#translation [reposted] How does a 14-year-old become a "security prisoner"? Far too easily

The first thing that catches the eye in the list of 300 Palestinian prisoners published by the Ministry of Justice, intended for release as part of the prisoner exchange deal, is their young age. The vast majority of them are 18 years old or younger, as required by the terms of the deal. And yet, looking at this list, one cannot help but wonder - how does a 14-year-old become a "security prisoner"?

For example, by throwing rocks at a security vehicle in Jerusalem. Another 14-year-old boy from #Jerusalem is listed only as an "administrative detainee". Arrested for what? It is unclear. Both have no organizational affiliation. Another young Jerusalemite, aged 17, has been sitting in prison for two years for the "crime" of "throwing rocks and causing damage to cars using a stick". This is in a city where settlers regularly attack Palestinian residents until they bleed, suffer serious injuries and prolonged hospitalizations - as a matter of routine - without the police bothering to investigate or arrest anyone. But a Palestinian boy will be jailed for years for causing damage to cars using a stick.

More than anything, this list is dizzying testimony to the central place of detentions and imprisonment in the Israeli occupation and control project over the Palestinians. According to the HaMoked Center for the Defence of the Individual, as of November 2023 Israel holds 6,704 "security prisoners", among them 2,313 prisoners serving sentences, 2,321 detainees not yet convicted in court, and 2,070 administrative detainees held without trial.

Not one of the 300 prisoners on the list has "blood on their hands". Almost all are relatively new prisoners, from the past year or two. The few exceptions who have been jailed longer are 10 women detained since 2015-2017, mostly Jerusalemites and West Bank residents, most of them charged with attempted or actual stabbings of cops and soldiers, some that resulted in no injuries, some in minor to medium wounds.

This is in a judicial system that decided to close the case against a settler who stabbed a Palestinian youth to death, because "his claim of self-defense could not be discounted". However, self-defense under the Israeli apartheid regime is a right reserved for Jews only. While Jews who have rampaged, attacked and even killed Palestinians receive full immunity from the system, the Ministry of Justice list shows that Palestinians can be arrested by the truckload merely on the basis of the “intention” to resist. One of the prisoners, a 45-year-old Jerusalemite woman, has been sitting in prison for over two years because “she was caught in the Old City with a knife. She stated her intention was to carry out an attack”.

So while the Minister of National Security pleads with Jews to arm themselves and distributes weapons in synagogues like candy, Palestinians are apparently expected to get a license even to carry a knife. I do not know under what circumstances this woman stated her intention was to carry out an attack, but I would be happy to refer the Israeli police to the endless number of people who gleefully declare their intention to "kill as many Arabs as possible". I have dozens upon dozens of those in my inbox.

But even the “intention” to act without having committed any concrete action is not the lowest bar set by the indictments of the prisoners on the list. An 18-year-old from Jerusalem “was arrested together with others because he called out Allahu Akbar”. An 18-year-old woman from the West Bank has been jailed for months for “incitement on Instagram”. I do not know what that “incitement” was for which this young woman was arrested, but it bears reminding that in a state where explicit calls for genocide are considered legitimate as part of whipping up national morale, Palestinians, even citizens of Israel, risk arrest over posting a picture on social media of a #keffiyeh alongside a Palestinian flag.

Among the prisoners’ indictments on the list, only a few are related to actual shooting or weapons use (and even in those cases, as stated, there were no fatalities). In the vast majority of cases they involve throwing rocks or Molotov cocktails, shooting fireworks and “disrupting order”.

Clearly #Israel has presented here a specially "soft" list of prisoners that in the absence of fatalities is not supposed to arouse too much public objection, and it is clear that in prison there are also Palestinian prisoners with serious and grave indictments. But this list, which Israel was able to rapidly compile, 300 names, almost all very young, almost all from the past two years, almost all sitting for nonviolent popular resistance (yes, throwing rocks at military or police vehicles is nonviolent popular resistance), should also elicit some reflection on the link between the harsh repression of any expression of popular resistance, and the strengthening of armed and violent resistance groups. That is assuming that the Israeli public will finally grasp the basic fact that as long as occupation and oppression continue, so will resistance.

And following Nadav Frankovich’s piece here, we should also ask ourselves whether it was really worth holding onto those kidnapped women and children in Gaza for a few more weeks just for the right to continue incarcerating a teenager who dared cry “Allahu Akbar”, and many like him.

Hebrew: https://www.mekomit.co.il/איך-ילד-בן-14-הופך-לאסיר-ביטחוני-בקלות-ר/

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