Einat Weitzman
Photo: Orit Panini
Israeli actress sings former MK Ghattas's praise: 'You're my inspiration'
Einat Weitzman, whose play Prisoners of the Occupation was barred from participating in the Acre Festival, says goodbye to MK as he enters prison: 'Basel is going to pay this heavy price because this evil regime has to criminalize the resistance to the occupation.'
Israeli actress Einat Weitzman sang former MK Basel Ghattas's praise as he entered prison
on Sunday after being sentenced
to two years for smuggling cellphones to Palestinian security prisoners.
Some 300 of Ghattas's supporters, including MKs from the Joint List and other members of the Balad party, attended an event in his honor at the Arab town of Rameh entitled "Prisoner on his Way to Freedom."
Weitzman, whose play Prisoners of the Occupation was barred from participating in the Acre Festival and led to the cancelation of the entire festival, called Ghattas "My teacher and friend."
Ghattas with supporters on his way to prison.
"Basel's actions are an expression of the necessary resistance to the hard and discriminating conditions in which political prisoners are being held. These actions were meant to ease their situation, if only by a bit," Weitzman asserted.
"That is why his sacrifice is the ultimate one. Basel is going to pay this heavy price because this evil regime—which is based on differentiating, empowering and glorifying one nation, while oppressing, disinheriting and excluding another—has to criminalize the resistance to the occupation," she went on to say.
Einat Weitzman (Photo: Moriel Pislzon)
Weitzman claimed that "Those of us who are outside, especially the privileged ones among us, must do whatever we can to thwart this effort to make the political prisoners invisible. I'm willing to do all I can to give everyone a voice."
She concluded on a more personal note, saying, "Basel, to me you are a combination of struggle and sacrifice. You are an example of someone who was willing to take a risk to ease the conditions of the prisoners, and for your struggle you are about to become a prisoner yourself. You are also the inspiration to everything I've done. It is with a heavy heart and great sadness that I say goodbye to you."
