Palestinian journalist imprisoned without trial or justice by Israel continues hunger strike to expose Israel’s civil rights abuses, violence and oppression. Muhammed al-Qiq symbolizes the enduring struggle against Israel’s brutality
By Bettejo Indelicato
A Palestinian prisoner on hunger striker becomes more than the individual their tortured body encompasses. The hunger striker, in this case Muhammad al-Qiq (Mohammed al-Qeeq), becomes every Palestinian Prisoner held illegally and tortured under the Israeli Regime.
The hunger striker becomes every Palestinian child that throws a stone at an Israeli tank. The hunger striker becomes every Palestinian suffering under the brutal yoke of Israeli’s illegal Occupation of Palestine. The hunger striker becomes every person who resists the Israeli Apartheid State.
Tonight, Muhammad’s life is bound up in the life of every Palestinian. On nights like this it feels like the fate of Palestine rests on a Man, a Father of 2, a Journalist Silenced, who has not eaten for 91 days and weighs less than 67 pounds.
Muhammad al-Qiq is a silent force formidably penetrating the consciences of millions of Palestine Solidarity activists around the world. We embrace him. Though his name is never mentioned in mainstream media, we keep vigil via social media from comrades on the ground.
We admire his wife, our deepest respect to her, and we cry with her while awaiting every update. We see the sad bewilderment in his children’s eyes and know that they are cut to the bone and the scars won’t heal.
Our own bodies are wracked by a shadow of the pain Muhammad himself endures. We gather energy from the universe and send it to Muhammad.
Emotional, mental, spiritual and physical Solidarity. This, for the man, the individual willing to suffer to the end for an ideal greater than himself.
That ideal is freedom from brutal foreign domination, Occupation, Apartheid and Genocide of his land and his people. It is a simple ideal, one that many of us enjoy and most of us would strive for if we didn’t.
This ideal has not been realized for Palestine since 1948. Rather, Israel, with the blessing of the rest of the world, has physically and mentally chipped away at the ideal of Palestinian freedom.
This has never stopped the Palestinian struggle against their brutal oppressors and it never will.
Tonight, we look to a courageous, steadfast man who personifies the resistance from his Calvary on the prison bed of injustice. Imbued with his courage the struggle for freedom continues until every Palestinian dances across their land, without walls or borders, from the river to the sea.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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