Palestinians Reinvent Freedom

To make up for the guilt I always feel about Palestine, my country of origin — something I have no proof of because of that “minor” hindrance called the occupation — I have become accustomed to staying up until dawn reading, tweeting and attempting to be part of the minimal coverage of Palestine as much as I can. And through this habit I realized that the fight for freedom has become ever so noble not just because of the scarce media attention it gets, but also because of how very draining it is. Why should people resort to extreme measures to be treated as people — this shouldn’t be what freedom is about. It is saddening to feel so desperate for the basic rights you’re supposed to be entitled to already — unless being a human doesn’t count anymore as an “excuse” for demanding them. Thus the definition of freedom has become so vague that those in power are giving it to us in the quantities they want at the time they feel is suitable for their interests. Palestine, the country suffering under occupation for 63 years now with minimal — usually biased — international coverage, has been desperately calling for a freedom whose definition has been so profoundly altered. Officials from Addameer, a prisoner’s support and human rights association based in Jerusalem, estimate that “Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, over 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel. This forms approximately 20% of the total Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).” This, of course, is nothing compared to Israel’s violations of human rights and international law and its war crimes such as using illegal weapons against Palestinian civilians. I won’t elaborate on how proud I am of how Palestinians survive an occupation that has forced unbearable conditions on them, because let’s face it, many will still choose to remain unimpressed. Yet I’ll definitely express my pride in how Palestinians are currently and so indefatigably reinventing freedom. On April 17, about 1,600 of 4,600 Palestinian political prisoners started a mass hunger strike, according to Israeli prison officials. Palestinian activists say there are 2,500 hunger strikers. Two of those hunger strikers, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh, had refused food for 76 days, when Israel finally decided last month to make a deal with the prisoners to end their strike. And even though they were growing frail — consequently harmless — Diab was shackled to his hospital bed, according to Hadas Ziv of Physicians for Human Rights Israel. The strikers were protesting the inhumane conditions in Israeli jails, and some were also protesting their imprisonment without charge or trial, which under martial law is usually called ‘administrative detention.’ Yes, martial law is the “only democracy in the Middle East.” Currently, there are 300 Palestinian prisoners held under administrative detention orders. But does a mass hunger strike trigger any genuine sympathy in an apartheid state? Laoi Odeh, a Palestinian political prisoner who was released in October’s prisoner’s swap deal, was part of a 22-day mass hunger strike by prisoners in September. Odeh uses Facebook as a platform to write about his horrific experience in prison, and on April 25 posted the following description as he was in a sit-in in solidarity with the hunger strikers (translated by Electronic Intifada): Soldiers burst into strikers’ rooms aggressively as if they were confronting armed fighters on a battleground, not hunger strikers with feeble bodies that can barely stand. Knowing that strikers are intolerant of noise, soldiers break into their rooms with loud screams and initiate a hand search in a way that one feels that he’s being beaten rather than searched. Whoever refuses to undergo these “searches” gets beaten up and is plunged directly into solitary confinement. The prisoners are then left in a yard outside with no place to sit for hours while their rooms are turned into a complete mess. As the world turns a blind eye to such horror, the Palestinians maintain their undying devotion to their cause: preserving their humanity or rather saving what little remains of it. Thus Israel is caving in. We thought Khader Adnan’s success at pressuring Israel was a one-time incident. Adnan started a hunger strike on December 18 to protests his and other administration detentions. After a 66-day strike that caught the world’s attention for a change, Israel agreed to release him. But, as joyous as this thought feels in my head, it seems to have taken hold: Palestinians are reinventing freedom. Israel reached a deal, or better yet it was pressured into, agreeing to release some of the strikers (the ones held under administrative detention orders) and improving the conditions of others. On May 14, the 1,600 hunger strikers ended their fast. This deal was brokered by Egypt. This was not an act of genuine sympathy, of course. The apartheid state feared an uprising in the West Bank and East Jerusalem after protests broke out. Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets peacefully supporting the strikers and were met with, of course, violence from Israeli forces. The Western media’s excuse for not presenting the Palestinian side has always depended on Hamas resorting to violence. It’s a flimsy excuse when Israel’s crimes in Palestine are so numerous, as well as inhumane. But these hunger strikes, with social media and the internet shedding light on them amid the traditional media blackout, are letting Palestinians reinvent their freedom without the help of physical weapons, mass media support or even many resources. Palestinians are setting new standards for the neocolonialists who have always asked, “Where is the Palestinian Ghandi?” Now there are thousands of Palestinian Ghandis fighting their own battle to gain ground in a world awfully biased against them. They’re reinventing freedom by putting their own lives on the line and without risking others’ lives. Maybe now more than ever, with those hunger strikes and movements such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS), efforts which are being fought relentlessly by Hasbara’s Zionist propagandists and Israeli lobbyists in the West, the world is being newly introduced to who Palestinians really are, rather than knowing them only as backward Arab terrorists. But terrorists do not defend their humanity by starving themselves, do they? Terrorists do not fight for freedom, regardless if the world takes notice or not. Terrorists do not reinvent freedom. Palestinians have reinvented freedom on so many levels throughout the years. They are the students who managed to study and graduate with college degrees when power cuts are the norm in Gaza, the mothers resorting to patience after their children were killed in air-strikes, those finding it in themselves to keep smiling even though their houses were demolished by settlers. And now, with so much pride I’ll say it again and again, Palestinian hunger strikers are reinventing freedom as their predecessors have always done in so many ways: peacefully.