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"Unparalleled Cruelty"

[Jerusalem Post] Editorial - On any given day, Israeli prisons are hosting Red Cross representatives, journalists, lawyers and prisoners' advocates, as well as family members of convicted Palestinian prisoners. Gilad Shalit, the Palestinians' lone Israeli prisoner, is not a terrorist but a simple soldier who was guarding sovereign Israeli soil when he was abducted on June 25, 2006. The IDF soldier - who under international law should be treated as a POW - is not allowed to see Red Cross representatives, and his parents are forbidden to visit him. Meanwhile, Israel released 198 long-serving Palestinian prisoners, including several killers, in a gesture to boost Mahmoud Abbas' standing. Abbas used a Ramallah ceremony welcoming the men to say: "We will not rest until [all] the prisoners are freed and the jails are empty," specifically citing Marwan Barghouti, serving five consecutive life terms for murder; Ahmed Saadat, imprisoned for the assassination of cabinet minister Rehavam Ze'evi; and Aziz Duaik, a Hamas politician taken into custody in response to Shalit's abduction. It is sobering to remind ourselves that Abbas reflects the most moderate of Palestinian opinion. Writing in Yediot Ahronot on Monday, novelist and playwright Yoram Kaniuk, a government critic who has long expressed compassion for Palestinian suffering, did what Abbas should have done. He urged ordinary Palestinians to call for better treatment of Shalit: "Keeping a young person imprisoned without trial, without his parents being able to visit him, is unparalleled cruelty." It is.
2008-08-27 01:00:00
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