Not prisoners or detainees, but "Palestinian hostages"

What do you call it when police or military forces enter your place of residence – city, village, home – and take you with them into the unknown, without you having done anything, without you or your family knowing why, and in fact, as it turns out later, without any reason at all? So if you're Jewish, it's called "kidnapping," and if you're Palestinian, it's called "arrest."

Ruti Lavi writes about yet another particularly painful manifestation of the occupation and apartheid in Israel; and yet another, very powerful, manifestation of the way the regime uses language to play with all our heads.

Ayala Shalev, Editor, That’s About Us

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Not prisoners or detainees, but "Palestinian hostages"

Ruti Lavi

The story of Palestinians who were forcibly taken by the Israeli army or Shin Bet and held in Israeli prisons and detention camps, along with the question of their status and the legality of their forcible abduction, remains hidden from the eyes of the Israeli majority, despite spanning many years. In fact, even everyday acts, such as the forcible abduction of a Palestinian in the territories and their release several kilometers away, beaten and bruised; or their release after days or weeks, beaten and bruised; or their prolonged detention for years under the rubber stamp of "administrative detention" – constitute kidnapping in every sense. However, in the past two years, there has been a worsening dehumanization of Palestinians, in terms of endorsing the atrocities in Gaza and the sweeping expansion of the kidnapping procedure. Since the start of the massacre in Gaza on October 8, the words "October 7," "Hamas," "nukhbas" and "hostages" have become triggers that activate blanket consent for any inhumane action. Like the horns of the altar, absolving all guilt.

After the ceasefire agreement, the Jewish hostages were returned, as were about 1,750 Palestinian hostages. During the release of some of the Palestinian hostages, stories emerged painting a horrific and terrifying picture of torture and starvation, as did the condition of the bodies that were returned. And yet, thousands of Palestinian hostages remain held in prisons and detention camps in Israel, including known doctors and medical staff, as reported by human rights doctors, as well as thousands more whose names and medical conditions are unknown, and whose families – if they survived – know nothing about them. The facts of their inhumane holding conditions, their torture, starvation, and the number of deaths in the detention camps and prisons (over 90) have been published in the media, but the information has not stirred any echo or outrage in the Jewish public in Israel or abroad. The army and the Israel Prison Service do not provide information on the number of hostages, so the known figure is partial and incomplete. In front of a New York Times reporter, Israel admitted that it has no indictment against any of them. Even after the video from Sde Teiman leaked, the ground still did not shake.

Using the concepts of "administrative detention" and "unlawful combatants," Israel holds Palestinians in its detention facilities for years, without any need to present an accusation or prove it. The military courts also produce a legal veneer: the exercise of the right of a democratic regime that presents itself as "defensive." For those who wish to know, it is no secret. Most Israeli Jews do not wish to know or manage not to know – whether out of equanimity or the need to live "normal lives."

In my view, referring to Palestinians as "prisoners" or "detainees" assumes the Jewish state as having authority over those it has taken and over their fate. This is a constant realization of power and policing, hovering as a permanent threat over their heads.

The term "security prisoners" assumes that the Jewish state is fighting for its security and its right to do anything for it. Palestinians are portrayed as a potential security threat, a representation extended to all Palestinians, in Israel and beyond. The detention of Palestinian citizens of Israel who posted on social media about their pain over the suffering of their people in Gaza, contrasted with the understanding and tolerance for any Jewish call for revenge against Palestinians, is a clear example of this.

The refusal of various parties to call them "Palestinian hostages" – a refusal I encounter all the time – stems, I believe, from the fear of undermining the sanctity of the Jewish hostages, which has become an excuse for any atrocity committed by the regime. This consideration for the feelings of the Israeli Jews (those in power) entails recognition of their power to decide: who lives and who dies; who goes free and who is detained and tortured.

Once we begin calling all those thousands of invisible and tortured people in Israel's torture camps by the name "hostages", we will be taking vital steps toward challenging the hidden assumptions, according to which Israel's security depends on control over the Palestinians, the threatening entity; that Jewish lives, their security, and the continuation of their accustomed lives without any need for concessions, are of supreme value, for which everything is permitted to preserve; that Palestinian obedience is essential for any agreement to grant them a little freedom, which is also conditional. It is also important to challenge the discourse that denies the horrific Palestinian trauma but is ready to accept any Jewish cruelty based on any trauma whatsoever.

The fate of Gaza residents who were abducted is only part of what the State of Israel allows itself to do to Palestinians, as such. The difference lies only in the degrees of severity of the abuse and the scale of the abductions. Waiving the definition of forcibly taken Palestinians as "hostages" means an admission of the Jewish state's authority to continue abducting them and also a denial of the horror of its actions against them.

It is also important to remember that "Hamas fighters" captured during battle are entitled, under international law, to humane conditions of captivity without abuse or torture, as enemy combatants in custody. The fact that Palestinians have no state and thus ostensibly no army is a product of Israel's policy, the power holder with the connections. The concept of "unlawful combatants" effectively allows Israel to reinforce its position that it is not an army defending against their army, and it also enables it to ignore the international convention.

May we all rise to call for the release of the Palestinian hostages and to cry out in horror at their torture and starvation to death. May they be released speedily in our days, and may their homes be rebuilt, their city restored, and may they merit to live in freedom and security on their own land, in their own state.

Inshallah.

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Ruti Lavi is an activist, teacher, poet, painter, and a human being.