According to YNet News, an Israeli News Agency, Israelis in Tel Aviv had a demonstration in July 2008 against kidnapping – in South America!
Israel itself has a prison system groaning with kidnap victims. Israel keeps Hamas members in prison indefinitely. Many others are detained without charge, as bargaining chips in the hands of the Israeli regime.
‘Aziz Dweik, 60, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the Palestinian parliament, was detained in 2006 along with dozens of other members of the PLC following the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, in effect paralyzing the Palestinian parliament.
"We treat this as a political file," Dweik’s lawyer, Fadi Qawasmi, told The Media Line. "We’ve always said this arrest was illegal. It was a political arrest, because Israel wanted to interfere in Palestinian affairs because they did not like the fact that Hamas won the elections," he said.
…Dweik is one of 41 PLC members currently in Israeli prisons.
Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 and has dominated the Palestinian parliament ever since. Qawasmi said that if the detained politicians were released now, they could theoretically topple the new government that was formed last month in Ramallah, which would not sit well with Israel. "It’s not a coincidence that most of them were sentenced to 42 months," Qawasmi said. "When they are released, the new election will have come so they will not have an opportunity to do anything during this period."
Shortly after the new Palestinian parliament came to power in 2006, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured on the Gazan border by Hamas and three other armed organizations….The Palestinian MPs and Hamas cabinet ministers were arrested a few weeks later to be used as bargaining chips for Shalit’s release
Full report in News Blaze here.
