Prisoners' Intifada shames
Palestine's leaders By Ramzy
Baroud
If Palestinian leaders only knew
how extraneous their endless rounds of "unity"
talks have become, they might cease enthusiastic
declarations to world media about their meetings.
At this point, few Palestinians are left with hope
that their "leadership" has their best interests
in mind. Factional interests reign supreme and
personal agendas continue to define Palestine's
political landscape.
Fatah and Hamas are
the two major Palestinian political factions.
Despite Hamas' election victory in 2006, Fatah has
the upper hand. Both parties continue to play the
numbers game, flexing their muscles in frivolous
rallies where Palestinian flags are overshadowed
with green and yellow banners, the symbols of
Hamas and Fatah respectively.
Historically, there has been a leadership
deficit in Palestine and it
is not because Palestinians
are incapable of producing upright men and women
capable of guiding the decades-long resistance
towards astounding victory against Israel's
military occupation and apartheid. This is because
for a Palestinian leadership to be acknowledged by
regional and international players, it has to
excel in the art of "compromise". These carefully
molded leaders often cater to the interests of
their Arab and Western benefactors, at the expense
of their own people. Not a single popular faction
has resolutely escaped this.
This reality
has permeated Palestinian politics for decades.
However, in the last two decades the distance
between the Palestinian leadership and the people
has grown by a once unimaginable distance, to the
point where some Palestinians have become a
jailor, a peddling politician or even a security
coordinator working hand in hand with Israel.
Perks of the 1994 Oslo Accord have over the years
created a Palestinian elite, whose interests and
that of the Israeli occupation overlap beyond
recognition of where the first starts and the
other ends.
While Hamas remained largely
immune from the Oslo disease - Fatah leader
Mahmoud Abbas and his men enjoy its numerous
political and economic perks - it too is becoming
enthralled by the prospects of regional acceptance
and international validation. Its strictly
factional agenda and closeness to some corrupt
Arab countries raise more than question marks and
there is the prospect of it heading in the same
direction as Fatah leaders did over two decades
ago.
The unity charade continues. After a
period of ambiguity, Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal
and Palestinian Authority leader Abbas reportedly
held meetings in Cairo to "expedite" a
reconciliation. Considering that progress is
judged as keeping the status quo between the two
main factions, the word "expedite" is likely to
mean and change very little on the ground.
If one was to judge by rhetoric and rival
claims, the chasm continues to grow, despite the
supposedly sober fact that earlier this month, on
January 4 Hamas allowed Fatah to celebrate the
anniversary of its birth in Gaza, while the latter
did the same in the West Bank. Supporters of both
parties brazenly used their parades - which took
place under the watchful eyes of Israeli drones -
to exhibit their strengths. This was not in
relations to the Israeli military occupation, but
to their own pitiful factional propaganda.
Oddly enough, if the calculations of
Palestinian factions are accurate regarding the
attendees of their rallies, the population of Gaza
may have suddenly morphed to exceed 4 million, a
remarkable jump from the 1.6 million of a few
weeks ago. This is the actual number of the Gaza
population per United Nations statistics.
This miserable legacy of Palestinian
factionalism can be seen against the backdrop of a
slowly brewing movement in Israeli jails.
Palestinian political prisoners continue to place
their faith in their own ability to endure hunger,
gaining international solidarity with their cause.
Samer Issawi, a Palestinian prisoner who as of
January 10 completed 168 days of a hunger strike
in protest of his unlawful detention by Israel, is
hardly a unique phenomenon. He is an expression of
the very much present but snubbed Palestinian
collective, whose fate doesn't fall into the
political agenda of any faction.
Issawi is
one of seven brothers, six of whom spent time in
Israeli prisons for their political beliefs. One
of the brothers, Fadi, was killed by Israeli
soldiers in 1994, a few days after celebrating his
16th birthday. Even their sister, Shireen, was
arrested by Israeli soldiers during a hearing
concerning her brother Samer on December 18. On
that day, "Samer was publicly beaten in the
Jerusalem Magistrates Court after he tried to
greet his family," reported the Palestine Monitor.
"He was dragged from his wheelchair and carried
away, repeatedly crying out as he was hit on his
chest by the guards around him."
The
Issawi family and the entire neighborhood of
Issawiya in East Jerusalem is now a target for the
Israeli army and police. The aim is to break the
will of a single man who at present is incapable
of standing on his own feet. It may be legendary,
but Samer Issawi's will of steel is not an alien
notion for Palestinians. According to the Adameer
Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association,
over 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by
the Israeli military and police since its
occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and
Gaza in 1967.
"Considering the fact that
the majority of those detained are male, the
number of Palestinians detained forms
approximately 40% of the total male Palestinian
population in the OPT [Occupied Palestinian
Territories]," the organization wrote in a June
2012 fact-sheet. But Palestinian resistance is yet
to be quelled.
"It is estimated that
around 10,000 Palestinian women have been arrested
by Israel since 1967. They include young girls and
the elderly; some ... were the mothers of male
long-term prisoners," wrote Nabil Sahli in January
in the Middle East Monitor. The author has also
called for an internationalization of the
prisoners issue.
In a special session held
on January 6 to discuss the plight of Palestinian
and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, the Arab
League echoed similar demands. In a statement it
called for the treatment of detainees as
"prisoners of war" and called for active
international efforts to secure their release.
However, serious efforts on the issue seem
absent despite the repeated cries for attention by
Palestinian prisoners. On April 17, 2012, at least
1,200 prisoners participated in a hunger strike to
alert the world of their plight and maltreatment
in Israeli jails. Despite the fact that the
collective strike ended on May 14, Palestinian
prisoners continue to stage hunger strikes of
their own, breaking records of steadfastness
unprecedented not just in Palestine, but the world
over.
While calls for a change of tactics
are warranted, if not urgent, there is another
pressing change that must also be realized. There
ought to be a change of Palestinian political
culture, away from the repellent factional
manipulation and towards a return to the basic
values of the Palestinian struggle. It is the
likes of Issawi, not Abbas that must define the
new era of Palestinian resistance.
An
Intifada has already been launched by thousands of
Palestinian prisoners, some of whom are shackled
to their hospital beds. It offers little in the
way of perks aside from a chance at dignity and a
leap of faith towards freedom. This is the
dichotomy with which Palestinians must now
wrangle. The path they will finally seek shall
define this generation and demarcate the nature of
the Palestinian struggle for generations to
follow.
Ramzy Baroud
(www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally
syndicated columnist and the editor of
PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is: My
Father was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story
(Pluto Press).
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