Transmitted below, in the wake of the agreement reached to end "administrative detainee" Hisham Abu Hawash's 141-day hunger strike, is a HAARETZ editorial advocating an end to the "undemocratic, corrupt practice of unlimited administrative detention, without evidence or charges that can be refuted."
To be fair, Israel is not unique in practicing unlimited/perpetual imprisonment without charges or trial. Other undemocratic countries with egregious human rights records do so as well. The legal black hole at Guantanamo Bay comes to mind.
Enough With Administrative Detentions
Haaretz Editorial
Jan 04, 2022
Hisham
Abu Hawash's son at a protest in Dura, in January. MUSSA
ISSA QAWASMA/
רויטר
After 141 days during which the life of administrative detainee Hisham Abu Hawash was in danger, an agreement was reached Tuesday for him to be released on February 26.
It’s
a pity that only after Abu Hawash spent four and a half
months on hunger strike to protest his detention without
trial, and in the wake of unrest in the Palestinian
Authority and threats by Islamic Jihad and Hamas, was this
rightful result achieved.
Abu
Hawash is hospitalized in serious condition at Assaf
Harofeh Medical Center in central Israel, after losing
about half his body weight, and he could have died at any
moment. Israel suspended his arrest warrant last week, but
Abu Hawash continued his hunger strike, demanding that the
order be withdrawn completely. He knew that if he stopped
his hunger strike without obtaining this there would be no
guarantee that the nightmare of his administrative
detention would not resume immediately.
Abu Hawash, 40 and a father of five, was arrested in his home in Dura, south of Hebron, in late October 2020. Military prosecutors had no unclassified evidence on which to draft an indictment to present to a military court. But in the Shin Bet security service state, “confidential material” is enough for a military commander to sign an order for six months of administrative detention, and an additional one six months later, repeat ad infinitum.
After decades of occupation, it seems that almost no one in Israel has the energy or interest to speak out on behalf of one more Palestinian who’s been wronged. One more, one less, what can we do anyway? For many people in Israel, “Palestinian” and “terrorist” are synonyms, and Israelis apparently prefer to believe that the state would not be doing these injustices unless if there was something there.
But
if there is something there, why have more than 14 months
elapsed without an indictment? If the state had evidence
against Abu Hawash, it should have charged him. If not, it had
to release him immediately.
Israel’s
insistence on keeping a man in custody without trial could
have cost us military
escalation in the Gaza Strip and popular
unrest in the Palestinian Authority.
It’s
a pity that the current government, which includes
centrist and left-wing partners, is following in the
footsteps of the previous governments and is being dragged
against its will, until the last moment, at which point it
needs regional mediation by parties including Egypt, and
threats that make it seem as if it only responds to force,
to extricate itself from the mess.
It’s
time for Israel to learn to forgo this undemocratic,
corrupt practice of unlimited administrative detention,
without evidence or charges that can be refuted.
The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/enough-with-administrative-detentions-1.10515018