Khader Adnan has reached an agreement with the Israeli military authorities. He promises to end his hunger strike, but only if Israel guarantees to give him back his freedom April 17.
Israel blinked, saying, in effect ...
"Yes, you may go free April 17, four months after we put you in prison without charges. Your administrative detention will end and you may return to your wife and two daughters."
Israel blinked because it feared its own Supreme Court might go outside the Zionist box and expose the inherent inhumanity codified in administrative detention.
In a remarkable exchange on CNN International, Hala Gorani grilled Israel spokesman Mark Regev before Israel made public its latest "generous offer." Regev stalled and squirmed under Gorani's relentless questioning. It is highly probable that he was aware at the time that the Israeli strategy of avoiding a Supreme Court ruling was about to be announced.
The 10-minute grilling is a classic display of what a good journalist can do to a duplicitous government spokesperson. Don't look for this interview on CNN US. The interview became available on the internet through a posting by Adam Horowitz on the ever-valuable Mondoweiss web site.
Rest assured Israel was thinking less about the life of Khader Adnan, and more about its own image as a democracy, when it acted on its own to avoid having administrative detention fully exposed for what it is by its own Supreme Court.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will soon speak to AIPAC, Israel's American support system, when he visits Washington for AIPAC's annual meeting, March 4-6. He will also sit down with President Barack Obama who may have influenced him to "get rid of this Khader Adnan problem before you come to the White House."
A massive outpouring of Palestinian grief for a dead hunger striker, would not be good background for an Obama-Netanyahu confab.
But be cautious. The Israeli government is not known for straight shooting when it makes agreements either with Palestinians or with the American government. IMEU has gathered comments on what we might expect next. This was the reaction from Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the Electronic Intifada:
"While we await final confirmation from Khader Adnan himself that he has ended his hunger strike, reports of the deal to free him early from detention without charge or trial represent a big victory.
"Israel made two concessions that met minimum conditions set by Adnan to end his strike: counting his 4-month administrative detention from the date of his arrest, rather than the date the order was issued -- meaning he will be released 3 weeks early, and secondly, Israel agreed not to renew the order as it so often does.
"The fact remains, however, that Adnan is still in custody without charge or trial, along with more than 300 other detainees, including 21 elected members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. It is also worth noting that while Israeli officials continue to insinuate that Adnan is 'violent' and a 'terrorist,' they have still not charged him with any crime. It is simply inconceivable that if they believed their own claims, that Israel would have agreed to this deal."
Meanwhile, in the mainstream media, three of MSM's major pundits have yet to address the Khader Adnan story. They missed the fact that he was the answer to their collective call for a Palestinian Gandhi.
Peter Hart, activities director of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), a New York-based web site, noticed a symmetry among three of these major media pundits.
During Adnan's nearly 10-week hunger strike, and before Israel backed down on administrative detention, Hart wrote in Huffington Post that he found columns by Joe Klein, Time magazine, and the New York Times' Tom Friedman and Nicholas Kristof, all sounding suspiciously like a well-rehearsed media trio singing in perfect harmony from the same page in the same hymn book. Hart explains:
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