Incarcerating the force of liberation

The announcement that the Palestinian hunger strikers have ended their peaceful protest following an agreement with the Israeli prison authorities has been hailed by local media as a success for the government. So far, the reasons behind the ending of the hunger strike have not been divulged, although speculation with regard to the force-feeding bill remains plausible. As the settler-colonial state consolidates its efforts to wreak further havoc in the West Bank by re-arresting former political prisoners as part of its ongoing retaliation, this time under the guise of finding three missing settlers, the question of Palestinian political prisoners becomes more relevant in relation to unified resistance.

Rethinking the struggle of Palestinian political prisoners necessitates a thorough analysis of the integral phenomenon that has rendered incarceration, notably administrative detention, into a routine procedure. There is a parallel that is necessary to bring to the fore, namely the correlation between indefinite detention of Palestinians and the indefinite prolonging, with the focus shifting towards permanence of Israel’s colonisation of the whole of Palestine. This parallel may also be constructed within a global context, taking into consideration both the pre-emptive and allegedly preventive aspects, the international condoning of the arbitrary practice, and the world community’s continuous support for the atrocities carried out by the settler-colonial state.

Besides the fact that administrative detention has been inflicted upon Palestinians since the British Mandate, according to Articles 42 and 78 of the Fourth Geneva Convention it is permitted if “the security of the detaining power makes it absolutely necessary” or “for imperative reasons of security”. Additional protocols to the convention specified the rights to resistance in cases of “armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right to self-determination.”

As imperialism dictates how these things are interpreted, administrative detention takes precedence over the rights of the colonised population, thus obscuring the legitimacy of resistance under international law. This is very convenient, as the strategy enshrined within international charters allows for discrepancies to favour oppression, in order to retain the established complicity allowing Israel the freedom to reinvent its narrative constantly within the wider framework of the equally liable international community. Any attempt to expose Israel’s imaginary legitimacy ultimately leads to a direct attack upon the imperialist UN that supported the establishment of settler-colonialism in Palestine. It is important to eliminate any possibility of contradiction in this regard; considering the illegality upon which the UN thrives, Israel is crucial for the preservation of the organisation. Human rights discourse in relation to the UN should be reversed and dissected in order to construct a meaning that derives its legitimacy precisely from the right to resist against the brutality that Palestinians have faced for decades.

In this regard, the isolation of Palestinian political prisoners from the rest of the nation aids the discrepancies which the international community, through the UN, is eager to promote in order to remain within the confines of deploring Israel without the additional complexities of addressing settler-colonialism.

It can be argued that following Samer Issawi’s temporarily successful termination of his hunger strike the jubilation that ensued resulted in widespread oblivion with regard to other Palestinian political prisoners. Subsequent hunger strikes were given less prominence, fluctuating mainly in light of occasionally reported solidarity protests on the street and, more recently, Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to legalise further torture citing the routine procedure in Guantánamo as justification. The wider context has been obscured –the isolation of Palestinian political prisoners from the rest of the Palestinian population. Glorified as heroes and invoked in the hypocritical negotiations as part of a deal that enabled further colonial expansion, Palestinian political prisoners have been divested of their identity and subjugated to the PA’s collaboration, the result being that the foundations of resistance, namely knowledge and recognition of the enemies, have been diluted to pave the way for sham processes favouring colonial violence.

A brief glance at chronology reveals the gradual weakening and fragmentation of national struggle, a process that has favoured Israel through the decades as Palestinian leaders embarked upon a series of concessions that destroyed the aims of total liberation. Perspective, therefore, has become undermined and limited through various ways.

Despite the rhetoric condemning Israel’s atrocities, Palestinian leaders and factions have as yet failed to articulate resistance against settler-colonisation. “Occupation” remains the favoured, and ambiguous, terminology. Hence, a situation occurs in which the articulation of Palestinian history is detached from the ramifications of Zionist plans for settler-colonialism, apart from the fact that Palestinian leaders are configuring their indigenous history from the perilous definitions disseminated by imperialism. The clearest manifestation of this complicity is the acquiescence to the two-state solution and the relinquishing of the complete liberation of historic Palestine.

This restrictive definition of Israeli aggression eliminates the wider framework of the forces oppressing Palestinians. Imperialism, in various manifestations, is not only unacknowledged, but also becomes a force through which Palestinian leaders, with which, in varying degrees, have allied themselves, to the detriment of all Palestinians. The metaphor of incarceration has been restricted within itself, applied solely to Palestinian political prisoners and thus isolating the imprisoned resistance fighters from the rest of their people. As historical literature has shown, Palestinian political prisoners, particularly from the late 1960s to the 1980s, have mobilised within their jails to expound upon resistance ideology. This had been seen previously in other political prisoners such as Fidel Castro and his comrades in the Isles of Pines, etched in history through the Cuban revolutionary’s words: “For us, this prison is our academy of struggle, and when the time comes, nothing will be able to stop us.”

Israel realises the power festering behind steel bars and is intent upon annihilating the formidable resistance of people who have suffered, been tortured and subjected to the ignominy of administrative detention. The same recognition, although common knowledge to Palestinian leaders, has been isolated within history in order to pave the way for the deterioration of Palestine, in order to accommodate the usurping, imperialist dictates that have already determined the extension of Israel as a prevailing objective.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.