Monday, June 21, 2010

Repentent rocket shooter

Paul Martin is a BBC reporter and documentary film maker who used to work in Gaza. During August 2008 he filmed a report about children being indoctrinated as future suicides (shahid) and the consequences of this "culture of death" (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ifs_news/hi/newsid_5270000/newsid_5271900/bb_wm_5271968.stm ). In this film he interviewed a Gazan psychologist who wants children to live normal lives and not decide about this "psychology of death" until they are grown up and mature. In another report in 2009, Paul Martin filmed a group of young men of the Abu Rish Brigades, a militant Fatah offshoot, preparing to fire rockets at Israel during Operation Cast Lead, one of them was named "Mohammed" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7208969.stm ). In order to fire their rockets they first had to get permission from the Hamas authorities.

Some time later by chance he met this young man, Mohammed abu Mualik, who spoke English very well, in a coffee shop and Mohammed told him that he had given up firing rockets and was now against it. Martin thought this was interesting enough that he made a film of this young man and why he had changed his views about trying to kill Israelis. In this film Mohammed said that "Islam should be a peaceful religion" and he does not want to kill anyone anymore. It turned out that Mohammed had made contact with an Israeli thru the internet and this had helped change his mind, seeing that all Israelis were not "bloodthirsty killers." Partly as a result of Martin's film Mohammed was later arrested and tortured by Hamas security forces.

Martin then filmed an attempt by Mohammed to escape from Gaza to Egypt, but he was stopped at the border, taken into custody and shortly after that was charged with spying and collaborating with Israel. Martin left Gaza under threat, but when Mohammed was put on trial in 2010 he went back in order to try to give testimony on his behalf. He knew these charges were totally false, Mohammed was simply a young man who had decided against participating in the "culture of death" of Hamas in Gaza, and was now on trial partly because Martin himself had filmed him and publicized his views. However, when Martin returned to Gaza in Feb, 2010 he was also arrested and held for two weeks under "excruciating" conditions. He was never charged and was released as a result of an international campaign on his behalf, including Tony Blair, Desmond Tutu and many journalists. However, the spokesman of the Hamas Government, Mohammed al-Zahar, accused him of being a spy and a collaborator, and said that he was in league with the other prisoner, meaning Mohammed abu Mualik.

Mohammed abu Mualik has been tortured by Hamas security forces and is now awaiting the verdict of his trial. He is expected to be executed. Martin has now released his film about Mohammed on the BCC under the title "Rocket man under fire" (a url for this program is not available). Not exactly an appropriate title, but it is clear that Martin has a conscience about having been partly responsible for the terrible fate of this young man. Nevertheless, the overall message of this series of events is that Hamas is a ruthless dictatorial regime and that anyone who disagrees with their violent methods can be arrested, tortured and killed. The naieve western liberals who have been running around with slogans saying "we are all Hamas" should take a look at the reality.

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