For Khader Adnan

We live away from it, yet we’re always attached to that place we’ve never been to. Any Palestinian family gathering must include the elders’ tales of suffering occupation, then us, the youngsters, start discussing the political, or rather inhumane, situation Palestinians have been living in for the past 63 years.

The Palestinian hot topic of the past week has been Khader Adnan. The usual random attacks on Gaza aren’t news anymore — as cruel as this sounds. Always heartbreaking, of course, but not news. But Adnan, the Palestinian political prisoner who has been on a hunger strike for 61 days now, is news. He is making headlines, at least among bloggers and alternative online news sources; you won’t find him much in mainstream media.

Thirty-three year old Adnan is a Palestinian baker, a husband and father of two. He has been on hunger strike since December 18, a day after Israeli forces raided his house in the West Bank at night. He was detained on the basis of a four-months “administrative detention” order, through which Israel allows itself to imprison anyone without charge. It’s a military order. So yes, martial law is being implemented in the only ‘democracy’ in the region.

Adnan has lost over 40 kilograms. His wife, Randa, and two daughters were in disbelief when they saw how frail he looked as he was being transferred from prison to a hospital. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International urged Israel last week to release Adnan, who’s on the brink of death — but since when has Israel cared?

While the international media and various governments have crucified Egypt for implementing an emergency law that allows the state to imprison anyone without charge, nobody seems to be batting an eyelid when Israel implements a similar emergency law.

Israel's ‘Administrative Detention’ is applied in cases where available evidence consists of information obtained by the Shin Bet and where a trial would reveal sensitive security information, and detentions can last for up to a year.

 I only learned of Adnan through Twitter (follow the #Hungry4Justice tag). I don’t think I need to elaborate more on the general silence I’m seeing in the international community, because this has always been the case when it comes to Palestine. If this had been happening in Egypt, we would’ve been bombarded by many pointless speeches from the White House, but a Palestinian dying? Who cares — it happens all the time.

Nevertheless, it’s times like these that show the hypocrisy of the developed nations who claim to be the ultimate supporters of human rights. Palestine has always been criticized for ‘violence’ (meriting an entire commentary on its own), but, today, when a Palestinian is peacefully resisting, is the world coming to his rescue? I guess the answer is crystal clear.

I wrote this, in a probably failing attempt to shed light on the injustice Adnan is facing. I wrote this, not because I am a Palestinian, but because I am a human. At any minute now Adnan could die. So I write this for Khader Adnan, who could be my father or yours, because,  as Martin Luther King wrote in a letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,”