{"id":897,"date":"2013-06-06T10:16:02","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T17:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/?p=897"},"modified":"2013-06-19T07:07:14","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T14:07:14","slug":"oday-khatib-acclaimed-palestinian-singer-set-free-discusses-his-time-in-an-israeli-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/?p=897","title":{"rendered":"Oday Khatib, acclaimed Palestinian singer, set free; discusses his time in an Israeli prison"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Sandy Tolan and Anan Abu-Shanab<\/strong><\/em><\/pre>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Oday Khatib, the acclaimed Palestinian singer from the Ramallah-based Al Kamandjati music school, walked out of an Israeli prison a free man this week.\u00a0 Oday was arrested on March 19 at Al Fawwar refugee camp near Hebron, and sentenced to three months in prison for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli soldiers.<\/p>\n
Despite the joyful return with his family at Al Fawwar, and the experience of tasting his his mother\u2019s oven-baked chicken after nearly three months of prison food, Oday, 22, expressed mixed feelings about his release.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy happiness was not complete,\u201d he said during a telephone interview from the family home at Al Fawwar on Thursday, which was interrupted repeatedly as well-wishers continued to stream into the house.\u00a0 \u201cI felt like I was abandoning the guys.\u00a0 I felt guilty.\u00a0 I was ashamed for only spending three months.\u201d\u00a0 Many of the other men in the two prisons where Oday was incarcerated had been sentenced to much longer terms.\u00a0 Stone-throwing carries a sentence of ten years under Israeli Military Order 1651, and the conviction rate for all charges against Palestinians by Israel\u2019s occupation authories is 99.74 percent, or about 399 out of 400.<\/p>\n
Oday maintains that on March 19 he was not throwing stones, but rather standing near a group of boys who were. \u00a0Nevertheless he was arrested by Israeli soldiers, beaten \u201creally badly,\u201d and charged with the crime of stone-throwing. \u00a0For two months Oday and his lawyer maintained his innocence to the military authorities, reminding them that he was a singer, had never been arrested, and was not interested in throwing stones.\u00a0 \u201cI have my life and my work to worry about,\u201d he told them.\u00a0 Oday has long maintained that his resistance to Israel\u2019s occupation would come through his music.\u00a0 During the trial, Oday said, \u201csoldiers and witnesses lied\u201d about his alleged crime.\u00a0 Faced with the prospect of a long prison term, the singer, who has recorded and performed across Europe and the Arab world, agreed to plead guilty in exchange for the three-month term.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was ashamed that I was the youngest and had the shortest sentence,\u201d among his fellow prisoners, Oday said.\u00a0 \u201cWhen they would ask how long I am staying in prison I would only say three, without saying it is only three months so they would think it is three years. I started crying when I left.\u00a0 I was not that happy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen all my family and friends met me at the checkpoint,\u201d Oday added, \u201cI told them that they did not have to do all of this. I mean I barely spent any time in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n
During Oday\u2019s relatively short\u00a0 stay in two Israeli prisons \u2013 in Ofer, near Ramallah, and Ramon, in the Negev Desert \u2013 he entertained his fellow prisoners with his powerful, mournful voice, which has captivated audiences from Al Fawwar to the Gulf to Paris, going back to the days when Oday was barely a teenager, and still a boy soprano.\u00a0 \u201cI tried my best to change the atmosphere of the prison and make a pleasant mood for everyone,\u201d Oday said of his time as a prisoner. \u201cI started singing for them and telling them that we should deal with it as a summer camp, not as a prison, to lighten things up.\u201d\u00a0 This also picked up Oday\u2019s spriits, to a certain extent.\u00a0 \u201cIt helped relieve some of my suffering, but at the same time,\u201d because of the sad themes he sings about, \u201cit brought me back to suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now that he\u2019s free, Oday is suddenly able to make simple plans, like attending the birthday party of Hussein Aburedwan, son of Ramzi Aburedwan, founder of Al Kamandjati, and his wife, Celine Dagher.\u00a0 Hussein turns four on June 10, and told his mom he wanted Oday to come to the party.\u00a0 Oday also plans to travel to France for a singing gig, attend Al Kamandjati\u2019s international summer music camp in Ramallah in July, and consider entering the \u201cArab Idol\u201d singing competition.\u00a0 \u201cAnd to get engaged,\u201d he added.\u00a0 \u201cThere are some plans for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before all of that, however, Oday Khatib plans to visit the families of some of the men he spent time with in prison. \u201cI promised some of my friends,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThey also asked me to write songs for prisoners since there are not a lot of songs about prisoners.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the long days and nights behind bars, Oday recalled, \u201cI thought about everything:\u00a0 my family, my work, my dream. I started praying and thinking about my family, and all of the people who are not going to leave prison and I stopped thinking about myself. All I thought about was my fellow prisoners, and how God may stand with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Sandy Tolan and Anan Abu-Shanab Oday Khatib, the acclaimed Palestinian singer from the Ramallah-based Al Kamandjati music school, walked out of an Israeli prison a free man this week.\u00a0 Oday was arrested on March 19 at Al Fawwar refugee camp near Hebron, and sentenced to three months in prison for allegedly throwing stones at more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":900,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions\/900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}