{"id":469,"date":"2014-02-22T20:56:36","date_gmt":"2014-02-23T01:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/?p=469"},"modified":"2014-04-28T09:48:51","modified_gmt":"2014-04-28T13:48:51","slug":"jaber-wishah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/2014\/02\/22\/jaber-wishah\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaber Wishah"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"100125-almeghari-260\"<\/a>[Personal reflection by: Eoin Murray<\/strong>]<\/p>\n

Jaber is a Palestinian refugee, in the Gaza Strip and one of the most truly remarkable people I have ever encountered. \u00a0I first got to know him in 2004 when I moved to Gaza. His story, in many ways, is a typical Palestinian one. \u00a0His mother and father were refugees from Palestine, fleeing in the 1948 war. \u00a0Jaber was educated in the refugee camps, after his graduation, he worked as a physics teacher of physics teacher in Cairo.\u00a0 He later became active in leftist political struggles in both Palestine and Egypt. \u00a0His interest in politics led, during the first intifada, to choosing the path of violent resistance to the Israeli occupation. \u00a0One particular incident he was involved in resulted in the death of an Israeli soldier – Jaber and members of his brigade were imprisoned. \u00a0He ended up serving 15 years.<\/p>\n

During his time in prison he endured horrific torture of the physical and psychological kind. \u00a0Yet, it was during this time of incredible difficulty, of separation from his wife and two baby daughters Fidaa and Haneen, that he began to reconsider his life and the best possible way to achieve freedom for his people.\u00a0 While in prison, he worked as the prison librarian; also as an educated man he spoke both Hebrew and English and he became a go-between for passing information from the outside world to the other prisoners and also dealings with the prison guards. \u00a0Jaber also recounted his prison experience and how it helped to shape his view about the world.<\/p>\n

According to him, when he was seriously sick and needed urgent treatment in the prison hospital. \u00a0He was taken presented to the doctor in handcuffs, behind his back. \u00a0The nurse, attempting to examine him but unable because the handcuffs were a serious barrier, insisted the handcuffs be taken off. \u00a0The Doctor refused. \u00a0Speaking in Hebrew, which they did not know Jaber also spoke, they had a conversation where the doctor said “this man is a terrorist, he can not be uncuffed.” \u00a0The nurse responded by saying “he may be a terrorist but he is also a human being and we must treat him firstly as a human being.” \u00a0This was a very significant moments that re-shaped Jaber’s view of the concept of humanity and dignity. \u00a0He understood that here was a nurse, speaking in Hebrew, the language of his oppressor, arguing for his humanity.<\/p>\n

Like a thunderclap Jaber began to understand the transcendental nature of the human idea; he searched for answers and found them in the doctrine of universal rights of all women and men.\u00a0 When he left prison and rejoined his daughters in their teens he had already decided to dedicate his life to working for human rights. \u00a0He has done this since 1997 as Deputy Director of Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.<\/p>\n

If his story, so far, is more or less typically Palestinian why select Jaber? \u00a0Here’s what I think marks him out:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. In prison he transformed himself, which is not such a typical response.<\/li>\n
  2. He is now a sort of elder statesman on the issue of Palestinian prisoners and his example and leadership capacities are strong and he regularly appears on regional media like Al Jazeera.<\/li>\n
  3. Indeed not only he, but his whole family, are involved in campaigning for the rights and well-being of prisoners. \u00a0Ranking alongside Jaber for being truly remarkable is his mother who established a small group representing the mothers of prisoners in the Gaza Strip. \u00a0She is known as the “mother of all the prisoners” for her tireless visits to other prisoners on the days when she was not allowed to see Jaber.<\/li>\n
  4. During the last elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council Jaber ran as a non-party independent candidate. \u00a0He was not elected, at a time of a Hamas landslide (particularly in Gaza). \u00a0But his capacity to be involved in governance issues is significant, particularly in the issue of prisoner’s affairs if there is some change to the political stagnation in the Palestinian body politic. \u00a0In the meantime through his work on democratic development in PCHR he influences governance by being a strong and independent civil society voice.<\/li>\n
  5. Jaber is warm, friendly and full of love. \u00a0Always with a delighted smile to see you, never a cross word and always a welcome to his office, home or family farm. \u00a0Time is never an issue for him any more because he savours every moment. \u00a0In any group setting his hearty laugh, combined with a thoughtful and gentle style will work wonders for the development of something magical.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    See the link below for more Information:<\/p>\n

    https:\/\/www.frontlinedefenders.org\/node\/424\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Jaber is a Palestinian refugee, in the Gaza Strip and one of the most truly remarkable people I have ever encountered. \u00a0I first got to know him in 2004 when I moved to Gaza. His story, in many ways, is a typical Palestinian one. \u00a0His mother and father were refugees from Palestine, fleeing in the 1948 war. \u00a0Jaber was educated in the refugee camps, after his graduation, he worked as a physics teacher of physics teacher in Cairo.\u00a0 He later became active in leftist political struggles in both Palestine and Egypt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1816,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,17,7],"tags":[26,34,25,37],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-forgiving-prisoners-profiles","category-profiles","tag-forgiveness","tag-freedom","tag-love","tag-prisoner"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1816"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":733,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions\/733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}