Haaretz
August 17, 2004
Some 1,500 Palestinian security prisoners (out
of about 4,000) began a hunger strike yesterday in protest over the
refusal of the Prisons Service and the minister of public security to meet
their demands. They want an improvement of prison conditions and the
abolition of interrogation methods that they consider humiliating. Israel
has much more serious complaints against them: Many have been convicted of
acts of murder and terrorism, and others have been jailed for other
serious crimes against people and property.
However, the
authorities will be making a mistake if they get into an emotional and
unreasoned struggle with this large prison population. There is no place
for one-upmanship in the Israeli response to the strike. Israel must first
and foremost act with wisdom and common sense.
Not even one of
these characteristics was evidenced by Public Security Minister Tzachi
Hanegbi's statement that from his point of view, the prisoners could
strike "until they starve to death." The large number of security
prisoners is a matter that should not be discussed during the present
conflict. Among the thousands of prisoners are not only Palestinians who
are being punished after they used violence against Israelis; there are
also those who are perceived in the Palestinian community as symbols of
the national struggle. In this sense, they must be dealt with
intelligently and in consideration of the future relationship between the
two peoples.
The prisoners are demanding, among other things, the
removal of the glass partitions between them and their visiting families,
and additional visitation permits. They want the humiliation of nude body
searches, especially in front of other prisoners, stopped. They want
public phones in the prisons, air conditioners and permission to study in
Arab and foreign universities. Some of the demands are groundless, for
example, allowing computers in the cells; the prisoners cannot possibly be
serious about these. But their other demands should be considered.
Conditions of incarceration should not be a punishment added to that which
has already been meted out.
Thousands of Palestinians have passed
through Israeli prisons over the years. While inside, they have learned
Hebrew and the prisons, as is the case in foreign jails, became their
terror schools. Just as security officials at the highest level have
concluded that "the terror barrel has no bottom," so the assumption that
more severe prison conditions will necessarily produce a better outcome in
the war against Palestinian terror is pretentious.
A fact well
known in countries that imprison leaders of undergrounds and national
liberation movements must also be remembered: Many were leaders before
their imprisonment, and many others walked out of prison as
leaders.
In the long-term, there is no great wisdom in the acts of
a government that creates hatred and unnecessary bitterness behind the
walls of its prisons. There is also no point in solutions being considered
at present, such as force-feeding prisoners, a measure that will play into
the hands of the strikers in the struggle for world opinion.
The
right way to deal with the demands of the Palestinian prisoners should be
to take into consideration the complexity of the matter; not for the sake
of those many whose crimes are unforgivable, but for the sake of the
long-term interest of Israel in this ongoing struggle.