POLITICAL prisoner Marwan Barghouti and hundreds of other Palestinian prisoners are to commence a hunger strike on April 17 if Israeli authorities do not improve jail conditions.

Fadwa Barghouti, head of the campaign to Free Marwan Barghouti and All Palestinian Political Prisoners, solicitor to and wife of Marwan, has stated she hopes for a resolution before the strike starts if Israeli authorities agree to three key demands:

Greater access to telephones (that the prisoners accept will be monitored) in order to maintain better contact with the outside world.

Visiting rights for family members. Currently only immediate family can visit, meaning Barghouti and many others jailed have never met some of their grandchildren.

The reintroduction of twice-monthly visits. The Red Cross are responsible for facilitating travel for families into Israel to visit prisoners. But the organisation recently bowed to Israeli state pressure to reduce visits to once a month. Originally, the Red Cross claimed the issue was financial, at which point Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stated the Palestinian Authority would cover the costs. The Red Cross has not so far accepted this proposal.

If these demands are not met by April 17, Palestinian Prisoners Day when those in jail are remembered, the hunger strike will begin.
Palestine is a society where most families, around 70 per cent, have at least one relative in prison. Since Israel’s invasion in 1967, 800,000 Palestinians, or roughly 20 per cent of the total population and 40 per cent of the male population, have been imprisoned by Israel.

Overall, approximately 100,000 Palestinians in total have been held in administrative detention, meaning they are detained without trial. Hunger strikes have won the release of many of these detainees.

Barghouti, jailed for life by Israeli authorities and considered by them to have been centrally responsible for the second intifada, is the most high-profile of all those participating in the strike. The campaign for his release was launched from the former cell of Nelson Mandela on Robben Island and the parallels are stark.

Like Mandela, Barghouti is a figure with the potential to unite the Palestinians towards liberation. This is speculated as the underlying reason he has been imprisoned by Israel and also why Hamas does not position him at the top of prisoner swap lists.

In a poll conducted in March 2016, which surveyed a scenario of an election fought between Barghouti and Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, the former received 57 per cent, the latter 39 per cent. The poll also found that in a contest between Haniyeh and Fatah’s current leader, Mahmoud Abbas, the Gaza-based leader would win by a significant distance, 52 per cent to 41 per cent.

The alternative prospect of electing a Palestinian prisoner would enliven the current political stagnation in not only breaching the stalemate between Hamas and Fatah, but also swapping Abbas’s political lethargy for the younger, more militant, more dynamic figure of Barghouti, vivid preacher of non-violence and self-determination.

What the potential hunger strike could do is begin to solidify the movement inside Palestinian prisons as a force that can win.
The demands are fairly basic yet so far have not been conceded by Israeli authorities.

This demonstrates that the fight at hand represents not simply visitation rights or telephone access, but taking on the power of the Israeli prison system itself.

Israeli authorities know these are the stakes and do not wish to hand an easy victory that has the potential to boost confidence in collective action.

More widely, a victory would show it is possible for political prisoners like Barghouti to continue to struggle from inside jail and carve out victories that resonate globally. On the world stage, a victory could set the scene for popularising a Barghouti election candidacy.

The Israeli state is already getting defensive about the strike. Its military actors are already using social media to position the strike as one solely conceived by Hamas prisoners, attempting to mask its far-ranging support behind Israel’s favourite bogeymen.

If the possible strike is successful, whether before or after it begins, struggle inside prisons provides recognition that collective non-violent resistance can take on the Israeli state apparatus and win.

That is the real danger Barghouti embodies: the threat of an escalating bid for justice.