PLO official glorifies murderer of 2 who won literature prize

Picture and text posted on the official Facebook page of the PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs

The picture shows PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Director Issa Karake sitting with released terrorist Aisha Odeh at her home in Ramallah.

Posted text: “The prisoners are creative energies that paint the skies of freedom above the prison bars

[PLO] Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Director Issa Karake and a delegation from his office congratulated released prisoner and author Aisha Odeh on winning the Ibn Rushd Fund for Freedom of Thought Prize, which designated some of [its prizes] for prison literature.
Karake said during his visit to Aisha Odeh’s home in Ramallah that the Palestinian prisoners are extraordinary creative energies from a national and literary standpoint, and their creativity burst forth within the prisons of the occupation (i.e., Israel) through the confrontation, the challenging [of the prison guards], and the refusal to submit to the prison guards and their unjust laws.
He said that Aisha Odeh, who spent 20 years of her life [writing] her books about her imprisonment experience, Dreams of Freedom and The Price of the Sun, painted the skies of freedom for the Palestinian people above the walls and bars of the prisons.
Likewise, he said: ‘The prisoners, through their great works, were freer than the hangmen. And they documented the pain and acts of heroism over the course of years, and they let them burst forth in their books, which expressed the humanity of the Palestinian and his right to a humane life and to a dignified life, without chains and without occupiers.’
It should be noted that Aisha Odeh was arrested in 1969 and given a life sentence (sic, two life sentences). She was released in the ‘Seagull’ operation (i.e., prisoner exchange) in 1979, in which 76 female prisoners and one male prisoner (sic, a total of 76 were released) were released in exchange for an Israeli soldier [Avraham Amram].
Aisha Odeh works as the director of the Association of Women Who Were Imprisoned for Freedom and is a member of the Palestinian National Council (i.e., the legislative body of the PLO).”

Aisha Odeh – sentenced to 2 life sentences and another 10 years for placing a bomb which killed 2 in a supermarket in Jerusalem on Feb. 22, 1969. She was released in a prisoner exchange deal in 1979.