Palestinian strike: A coup for non-violent protest

The agreement was signed just hours before Nakba Day.

JERUSALEM: The deal that ended the Palestinian prisoners' mass hunger strike not only headed off a confrontation with Israel, but also proved the growing success of the Palestinian strategy of non-violent protest.

The agreement, signed just hours before Nakba Day, when Palestinians mourn the "catastrophe" that befell them in the war that accompanied Israel's independence in 1948, provided a happy ending for local, regional and international players. Not only did the prisoners manage to improve their lot through the deal, but Israel was able to avoid what could have been a potentially serious backlash if any of the prisoners had died, and all sides breathed a sigh of relief.

In a statement welcoming the deal, Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair said he had repeatedly pushed Israel "to resolve the crisis expeditiously in order to avoid a tragic outcome which had the potential to destabilise conditions on the ground."

Gaza's Hamas rulers and the Islamic Jihad movement had warned Israel it would face dire consequences if any of the 1,550 prisoners died. Most of the detainees refused food for four weeks, but two of them, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla, both from Islamic Jihad, went 76 days without eating, setting the record for a hunger strike among Palestinian prisoners.

"If anything had happened to Thaer or Bilal, for example, it would have pushed Islamic Jihad to react immediately by firing rockets at Israel from Gaza, which Hamas would not have wanted because it wants to keep the peace there," a Palestinian official told AFP.

In a bid to resolve the standoff, Hamas had last week dispatched a delegation of former prisoners to Cairo to participate in negotiations, which were mediated by Egypt. The explosive potential of the strike had also worried officials in Ramallah.

"Like Israel, some Palestinian circles were worried that the strike could deteriorate into a new intifada (uprising), which would be run by leaders of the first and second intifadas, but this time from inside Israeli prisons," said political analyst Khalil Shahine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev said Israel had backed the agreement "in response to a request by President Abbas" in the hope that it would "build confidence between the parties and further peace." But, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said it was unacceptable that the prisoners were forced to endanger their own lives in order to secure basic rights.

"We regret that Israel's authorities had for years violated inmates' rights, so they had to risk their lives in their struggle," said Anat Litvin, head of prisoners and detainees at PHR.

But she hailed the detainees for their use of a non-violent campaign to achieve their rights.

"The Palestinian inmates proved that a non-violent and just struggle can bring important achievement and raise international awareness," she said in a statement.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza also paid tribute to "the most serious and longest hunger strike in Israeli prisons."

"The agreement was not achieved without struggle and the determination of prisoners who put their lives at risk in one of the highest forms of resistance and peaceful protest," it said.

In a speech on Monday night, ahead of Nakba Day, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas spoke in broad terms of "peaceful popular resistance against occupation, settlement, and the (Israeli West Bank separation) wall, in which foreign activists and Israeli pacifists take part part." He mentioned the boycott of settlement products as an example.

Senior PLO official Hanan Ashrawi also hailed the prisoners' peaceful protest as a "victory" for the entire Palestinian people.

"They have truly demonstrated that non-violent resistance is an essential tool in our struggle for freedom," she said in a statement on Monday evening.

"Our new heroes are Gandhi, Mandela and Martin Lurther King," Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath has repeatedly said, alluding to three giants of peaceful popular resistance who have inspired the current Palestinian strategy, which was even publicly approved by Hamas in 2011.

In a report published on Tuesday, Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki noted that "a majority of Palestinians oppose a resort to violence as a means of resisting Israeli occupation." Even though 61 percent of respondents declared themselves in favour of non-violent resistance, he said, the numbers of those actually taking part in such acts was low.