Thursday, April 12, 2007
There is more to the Israeli government’s desire to change the status of three Hizbollah prisoners, captured during last years war in southern Lebanon, from ‘prisoners of war’ to ‘illegal combatants’ than meets the eye. All three of them it seems were captured on August 4 in the villages of Aita al-Shaab and Shihine, just inside the Lebanese border with northern Israel.
The Israeli government wants to charge at least one of the men, 23 year old Hussein Suleiman, with aiding in the capture of two Israeli soldiers. Now, readers may recall that it was at Aita al-Shaab, a village that is inside the Lebanese border, where the two Israelis were captured. The problem for the Israelis is; if their Hizbollah prisoners maintain their ‘prisoner of war’ status then the Israelis will have no alternative but to release the men once the deal has been struck to exchange prisoners. Since the Israeli government has insisted that their soldiers were captured inside Israel and not Lebanon, and if Suleiman is released knowing the real story, and then subsequently spills the beans, the Israelis are going to end up with even more egg on their faces than they already have. Imagine the furore there would be if the man that actually had a hand in capturing the Israelis inside Lebanon were able to tell his story.
The only way that the Israelis can prevent this from happening is to change the status of their prisoner to the extremely controversial status of ‘illegal combatant’, a status similar to that of America’s so-called ‘unlawful combatant’ under which ‘law’ the US feels entitles them to keep their prisoners indefinitely and to be tried whenever the US can dream up a charge to try them with. As an ‘illegal combatant’ Suleiman can then be charged with whatever crime the Israelis fancy they can get away with and then keep him locked up indefinitely.
First, however, the Israeli government has to front up to the Israeli courts in order to get Suleiman and the other two prisoners’ status changed. There are three things working in the prisoners favour; first is the obvious and transparent ulterior motives the Israeli government have for wanting to change their status; secondly, the Israeli people are beginning to get more than a bit fed up with the way Olmert and the other right-wing Zionists are handling Israel’s affairs and, third; a change in the status of Hizbollah prisoners may also have an effect on the status of the two Israeli prisoners. Given this, the courts might not necessarily look favourably at the Israeli government’s quest.
Olmert increasingly is on the nose of Israelis as well as the rest of the Arab world.
The Israeli government wants to charge at least one of the men, 23 year old Hussein Suleiman, with aiding in the capture of two Israeli soldiers. Now, readers may recall that it was at Aita al-Shaab, a village that is inside the Lebanese border, where the two Israelis were captured. The problem for the Israelis is; if their Hizbollah prisoners maintain their ‘prisoner of war’ status then the Israelis will have no alternative but to release the men once the deal has been struck to exchange prisoners. Since the Israeli government has insisted that their soldiers were captured inside Israel and not Lebanon, and if Suleiman is released knowing the real story, and then subsequently spills the beans, the Israelis are going to end up with even more egg on their faces than they already have. Imagine the furore there would be if the man that actually had a hand in capturing the Israelis inside Lebanon were able to tell his story.
The only way that the Israelis can prevent this from happening is to change the status of their prisoner to the extremely controversial status of ‘illegal combatant’, a status similar to that of America’s so-called ‘unlawful combatant’ under which ‘law’ the US feels entitles them to keep their prisoners indefinitely and to be tried whenever the US can dream up a charge to try them with. As an ‘illegal combatant’ Suleiman can then be charged with whatever crime the Israelis fancy they can get away with and then keep him locked up indefinitely.
First, however, the Israeli government has to front up to the Israeli courts in order to get Suleiman and the other two prisoners’ status changed. There are three things working in the prisoners favour; first is the obvious and transparent ulterior motives the Israeli government have for wanting to change their status; secondly, the Israeli people are beginning to get more than a bit fed up with the way Olmert and the other right-wing Zionists are handling Israel’s affairs and, third; a change in the status of Hizbollah prisoners may also have an effect on the status of the two Israeli prisoners. Given this, the courts might not necessarily look favourably at the Israeli government’s quest.
Olmert increasingly is on the nose of Israelis as well as the rest of the Arab world.
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