The Palestinian Prisoners’ Hunger Strike: Arab Discourse on the Social
Networks
INSS Insight No. 337, May 21, 2012
Dekel, Udi and Perlov, Orit
http://www.inss.org.il/publications.php?cat=21&incat=&read=6573

The Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike, which made headlines in recent
weeks, seems to have ended with the signing of a memorandum of understanding
between Israel and the prisoners, achieved through the mediation of the
Egyptian intelligence services.

According to the "Middle East Monitor Fact Sheet," there are some 6,000
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and prisons. Of these, 320 are held
on the basis of administrative detention, a means viewed by them – and the
international community – as illegitimate. Derived from international laws
of warfare, administrative detention is a measure meant to foil future acts
of terrorism liable to represent a threat to public security. It relies on
classified evidence, unlike familiar criminal procedures in which all
evidence is presented to the accused, who is ultimately acquitted or
pronounced guilty and sentenced. The full criminal procedure is viewed as
legitimate; administrative detention is not.

The hunger strike, in effect another Palestinian tool in the struggle with
Israel, departs from terrorism and violence (barring that the situation does
not spiral out of control should a striking prisoner die) and focuses on
applying public opinion pressure on Israel. With this recourse to hunger
strikes, the Palestinians have adopted methods commonly used in the Arab
world since the start of the "Arab Spring." The main purpose of the
nonviolent struggle is to change Israeli policy by using new tools, and the
decision to employ nonviolent means signals an awareness that they are
likely to be more effective, especially with regard to human rights issues.

There is a direct influence by people active in social networks in Arab
states (Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi
Arabia) on public opinion leaders in the social networks active in the Gaza
Strip and West Bank. In light of the success of hunger strikers in Arab
nations, two Palestinian prisoners held in administrative detention – Hayder
Adnana and Hana Shalbi – decided in December 2011 to begin a hunger strike
to protest their incarceration, an act that aroused much sympathy on the
Arab street. The concern that their deaths would spark outbreaks of violence
in prisons and in the West Bank apparently led to the Israeli decision to
release them.

In light of their success, five other Palestinian administrative detainees
started a hunger strike about two and a half months ago; on April 17, they
were joined by some 1,500 other prisoners, most of whom are security or
criminal prisoners, with only a few administrative detainees. The purpose of
the mass hunger strike – so far the largest in the Arab world – is to end
administrative detention and/or improve the detainees’ conditions, which
deteriorated after Gilad Shalit was kidnapped.

.The demands published by the detainees through the social networks include:
ending administrative detentions; ending the policy of holding detainees in
solitary confinement; ending surprise security checks of prison cells;
providing appropriate medical attention; allowing prisoners family visits
(this demand relates primarily to Gaza Strip prisoners, whose families
cannot visit them in jail); and ending delays and humiliations of prisoners'
relatives on their way to and from the prisons.

On the local social networks and in Arab states as well, widespread support
was sounded for the administrative detainees and less for the security and
criminal prisoners who joined the strike. Significantly, this widespread
support has at no point called for violence. For those involved in this
struggle, its effect and utility will be much greater as long as it remains
nonviolent.

Clearly the Palestinian Authority did not have the appropriate tools to
confront this new phenomenon. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas raised the concern
that the PA would lose control over events should any ill befall the
strikers, apparently an attempt to pressure Israel into demonstrating some
flexibility on the issue. For their part, the PA and its security apparatus
are facing a complex challenge. On the one hand, there have been
demonstrations in major cities, including Nablus and Hebron, where Hamas,
together with Islamic Jihad, has used the opportunity to protest the arrests
by the PA of Hamas and Jihad operatives without due process. On the other
hand, within the PA and its security services there is fundamental sympathy
for the prisoners. PA personnel have engaged in covert activity so as not to
become a target of the protests and have avoided operating effectively
against the demonstrations and identification with the prisoners. At the
same time, they have maintained secret contacts with the prisoners to
discourage them from stepping up the strike and their demands.

The negotiations to end the strike were headed by the Israeli General
Security Services and conducted, via Egyptian mediation, with senior Hamas
and Fatah detainees. The announcement put out by the GSS said that the
prisoner leaders “have signed a commitment to put a total stop on directing
terrorism from within the jails” and that the agreement was signed “after
the detainees were given the green light by organization commanders on the
outside.”

.

As soon as the memorandum of understanding was signed, the social networks
claimed Israel had agreed to the following:

· An end to prolonged isolation on the pretext of security; 19
detainees would be released from solitary confinement within 72 hours.

· Authorization of visits by first-tier relatives to Gaza Strip
prisoners, which ended in 2007 after Hamas seized control of Gaza and in
response to the abduction of Gilad Shalit.

· Authorization of visits to West Bank prisoners by relatives whose
requests were denied on the basis of vague security concerns.

· A joint Israel Prisons Service and prisoner committee, to be
established to improve custody conditions.

· The administrative detention orders for 308 of the Palestinian
prisoners will not be renewed unless clear security information is brought
against them.

.

The development of a new, nonviolent effort designed to bring about changes
in Israel’s policy presents a different kind of challenge. At present,
governments do not have the tools to confront the scale of this nonviolent
struggle, making it necessary to formulate a new strategy for confronting
the phenomenon.

.

In addition, the incident is indicative of the mutual influence between the
Egyptian street and the Palestinian street via social networks. On the one
hand, the Palestinians copied the model and tools of the hunger strike from
Egypt and picked up a tailwind from the social networks. On the other hand,
the events as they developed in the Gaza Strip and West Bank are liable to
generate an escalation in the Egyptian street’s anti-Israel stance and
rhetoric. This concern, shared by the political leaders in Israel, Egypt,
and the PA, seems to have led to the involvement of the security services in
Israel, the PA, the Gaza Strip, and Egypt to resolve the crisis.