Let Palestinian prisoners assert their political aims

The mass hunger strike organised by Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti has elicited various responses, each according to its intended purpose. Prisoners participating in the protest — an estimated 1,000 of them — have affirmed the importance of collective resistance against Israeli violations of their rights. The Israeli Prison Services (IPS) has attempted to disrupt the mass protest by transferring inmates. Barghouti, in particular, was targeted following an op-ed published in the New York Times. In retaliation, he was transferred from Hadarim Prison to Kishon and placed in solitary confinement.

Barghouti’s op-ed opened with explicit details of the abuse meted out by Israeli interrogators in his teenage years; he went on to explain in a clear and concise manner the judicial system utilised by Israel in the form of apartheid which has enabled it to pursue several forms of violence with absolute impunity. “Our chains will be broken before we are,” he declared defiantly, “because it is human nature to heed the call for freedom regardless of the cost.”

Read: Israel puts at least six hunger-strikers in solitary confinement

Humanity, however, seems to have absconded from Palestinian political representatives. The secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) seized the opportunity to make the usual invocations for the international community “to take concrete action to ensure Israel’s adherence to its obligations under international law and safeguard the rights of prisoners.” According to Wafa news agency, Saeb Erekat also called for accelerating the International Criminal Court’s preliminary inquiry and for Israel to release the prisoners as a gesture towards “peace”.

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Erekat has conveyed nothing but futility and the usual capitalisation of prisoners who have struggled against Israeli colonial violence rather than engage in diplomatic, collaborative overtures. Decades of subservience to Israel, which Erekat omitted from his statement, have contributed directly to the presence and conditions of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Yet the isolation of hunger strikers and Palestinian prisoners as a celebratory phenomenon instead of an integral part of the resilient Palestinian people and their resistance continues to take precedence. The tactic reeks of humiliation, the epitome of which, in this context, is embodied by the Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Riyad Al-Maliki.

As reported by Ma’an news agency, Al-Maliki stated that “the prisoners’ demands were humanitarian not political, and that their requests were for living conditions inside prison to abide by international law.” This vile separation of ramifications from the Israeli political system that caters for such violations is ample proof of a leadership that is ready to glean self-glorification and abandon the Palestinian prisoners’ struggle.

Read: Israel’s ‘arbitrary’ laws against Palestinian prisoners

Such attitudes necessitate even more effort to ensure that the collective effort of Palestinian hunger striking prisoners is not diluted. Highlighting the divide between the Palestinian leadership and the people at this crucial moment would ensure that less weight is given to perfunctory statements such as those above, and more scrutiny is focused upon the PA’s security coordination with Israel, which has aided the incarceration of Palestinians in Israeli jails. Instead of allowing Palestinian leaders to take advantage of the situation, collective efforts by Palestinians should expose the leadership’s opportunism. There is no system that has committed itself to guaranteeing Palestinian rights, much less those of Palestinian political prisoners. It is a disservice therefore, to allow any description of the hunger strike as simply a humanitarian plea. While the struggle for rights and liberation commences in Israeli jails, it is equally important that Palestinians eliminate any avenue of political convenience that can be exploited by the PA.

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