HeatherN comments on the recent Palestinian hunger strike.
I’ll be upfront about my opinions about Palestine: I’m for a two-state solution. In part because I think that’s the only way to solve a lot of the conflict in that region. I also recognize that the Palestinians have as equal a claim on the land as the Israelis. Mostly though, Israel lost the upper hand with the Six-Days War and the subsequent treatment of Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank, which isn’t to say Hamas’ actions have been great either. Both sides have committed horrible acts of violence against each other.
However, a large number of Palestinians took a more peaceful approach recently. A reported 2,000 Palestinian prisoners went on a hunger strike to protest prison conditions as well as “administrative detention orders.” Basically “administrative detention order” is the term used when a prisoner hasn’t been charged with anything but is being held anyway. The positive to take from this story is that a deal was reached. Israel agreed to provide better conditions and that anyone currently held on an “administrative detention order” wouldn’t have their sentence renewed without new information or evidence to support that. In return the prisoners agreed to “completely halt terrorist activity inside Israeli prisons.” If both sides actually hold up their end of the deal, then this is really a step in the right direction.
What do you think of this hunger strike? Are peaceful protests effective?
I’m always curious to see the form that a declared “hunger strike” actually takes. Sometimes it really is a hunger strike and the people starve themselves, even to death. Sometimes, though, a hunger strike is not quite what outsiders think it is. In 1989, in the Tiananmen Square protests, a group of students declared a hunger strike to the rest of the world. The cameras stay focused on the part of the square where the hunger strikers set up their protest. It turned out to be a bit of a “rotating” hunger strike. Students came and went. While they were… Read more »
To be fair the term “terrorist activities” didn’t just apply to the hunger strike alone. I find it a bit scary that the Israel consider an end to solitary confinement and a stop in “administrative detention” (a nicer term for imprisonment without charge or trial) for going the extra mile. In return, Palestinian prisoners’ leaders have “signed a commitment to completely halt terrorist activity inside Israeli prisons”, including recruitment, practical support, funding and co-ordination of operations, according to a statement released by the Israeli security agency, Shin Bet. An Israeli government official acknowledged that Israel had “gone the extra mile”… Read more »
I think part of the problem, and why I believe that this “peaceful protest” will ultimately fail, is that there has never been a united peaceful protest. Ever. Large elements of the Palestinian infrastructure are still devoted, and may always be devoted, to violence. It is difficult to describe the kind of depravity that is associated with firing rockets *at random* towards population centers. All of the peaceful protests in the world will not change the minds of a population that has to deal with indiscriminate incoming rockets. Until the protests are united in peaceful methods, and the violent ones… Read more »
Some would argue for the use of the word desperation rather than depravity. I’d say it’s a combination of the two.
I would also suggest that it’s a toss-up whether random rocketfire at population centers are more depraved than the slow collective suffocation of a whole community by the embargo and the comparatively much larger civillian collateral damage the palestinians suffers.
It’s not about “what’s worse” it’s about “who is winning.” 50+ years of violence have “won” the Palestinians more occupation, shorter life spans, starvation, less medical care, and indefinite imprisonment. 50+ years of violence have won the Israelis a dynamic economy with strong investment prospects, increasing life spans, and increased standards of living. It is time for one of these groups to change tactics. Which one should be obvious. Every Palestinian that picks up a gun is simply guaranteeing a worse life for his children, just as his forefathers bought him a worse life when they took up arms. Violence… Read more »
Sounds good. Did the prisoners actually agree to refer to their hunger strike as “terrorist activities”?