. It has been described as a tension, a feeling of pressing apprehension, as if a breaking point is about to be breached. People wake each day with this feeling; it accompanies them through their dreams each night.

Driving through the streets of Kabul I watch people set about their business deliberately. There is little laughter, the absence of joy as palpable as the heavy brown dust swirling through the streets choking off the sun.

We turn down a pock marked dirt road. Reminded of a video game my son used to love, we swerve from side to side to miss as many obstacles as possible, including oncoming traffic of all varieties, crashing through spine-jarring potholes with regularity. We spot the large pink building behind a huge steel gate. The guard points to a door and tells us to call inside.

We have arrived at the New Learning Center, a school serving the children of Afghanistan. Founded and directed by Andeisha Farid, is a young Afghan woman, who was herself a displaced person during the Soviet war and grew up in refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan. Andeisha had one simple idea. If she could help one child, that child would return to her family and influence the family. In turn, the family would influence the village, the village would influence the province, the province would influence the country. This simple idea has turned into 11 orphanages, serving 700 children, and the New Learning Center, newly opened in May 2011.

The school curriculum teaches boys and girls grades 6 through 12. The school is a model of diversity, accepting children from every province in Afghanistan. About 50% of the children are truly orphans, the rest are from families struggling with dire poverty, conflict, displacement, or drug addiction (a new and significant problem for Afghans). Their parent’s let the children travel to Kabul so they have an opportunity to learn and an opportunity for a better life.

Ian, an American working at the school (and in fact the only westerner working there), gives us an introduction to the Afghan Child Education and Care Organization (AFCECO) in the rose garden. We ask about the threat of terrorism. He says the most pressing problem is the current Afghan government, which has elements that oppose teaching girls that match the Taliban’s position. Recently the school had experienced a raid, prompted by rumors and innuendo in the community, by Parliamentarians and armed security men. When they were unable to substantiate the rumors they apologetically left the grounds and the school returned to teaching the children.

 In a land where ethnic diversity forms barriers and racism is rampant, where girls are 2^nd class citizens at best, religion often teaches intolerance, and war has torn at the very fabric of life, the learning center is an oasis of peace, respect, understanding, and love. Walking through the center I am astounded by the polite, smiling children moving from class to class with enthusiasm and a sense of empowerment and pride I have not seen on the streets of Kabul.

Visiting with Ian’s 8^th grade girl’s humanities class, the thirst for knowledge is striking. Reading about Amelia Earhart in English, the girls help each other with difficult passages. There is a twinkle in the girl’s eyes as they read with confidence and steal glances at the strangers watching them. Amelia is quoted as saying, “I did it because I wanted to do it.” Ian emphasizes this passage for the young girls, saying this is the one passage from the reading to never forget.

We meet with Nasrin, the director of the Learning Center. An intelligent, poised young woman, Nasrin gives us a tour of the center and explains the education in Fine Arts, Music, Computers, Humanities, Math and Sciences serves as an adjunct to the public school system and guides the children to a path of higher education.

We interrupt a class in portraiture to look over the shoulders of young artists as they sketch a fellow classmate. As we sit in the lobby and pepper Nasrin with questions, a classical sonata for piano wafts through the hallways from the music room below.

Nasrin reminds us why she loves her work at the center, “The children of Afghanistan are our future. We provide them with opportunities so the future will be better.”

See a short video clip at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cqiRzrhw4o

To learn more about AFCECO and help them accomplish their mission, see www.Afceco.org

10 Years After. Welcome to the Failed State Americastan

As we step off the Turkish Air flight and walk across the dusty tarmac to the terminal, we are greeted by a large billboard. In big bold English it proclaims, “Welcome to the Home of the Brave.” It stops me in my tracks. I shake my head, thinking, “damn weird” and continue in to passport control. After waiting in a short line, I present my American passport to the guard in the booth. He doesn’t acknowledge me. He flips through the shiny new pages until he gets to the visa. He stamps it. He turns to the picture. He gives me a precursory glance and hands the passport back to me. I turn and enter Afghanistan.

I have come here with two friends from Voices for Creative Non-Violence, forming a small delegation interested in developing relationships with ordinary Afghans and gathering stories of everyday life since the American invasion in 2001. After collecting our luggage and taking a short bus ride to the parking area, Hakim, Mohammed Jan, and his brother Noor greet us warmly. Hakim and Mohammed Jan are our hosts and the organizing force of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers.

On our trip from the airport to Kabul, Hakim offers an update since the last delegation has left. Things have deteriorated considerably. People are feeling more hopeless, even amongst the youth group. There have been no opportunities for optimism. As we drive the clogged streets through clouds of brown dust, I watch as small children with huge sacks slung across their backs pick at scraps along the streets. Men pull huge carts filled with scrap metal. Beggars on crutches stand in the streets or lie by the street side, hoping for any generosity from the passing cars.

Not a single sector of public or private life is running properly. Tension is high. The people may appear unwelcoming and angry, because they are. Hakim tells us you may see people in a heated argument end it by laughing. In order to defuse the tension of the moment, they shift to a joke.

Attacks in Kabul are on the rise. In just the last month there has been the brazen attack at the US embassy as well as the suicide bombing that killed Rabbani, an advisor for the Karzai government as well as a warlord, (responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, engaged in ‘peace talks’ with the Taliban), in his own home.

We are told that it might be best to avoid following a routine. Do not to travel alone. Do not go out at night. Do not linger outside of our car, or our apartment. It’s best not draw attention to ourselves. We are reminded that not only do Afghans distrust foreigners, but also, many have come to hate us over these ten long years.

Ten years. Untold numbers of deaths, 200 billion dollars (or is it 300 billion?) spent on eradicating the Taliban, eliminating a safe haven for Al Qaeda, and stabilizing Afghanistan, to date, all lost causes.  The Karzai government is either despised or mocked. The people recognize it for what it is, a puppet regime that is not responsible to the Afghan people but to outside forces. Corruption is rampant, crushing poverty everywhere. Allegiances shift easily as desperation and greed drive people to make decisions based on possible cash rewards.

Nothing works. The education system, the health care system, and the public works systems are in tatters. The various police forces, even in the safest sections of Kabul, can’t (or won’t) stop the violence. The Red Cross states that Afghanistan is more dangerous now than at anytime in the last 30 years. You can’t drink the water from the tap, electricity goes off and on in rolling blackouts, the sewer system is archaic, with open trenches of raw sewerage running through the streets. There is no garbage collection. 200 billion dollars spent and there is little to nothing to show for it.

Family systems are in tatters as well. Everywhere you turn, family members have been lost to war. Hundreds of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands maimed. War has divided families and dispersed the fragments throughout the country. Civil society is falling apart because people have lost a sense of community, things have deteriorated to ‘everyone for themselves’. Distrust is a cancer spread throughout society. Ethnic groups distrust each other even more than usual. Business associates distrust each other, neighbors distrust each other, and even family members distrust each other.

To most of the population, peace is an impossibility. Most feel a turn toward more violence is inevitable. Possibilities of peace are not part of the dialogue, few are even willing to voice the words ‘peace’ or ‘non-violence’. Most people only talk about selecting the best of several very poor possibilities and all of these options are militaristic ones. People are being squeezed between the insurgency and occupying powers. For some, especially in Kabul, the best of the poor choices is continuing on the path of US occupation. The sense of hopelessness is palpable, people feel there is no way out. Harun, a young Pastun tells us, “Perhaps Afghans just need to suffer more.”

I ask myself, “What am i doing here?” This entails the broader question, “Why are we, America, here?” Former President Bush famously said, “We will fight them over there so we do not to fight them over here.” I don’t think it ever dawned on him that if we don’t fight them over there, we might not need to fight them at all.

America’s continuing involvement is a difficult issue. If you believe a common thread of American exceptionalism, that America is good and only wants what is best, bringing “democracy”, “freedom” and “human rights” to the people of the world, when do we relent? If nothing is going right in Afghanistan and our presence only brings more militarization and more misery, when is it time to leave? Under the exceptionalism model, America can’t lose, or surrender, it is simply too shameful to admit mistakes, too embarrassing to admit that the world’s most advanced military can not achieve it’s objectives in a country already devastated by years of war. Few choices remain except to stay the course.

If you believe another common thread of American discourse, Afghanistan is only getting what it deserves. Harboring the terrorist group responsible for 9/11 bears a heavy price tag. But ten long years have past. The Taliban are not defeated, and it is getting harder to define who, exactly, the Taliban are. If a farmer picks up a weapon to defend his land and his family, he is defined as Taliban. If a local worker in the CIA office in Kabul begins shooting employees, he is Taliban. This is not necessarily true. Some tribes have resorted to violence against all outsiders. They do not differentiate between NATO forces, American forces and Taliban forces, they defend themselves against them all. As the situation deteriorates and the international community continues to defend it’s presence here with lies, distortions, and intransigence, hatred grows. Hopelessness grows. People with no ties to religious fundamentalism resort to violence and are then added to the list of Taliban. Hakim says with a smile, “Soon, everyone in Afghanistan will be labeled Taliban.”

People in the U.S. are misled, fed a rote formula of religious fundamentalism fueling insurgency because they hate what we represent. The Afghan people do not hate what we represent, they hate what we do to their families, their community, their tribes, and their country. I do not blame them. Retaliation and retribution only assure us that future acts of violence are inevitable. When President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize, he schooled us on why Martin Luther King was naive, why violence was a necessary component of fighting terrorism. He did not school us on how state violence creates terrorists and ensures continuing cycles of mayhem.

Now seems a good time for a joke. Ryan Crocker, the new ambassador to Afghanistan recommends more of the same. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he states, “The Taliban needs to feel more pain before you get to a real readiness to reconcile.” The interviewer did not question this subtle ridiculousness; perhaps he was too busy laughing out loud.

So the current dynamic is a lose/lose situation for America as well as Afghanistan. American children continue to be deprived of basic health care, education, and food safety as money flows endlessly into the open pit of American militarism. American defense contractors continue to benefit. Our elected officials, proving they are “tough on terrorism” get re-elected. The Afghan people continue to suffer. Afghan children will be deprived of the same things as America’s children, but to a degree 100 times worse. Hatred will continue to fester. Out of necessity, Afghans will become masters of comic timing.

America is not, and will not be safer for the misery imposed on Afghanistan.

In closing, here is a final joke to diffuse the tension. It is still funny, though it has been repeated ad-infinitum by America’s politicians and pundits: America is winning in Afghanistan.

Remember and Act!

The media remembrances are unrelenting as 9/11 approaches. Today, all the news is plastered with "a credible but uncorroborated threat of a car bomb attack in NYC or DC." The question for me, as it was 10 years ago as i stood in the ashes of the World Trade Center is, "What can i do to foster positive change?" i still struggle mightily with this question.

In Oct i will travel to Afghanistan with Voices for  Creative Non-violence to speak with people who suffer daily from our response to that fateful day.  The people of Afghanistan have 10 years of 9/11's with no end in sight. 

Please support me if you can. Donate!

We Belong to Each Other

From my teacher Roshi Joan Halifax  (on twitter!):
To Whom and what do we belong?
One answer... "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."
Mother Therese

And you?

My reply:
i have no peace because i remember that we belong to each other. Innocents dying in Gaza today. Each belong of me. i, in my safe enclave of Big Sky, wild flowers blooming still, streams running strong, rumbling of American f-16's, sold to Israel, shatter my stillness, reverberate in my soul, or is it just the water rushing over stone? i repeat we belong to each other, we belong to each other. my tears race away, joining the stream, the river, the ocean, the sky. We belong to each other.

While in Gaza

“Dear Johnny –

While you are in Gaza, please visit Gilad Shalit. He is the Israeli soldier who was kidnapped from outside Gaza 5 years ago, and has been held by Hamas without visits by anyone, including the Red Cross or Red Crescent, in violation of international law. I trust you are committed to human rights for all, and this small gesture should be quite easy to do as compared with the magnitude of arranging your flotilla. I look forward to seeing your video or photos or voice recording evidencing that Gilad is being treated well and is in good health.”

I thought about Shalit quite often as I traveled around Gaza. Though the writer of the email assumed I was unaware of the prisoner or his circumstance, it was not true. I knew he was just a teenager when captured. I knew he was a combatant- a gunner in a tank on the border of Gaza. I knew he was taken prisoner, not kidnapped.

I thought about the fear he faced as he was dragged from his tank 5 years ago, and his uncertain days imprisoned since then, days spent without family, without friends, without any contact with outside agencies. I tried to imagine the yearly landmarks; the birthdays, the anniversaries, the myriad dates and shared memories that mark our movement through life, passing without acknowledgement. I tried to imagine what his parents were going through, not knowing his condition or circumstance.

Even in Gaza, Shalit’s name comes up often. I attended the weekly demonstration of prisoners families held outside the ICRC every Monday. Mothers, fathers, wives, and children hold photos or posters of loved ones imprisoned in Israel for months, years, some for decades. A gentleman, recognizing I was from the U.S., said sarcastically, “Don’t these people know there is only one prisoner? His name is Shalit.”

Since 1967, 700,000 Palestinians have been “detained” by Israel. Currently 7000 people are imprisoned. 37 of them are women; over 300 of them are children.

When I visited the Ministry of Detainees in Gaza City I was challenged by the minister to name another region of the world where such a ministry was needed. The minister explained that this was an issue particular to Palestine because Israel imprisons so many people without charges and through military courts where evidence is hidden and trials are rigged. Many are convicted on coerced confessions. The minister’s position was that all prisoners, including Shalit, be treated with respect and dignity.

I was introduced to Umm Ahmed through Doa’a, a Ministry official who coordinates the weekly demonstrations at the ICRC. Umm Ahmed’s 19-year-old son, a university student, is imprisoned in Israel for just over a year. His story is not unique.

Video: Ahmed's Story Part 1 

Ahmed was seriously injured during Operation Cast Lead in January 2009. Families near the buffer zone were given permission by the Israelis to leave their homes to get supplies. Umm Ahmed and her family were returning to their home. Half of the family members had come inside. Ahmed, and 3 cousins remained in the doorway when the drones were heard overhead, followed quickly by 2 missile strikes. Ahmed and one cousin were gravely injured, blasted into the alcove of the home. Ahmed’s abdomen was eviscerated, he had lost an eye and several fingers, and he was bleeding profusely from shrapnel wounds all over his body. No ambulances were in the area. Family members scooped up the broken bodies and rushed them to the hospital. On arrival, Umm Ahmed was told her son was dead.

Ahmed, despite his injuries, managed to cling to life. After emergency surgery he was transferred to the hospital in Al-Arish, Egypt where he underwent 10 surgeries in 10 months, including the removal of his pancreas, leaving him diabetic and dependant on insulin injections for the remainder of his life. On his return to Gaza, suffering from life threatening infections to his wounded arm and hand, the family sought additional treatment outside Gaza. It proved impossible to have him transferred to Europe, but after several attempts he received permission from Israel to travel to Jerusalem for the needed treatment.

On the day of his departure, November 25, 2009, his mother prepared food for him, adhering to a new diet specifically for diabetics. When he departed with his brother and father for Erez crossing, she followed him out the door, hugging him tightly. When she let go, she sensed something terrible was about to happen. 

Shortly after 4pm when Ahmed, his brother and father reached Erez, Umm Ahmed received a call from her son, asking for Mohammed, the eldest brother. Umm Ahmed asked, “What is it? Is something wrong with Ahmed?” Her son hesitated then told her Ahmed had been taken at the crossing and was in Israeli custody.

The soldiers demanded that Ahmed and his father both strip naked. Ahmed, in his wheelchair, needed his father’s assistance to comply. Ahmed, though missing fingers on one hand and suffering from infections to his hand and elbow, was handcuffed and taken away. His father would not see him again. Ahmed’s father demanded Ahmed be released and allowed to return to Gaza. He was literally thrown out of the crossing and told to return to Gaza without his son. Without recourse, Ahmed’s father returned home.

Unlike Shalit who was taken by Palestinian fighters while on active duty in a tank on the Gaza border, the Israeli’s took Ahmed as he attempted to get treatment for wounds incurred at Israeli hands. Many Palestinians are ‘detained’, or perhaps my email writer’s term is more appropriate, ‘kidnapped’, by Israeli soldiers at checkpoints, from their cars, or from their beds in the middle of the night, and taken to Israel. Although the transfer of detainees to locations within the occupying power’s territory is illegal under international law, all Palestinian prisoners are currently held in Israel.

Video: Ahmed's Story Part 2

Ahmed was held under investigation for 38 days as the Israeli’s tried to elicit a confession. Regardless of his injuries, he was blindfolded, handcuffed, and routinely denied his medications. He suffered through diabetic comas throughout the 38 days. He did not confess. He was found guilty of monitoring Israeli activities in the buffer zone and sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison.

Since Hamas won an electoral decision in 2006, family visitation rules were tightened. Since 2007 all Gaza families have been denied visitation. In December 2009, the Israeli Court ruled that the right to family visits in prison is not within the “Framework of the basic humanitarian needs of the residents of the Strip, which Israel is obligated to enable” and that there was no need for family visits since prisoners could obtain basic supplies through the prison canteen. So like gunner Shalit, 700 other families have been denied visitation with their sons, daughters and children.

Umm Ahmed is concerned that her son is receiving inadequate treatment for his diabetes. It has been regularly reported that security prisoners receive inadequate food- both in quality and quantity. Regarding medical care, the Israeli prison authority has adopted a policy of systemic negligence in all its facilities. Prisons are extremely understaffed by medical personnel and visits to a doctor can take weeks, with actual treatment taking months. For a prisoner suffering from diabetes this can be deadly. Ahmed also needs constant care to treat infections resulting from all the shrapnel wounds to his body. Upon his detention, Ahmed spent 3 months in the hospital as a result of his mistreatment. While hospitalized it was determined he needs an operation to control his diabetes. In order to get an operation, Ahmed must wait. Ar-Ramleh prison hospital has a limited number of beds. Because of his inadequate diet and medication regime (most ill and injured prisoners live on aspirin, painkillers, and tranquilizers), his health continues to deteriorate. Though the operation has not yet been scheduled, the family has already been notified that Ahmed will not be released from prison until the fees for the operation are paid in full.

When Ban Ki-Moon visited Gaza in March of 2010, Umm Ahmed and her husband met with him and explained the situation of their son. Because of this meeting and the negative publicity it triggered for Israel, the family has received only sporadic news of their son. For the last 5 months they have heard nothing. The parents are anxiously awaiting word of their son.

I left Gaza without managing a visit with Shalit. But I left with the knowledge of thousands of Gilad Shalits in Israeli prisons. Many, like Ahmed, have no involvement in military operations. They were not dragged from their tanks, but were dragged from their cars, dragged from their beds, even dragged from their wheelchairs. Hundreds are children. They too, deserve basic humanitarian considerations. They too, deserve to be treated with decency and their health maintained. Their families also deserve answers and consideration. Shalit may be the only prisoner Americans have heard of, but he is not alone.