Levick - Harriet Sherwood feels Islamic Jihad terrorist’s pain

Adam Levick..
CiF Watch..
13 February '12..




When reading the headline of Harriet Sherwood’s report on a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror suspect being held by Israel, you’d almost think the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent was covering a political prisoner being held by a totalitarian regime.

The title of Sherwood’s piece, “Israel shackles Palestinian hunger striker“, would be easy to pass over or dismiss, but yet says so much about how the Guardian frames such Palestinian “prisoners”, even those clearly affiliated with the most violent and malevolent Islamist movements.

Sherwood’s story begins:

A Palestinian prisoner who has been on hunger strike for more than eight weeks is being kept shackled to a hospital bed by the Israeli authorities, despite warnings that he may be close to death.

Khader Adnan, 33, has been held without charge under “administrative detention” since mid-December. The Israeli military authorities have refused to tell his lawyer what he is accused of or disclose any evidence against him.

His wife, Randa, who is expecting the couple’s third child, said no reason was given for his arrest.

First, “administrative detention”, used to imprison Adnan, is a judicial method similarly employed by other democratic and rights-respecting states around the world, including the the UK – and the U.S.


In fact, unlike the U.S., Israeli detainees are allowed judicial review, generally within eight days, and are subject to renewals every six months – which would seem to undermine claims by Adnan’s wife, uncritically cited by Sherwood, that no reason was given for his arrest.

But, more importantly, it’s only by the sixth paragraph where we learn that Adnan has been previously convicted for being a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Evidently considered of little significance to Sherwood in properly contextualizing the story is the fact that Adnan is a member of a group recognized as a terrorist organization by the EU, U.S., and the UK,.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was formed in 1979 by Fathi Shaqaqi and other radical Islamists in Egypt who had split from the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza whom they deemed too moderate.

The mission of PIJ is the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel through terrorist attacks on military and civilian targets.

(Read full "Harriet Sherwood feels Islamic Jihad terrorist’s pain")

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.