A Blog from David Crump
Our friend, Layla, is a journalist working for the online news magazine, Mondoweiss. She filmed some members of the Amira and Al Azzah families after the Israeli soldiers, who had physically attacked them all, had finally left with Munther laying in the back of their truck.
This is our extended family in the West Bank. I admire their fortitude and resilience. I wish I was with them right now.
Yesterday, I received the following message explaining the “arrest” (Israeli arrests are more like kidnappings) of my dear friend Munther Amira.
Munther is a well-known community leader who is committed to non-violence. I have watched him in action, working to defuse tense situations where Israeli soldiers were working to foment violence.
This is not the first time Munther has been arrested. He is a regular target of Israeli violence. If you are a praying person, I ask you to please pray for Munther’s release and safety.
Here is the notice from the Aida Youth Center about Munther’s arrest, (All emphasis is mine):
The Israeli occupation forces have arrested activist Munther Amira from his home in the Aida refugee camp. Munther is the the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Aida Youth Center. He is also an activist with the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC), a collection of grassroots activist in the West Bank.
Munther was violently arrested from his home around 3 in the morning. Israeli soldiers broke down the door of Munther’s mother’s home and violently beat up Munther’s younger brother Kareem for more than 15 minutes. They then broke into Munther’s house and began beating him while they locked his wife and children in a bedroom. They tied up Munther’s sons, and took a knife and slashed the t shirt of Munther’s youngest teenage son, because it had a map of Palestine on it.
They then dragged Munther out of his home, tied him up, blindfolded him and left him in the street for over an hour.
Israeli forces screamed at and shot live ammunition towards a young boy who was watching the arrest from the window of his house. Israeli forces also prevented ambulances from entering the camp to treat Munther’s brother Kareem who was badly injured.
After more than an hour, the soldiers abducted Munther and took him into the military base.
Munther’s brother Kareem is now in the hospital.
Munther is a prisoner of conscience. This is not the first time he has been targeted for his activism. In 2017 he was arrested for participating in a peaceful demonstration demanding the release of then child prisoner Ahed Tamimi. Munther was sentenced to 6 months in prison for “disturbing public order” and “participating in a protest without a permit”.
We demand the immediate release of both our colleagues Munther Amira and Anas Abu Srour from their illegal detention.
Please raise your voice to put as much pressure as we can in the media to #FreeMuntherAmira and #FreeAnasAbuSrour
The following report from Al Jazeera news contains several stories. First, you will see images from the war in Gaza that the MSM seldom, if ever, show.
Second, a Palestinian-Israeli journalist describes the frightening increase in racist threats and authoritarianism emerging in Israeli society today.
I am happy to say that these two men are both friends of mine. In this video from the Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East (NEME), Bruce asks the questions and Jonathan offers a discussion drawing from his years of experience as a lawyer of international and humanitarian law.
Jonathan does a good job of explaining the Christian perspective on the horrors of war.
I have numerous acquaintances who argue that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza. There argument turns on the question of intent.
The legal definition of genocide requires that the aggressor explicitly states an intention to eradicate the victims. Without an explicit statement of genocidal intent, there can be no genocide.
Well, let’s skirt the word games, shall we?
Numerous Israeli leaders, both in and out of the governement, have clearly, deliberately, purposefully called for the genocidal eradication of all Palestinians from the area known as “greater Israel,” which includes Gaza and the West Bank.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a duck — even if others insist on calling it a turkey.
Regardless of what my pro-Zionist friends may say, what is happening now in Gaza is a genocide. Confirming evidence is provided below. Just click the link:
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/Q9pFdq6rA9naFKeE/?mibextid=Ki DqeK
Not long ago I wrote about my young Palestinian friend, Anas, who had been arrested by the Israeli army.
A few days ago, Anas’ wife and family received news from the local, West Bank military authority telling them about his situation.
Anas was being held in an Israeli prison under the conditions called “administrative detention.” That is, he was not charged with any crime. There are no plans for a trial date. He was simply being held for six months in a military prison.
(There is no “civil jurisdiction” for Palestinians in the West Bank because they live under military occupation. Military rule is all they know.)
At the end of that six month period, Anas may be imprisoned for another six months — again without any criminal charges, trial, or recourse to a defense attorney.
But then, as a friend of mine who is a Palestinian defense attorney once said, “Without charges, evidence, or a trial date, there is nothing for a defense attorney to do within the military prison system.”
This unjust process of administrative detention may be repeated indefinitely.
During its recent ceasefire negotiations with Hamas, Israel released a number of Palestinian prisoners, mainly women and children, in exchange for Israeli hostages.
These were the visible prisoner swaps shown to us in public.
Anas is now a part of the other invisible prisoner swap taking place in the West Bank, often under the cover of darkness.
For every Palestinian prisoner released in a publicized, photographed hostage exchange, Israel is busy kidnapping and detaining many more Palestinian hostages whose stories will never be told on CNN or MSNBC.
Israel is busy ensuring that none of its dark, cold prison cells will remain empty.
This new generation of prisoners, like Anas, are also hostages; additional bargaining chips held indefinitely in brutal military prison conditions for whatever inhumane games Israel decides to play with their lives in the months to come.
If you are a praying person, please pray for my friend Anas, as well as the many other Palestinian hostages now held in Israeli prisons whose only crime is being Palestinian.
Learn about Israel’s “Hannibal Directive” — that is a long-standing Israeli military directive that instructs soldiers to kill their own people before allowing them to be taken as hostages.
Evidence continues to mount indicating that a good deal of the death and destruction committed in southern Israel on October 7 was due to Israeli military fire, not Hamas.
Journalist Max Blumenthal of the Gray Zone lays out the evidence:
Jenin is a city with a large refugee camp located in the northern part of the West Bank. Watch the video and note the way “the most moral army in the world” treats Palestinian children.
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh6eJHBkVEk”
If the embedded link in blocked, then copy the address without the quotation marks and watch on your computer.
Khan Younis is a city in Southern Gaza. This former member of the Israeli Knesset is openly calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza on Israeli national news.
