Via
CAMERA
Who is Samer Issawi and why had he been imprisoned?
According to the
Israel Prison Service,
Samer Issawi of Issawiyeh, Jerusalem was arrested in April 2002
and sentenced to 26 years for attempted murder, belonging to an
unrecognized (terror) organization, military training, and possession of
weapons, arms and explosive materials. Issawi (identification number
037274735) was one of the 477 Palestinian prisoners released in the
first stage of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in October 2011. (The
Prison Service lists him as Samir Tariq Ahmad Muhammad. Multiple names
are not uncommon among Palestinians. The date of his arrest, birth, his
sentence term and the terms of his release are consistent with the
details provided about Samer Issawi in media reports.)
In an October 2011 letter to the editor of the
Guardian,
Amir Ofek of the Israeli embassy in London took that paper to task for
failing to provide information about Issawi's terror activities. He
detailed:
Your
centrefold (19 October) carries a double-spread photograph of released
prisoner Samer Tareq al-Issawi in a cheering crowd, after being freed
under the terms of the deal to release Gilad Shalit. It is important to
point out the grave terrorism offences of which Al-Issawi was convicted,
including firing a gun at a civilian vehicle in October 2001,
indiscriminately firing an AK47 assault rifle at civilian buses, and
manufacturing and distributing pipe bombs used in attacks on Israeli
civilians....
As part of the Shalit deal, a condition of Issawi's release was that he had to remain in Jerusalem. In July 2012 he
reportedly
violated the terms of his release by leaving Jerusalem and crossing
into the nearby neighborhood of A-Ram, and was therefore rearrested.
Other media outlets have also failed to report Issawi's violent activities.
AFP,
which has reported extensively over the last few days about Issawi's
hunger strike, is rather vague about Issawi's violent crimes:
Issawi, 33, and Sharawna, 36, were long-term security prisoners who were initially released by Israel under a prisoner swap deal in October 2011.
But
within months, they were both rearrested following unspecified
allegations that they violated the terms of the agreement, with Israel
ordering them to serve out the remainder of their original sentences.
Sharawna
was rearrested on January 31 and began refusing food on July 1 to
protest against his re-arrest and demand his immediate release.
Issawi
was arrested on July 7 and stopped eating on August 1, to protest over
his re-arrest and retrial based on information which was not made
available to him or his lawyer. (Emphasis added.)
Likewise, AP does not specify why Issawi was
imprisoned in the first place, although it does does a slightly better
job than AFP. AP
reports:
Issawi's
original sentence was 26 years "for a terrorist act" but he had served
only six years, [Israel Prison spokeswoman Sivan] Weizman said. [sic: He
served nine years, from April 2002 until October 2011.]
The four were re-arrested and sent to prison
for violating the terms of their release, Weizman said. She said Issawi
was banned from entering the West Bank but entered three times after he
was freed.
It's unfortunate that the prison spokeswoman failed
to specify Issawi's terrorist acts (and that she also misstated the
length of the term that he served), but AP could have easily consulted
the list of released prisoners and their crimes for more detailed
information, as CAMERA had done. (Indeed, after AP's
earlier, October 2011, whitewashing
of the crimes of another Palestinian prisoner released as part of the
Shalit deal, CAMERA had been in touch with AP editors. After pointing
out the Prison Service document, AP commendably corrected.)
How Long a Hunger Strike?
Ha'aretz's photo caption yesterday reported as fact that Issawi "has been on hunger strike for 209 days," while the AP
reported that Issawi "has been on an
on-again, off-again hunger strike for several months" (emphasis added). According to the Feb. 15 article by
Ian Deitch, there are conflicting claims about the extent of Issawi's hunger strike. He reported:
Issawi is under medical supervision and eats periodically, [Prison spokesman Sivan Weizman] said.
Issawi's sister, Shirin, said he has been on hunger strike for 206 days. She said he has only been drinking water since January. She said the prisontakes her brother to an Israeli hospital for treatment.
The Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, Issa Qaraqe, said Issawi began his fast in August and has been observing it intermittently.
In
other words, the Israeli prison spokeswoman and the Palestinian
minister of prisoner affairs agree that Issawi has been eating
periodically, yet Ha'aretz reports as fact that he "has been on
strike for 209 days." Even a partial hunger strike is most certainly a
difficult ordeal. But why is it so difficult for Ha'aretz to
stick with the facts? How long will the paper continue to supply its
English readers with a steady stream of agenda-driven, whitewashed
propaganda?
Read the entire article at CAMERA
UPDATE
Capt. Eytan Buchman, an IDF spokesman, has
provided CAMERA with additional details about Issawi's terror
activities. He writes that Issawi
was
convicted of severe crimes, which including five attempts of
intentional death. This included four shootings, between July 2001 and
February 2002, in which Isawi and his partners fired on police cars and
buses travelling between Ma'ale Adumim and Jerusalem. In one attack, a
policeman was injured and required surgery. On October 30, 2001, Isawi,
together with an accomplice, fired at two students walking from the
Hebrew University campus to their car in a nearby parking lot. In
another case, Isawi provided guns and explosive devices to a squad, who
fired on a bus. Finally, in December 2001, Isawi ordered an attack on
security personnel at Hebrew University, providing a squad with a pistol
and a pipebomb. Two of the squad members tracked security personnel but
opted not to execute the attack.
