TWO JEWS, TWO VIEWS

Today's Sydney Morning Herald -

Hunger striker is due no sympathy

I have no sympathy for Khader Adnan or his hunger strike (''Hunger striker shines light on Israeli detention policy'', February 20).
He is no innocent accidentally swept up by the Israeli military court system but a longstanding, active senior Islamic Jihad leader committed to both the destruction of Israel and an extreme theocracy for the Palestinians.

On June 10, 2005, Associated Press called him "a top Islamic Jihad leader" advocating on behalf of two comrades who had been jailed by the Palestinian Authority for their part in a suicide bombing in Israel. Two weeks later in a West Bank rally he denounced the Palestinian Authority's call for Islamic Jihad to disarm.

In September 2010 the Palestinian Authority arrested Adnan and on this occasion too he began a hunger strike.
That Adnan is reportedly near death on a hunger strike in an Israeli jail is a tragic waste of a life but, like his support for extremism, is his choice.

Adnan is not some romantic freedom fighter but a senior member of a ruthless terrorist organisation whose complaints about the judicial treatment such criminal activity entails ring hollow.

Mark Kessel Caulfield North

As a person born of Jewish refugee parents who had to flee racist oppression in Germany I am horrified at Israel's blatant denial of human and legal rights to the Palestinians in the illegally occupied territories. Australia should protest in the strongest terms at the treatment of Palestinians there and the use of administrative detention to circumvent normal legal procedures. Mr Adnan's hunger strike will hopefully awaken the conscience of the world.

Ron Witton Austinmer
 
Thanks Ron but after reading more about this Adnan character, I think you're a very sadly misguided soul.