Hunger Striker a Headache for Both Israel and the Palestinians Mohammed Allaan’s death would spur unrest and a clampdown, while dulling the tool of detention without trial.
Haaretz
Amira Hass Aug 16, 2015
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The hunger strike by Mohammed Allaan, like that of Khader Adnan before him, has become a big headache for Israel and its Shin Bet security service, but also for the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Palestinian society in general.
No party wants the conflagration and escalation that could erupt if this one-person hunger strike were to end in Allaan’s death. Islamic Jihad will have to make good on its vow to respond. If it does so, by firing rockets from the Gaza Strip, the Hamas government will not be able to prevent it: That would be considered unpatriotic.
And if Israel insists on responding, in keeping with the result, its military superiority would presumably cause more casualties and property damage. There’s no telling what kind of new round of bloodletting that no one wants would happen, though it’s clear the Palestinians would pay the highest price. If Islamic Jihad tries to respond in the West Bank as well, there’s no way to predict what Israel would do, and whether Palestinians will once again face sweeping military incursions and arrests, injuries and killing. That is the last thing they want.
Allaan’s ‘wildcat’ hunger strike is a headache for the Shin Bet and the Israel Defense Forces, for which administrative detention is a very convenient tool. Without having to present proof, without an indictment (which in the military courts is in any case very flexible), without having to explain anything to anyone (except military judges, who are easily persuaded), they neutralize various political and social activists and distance them from their society. The personal courage of the hunger strikers shines powerful spotlights on the method of lengthy detention without trial, and, as was the case with Adnan, also requires the Shin Bet to retreat.
Four years ago the mass hunger strike sparked by Adnan Khader made it necessary for the Shin Bet and the Israel Prison Service to make concessions to Palestinian administrative detainees, that have since been reversed. The natural solidarity that Palestinians feel toward political hunger strikers has the potential to foment rebellion, the opposite of what the Shin Bet and the army want.
Precisely because of this potential, Allaan’s personal initiative, and Adnan’s before him, has embarrassed the Palestinian Authority. Its representatives have had to issue warnings and condemnations of the prolonged detention, but the Islamic Jihad is an ideological foe. Islamic Jihad members irritate the PA when they criticize it publicly, and like Hamas activists, they are a target for investigations and arrests by PA security agencies. People regard the one-man strikes as strengthening this small organization’s criticism of the PA. The two voices in which the PA speaks — condemning administrative detention and concern for the detainee on the one hand, and opposition to the way of Islamic Jihad on the other, are authentic even if they ostensibly contradict each other.
Palestinian and Israeli-Arab protestors hold posters of Mohammed Allaan. August 9, 2015.AFP
The other Palestinian factions with members detained and in prison are also embarrassed. It is hard to meet the very high standard of personal sacrifice on principle and for liberty that has been set by these two strictly religious detainees.
Noticeably, this time hundreds of other detainees and prisoners did not join the lengthy hunger strike in support of the demand to either release the detainees or try them.
As much as these strikes reveal the strong character of the individual striker, they attest to the lack of solidarity of the population of political prisoners and of Palestinians in general. The lack of solidarity within the prison reflects that lack outside of it.