In the Hamas/Israel war, why does Palestine have "hostages" but Israel has "prisoners"?
This occurred to me while listening to the news. When they exchange people it’s always hostages for people held in Palestine and prisoners for people held in Israel. Why is that? Is it just perception or is there a practical difference?
Lot of bad takes and sensationalism in this thread. The real difference is that one group (prisoners) were charged with crimes, and the others (hostages) weren't.
Whether those criminal charges are valid or not is another story, but that's why they're using different terms for each group, as they're not captive under the same pretense as the other.
Many Palestinian prisoners aren’t charged with crimes and have “secret evidence” held against them. Given Israel’s track record of lying and colonialist activity, I’ll leave you to decide if they actually do have that evidence. aljazeera.com/…/more-than-600-palestinians-held-b…
On top of that, the vast majority of the actual crimes are incredibly minor like rock throwing, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a child. The conditions and treatment in Israel prisons for Palestinians is incredibly grim as well.
There’s a thin vaneer of an unjust legal framework, and the aims of Israel aren’t as explicit to hold them for trade, but they’re a whole lot closer to being hostages than most people care to admit.
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