Despite efforts to raise the alarm by human rights organisations, Palestinian hunger strikers are being ignored by the international community, writes Richard Falk When it is realised that Mahatma Gandhi shook the British Empire with a series of hunger strikes, none lasting more than 21 days, it is shameful that Palestinian hunger strikers ever since last December have continued to exhibit their extreme courage by refusing food for periods ranging between 40 and over 90 days, and yet these exploits are unreported by the media and generally ignored by the relevant international institutions. The latest Palestinians who have aroused emergency concerns among Palestinians because their hunger strikes have brought them to death's door are Hassan Safadi and Samer Al-Barq. Both had ended long earlier strikes because they were promised releases under an Egyptian-brokered deal that was announced on 14 May 2012 and not yet implemented by Israel. Three respected human rights organisations that have a long and honourable record of investigating Israeli prison conditions have issued a statement in recent days expressing their "grave concern" about the medical conditions of these two men and their "utmost outrage" at the treatment they have been receiving from the Israeli Prison Service. For instance, Hassan Safadi, now on the 59th day of a second hunger strike, having previously ended a 71-day fast after the release agreement was signed, is reported by the organisations Addameer and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel to be suffering from kidney problems, extreme weakness, severe weight loss, headaches, dizziness and has difficulty standing. It is well established in medical circles that there exists a serious risk of cardio-vascular failure in hunger strikes that last beyond 45 days. In addition to the physical strains of a prolonged hunger strike, the Israeli Prison Service has deliberately aggravated the situation facing these hunger strikers in ways that have been aptly described as cruel and degrading punishment. Such language is generally qualified as the accepted international definition of torture. For instance, hunger strikers are punitively placed in solitary confinement or put coercively in the presence of other prisoners or guards not on hunger strike, so as to be taunted by those enjoying food. It is also an added element of strain that these individuals have been given false hopes of release, and then had these expectations dashed without even the disclosure of reasons. Both of these strikers have been, and are being, held under administrative detention procedures that involve secret evidence and the absence of criminal charges. The Israel human rights organisation B'Tselem has written that the use of administrative detention is a violation of international humanitarian law unless limited to truly exceptional cases, which has not been the case here, as attested to even in the Israeli press. Hassan Safadi's experience with administrative detention exhibits the manner of its deployment by the Israeli occupation authorities. Administrative detention was initially relied upon to arrest him when he was a child of 16, and since then he has served a variety of prison terms without charge or trial and well-authenticated reports of abuse, amounting to a total of ten years, which means that during his 34 years of life a considerable proportion of his time has been spent behind bars on the basis of being an alleged security threat, but without any opportunity for elemental due process in the form of an opportunity to use counter evidence, to rely on the presumption of innocence, or to confront the accusations. The international human rights organisation Amnesty International has recently again called for an international investigation of the treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israel and assurances that the Palestinians are not being punished because they have recourse to hunger strikes. It is important to be reminded of the context of the hunger strikes. Such undertakings require great determination, of which most of us are incapable, and an exceptionally strong inner commitment that connects life and death in a powerful, almost mystical, unity. It is no wonder that Palestinian hunger strikers have been inspired by the 1989 Tiananman Square Declaration of Hunger Strikers: "we are not in search of death; we are looking for real life." The 10 IRA hunger strikers, led by Bobby Sands, who died in 1981 at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland transformed the British government's approach to the conflict in the province, leading to the establishment of a genuine peace process that climaxed in the Good Friday Agreement that brought the violence mostly to an end. Hunger strikes of this depth send a signal of desperation that can only be ignored by a moral insensitivity somewhere between what psychologists call "denial" and others describe as "moral numbness". So why has the world's media ignored the Palestinian hunger strikers? Must we conclude that only Palestinian violence is newsworthy for the West? Must Palestinian hunger-striking prisoners die before their acts are noticed? Why is so much attention given to human rights abuses elsewhere in the world, and so little attention accorded to the Palestinian struggle that is supposed to engage the United Nations and underpin so much of the conflictual behaviour in the Middle East? Aside from a few online blogs and the Electric Intifada site, there is a media blackout about these most recent hunger strikes, another confirmation of the politics of invisibility when it comes to Palestinian victimisation. After all, the United Nations, somewhat ill-advisedly, is one of the four parties (the others being the United States, Russia and the European Union) composing the Quartet, which has set forth a roadmap that is supposed to produce peace in the region. It should therefore exhibit some special responsibility for such a breach of normalcy in the treatment of Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons. The organisations Addameer, Al-Haq and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel have called on international actors to do something about this situation, at the very least by way of fact-finding missions and reports, these actors being the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the European Union and the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Is it too much to expect some sort of response? We do not expect the United States government, so partisan in all aspects of the conflict in the Middle East, to raise its voice despite its protestations of concern about human rights in a wide array of countries and despite US President Barack Obama's almost-forgotten promises, made in his June 2009 Cairo speech, to "understand" the suffering of the Palestinian people and to turn a new page in US Middle Eastern policy. Since I have been following this saga of hunger strikes unfold in recent months, starting with Khader Adnan and Hana Shalabi in December 2011, I have been deeply moved by the consistently elevated human quality of these hunger strikers, disclosed through their statements and their interactions with family members and the public. Their words of devotion and loving solidarity are possessed of an authenticity only associated with feelings rarely expressed except in extreme situations when life itself is in jeopardy. This tenderness of language, an absence of hate and even bitterness, and a tone of deep love and devotion is what makes these statements from the heart so compelling. I find these sentiments to be spiritually uplifting. Such utterances deserve to be as widely shared as possible, in order to allow for a better understanding of what is being lost through this long night of the soul afflicting the Palestinian people. The politics of struggle are implicit, but the feelings being expressed are at once deeply political and beyond politics. I can only hope that informed and sensitive writers, poets, singers and journalists, especially among the Palestinians, who share my understanding of these hunger strikes will do their best to convey to the world the meaning of such Palestinian explorations in the interior politics of non-violence. These are stories that deserve to be told in all their fullness, maybe by interviews, maybe through a series of biographical sketches, maybe by poems, paintings and songs, but they need to be told at this time in the same spirit of love, empathy, solidarity and urgency that animates these utterances of the Palestinian hunger strikers. I include below one sample to illustrate what I have been trying to express: a letter from Hassan Safadi to his mother written during his current hunger strike and published on July 30, 2012, by the Electric Intifada site and translated from the Arabic by a young Palestinian blogger, Linah Alsaafin, who contributed a moving commentary that is a step in the direction I am encouraging. "First, I want to thank you, dear mother, for your wonderful letter, whose every word penetrated my heart and immersed me in happiness, love and tenderness," Safadi wrote. "I am blessed to have a mother like you. Please thank everyone who stood in solidarity and prayed for me." "What increased my happiness and contentment was your writing that you can raise your head up proudly because of me�ê�I hope your head will always be lifted high and your spirits elevated, oh loved one! As for waiting for my release, I remind you, mother, that we are believers. We are waiting for God's mercy with patience�ê� as the Prophet Mohamed related God's words, 'I am as my slave thinks.' As you await my release, think positively, and, God willing, God will not leave you and your work, and He will not disappoint your expectations�ê�" How beautiful the last line of your letter is! "God is with you, may He protect you and take care of you�ê� I leave you in His safe hands. Please mother, always pray for me using those words especially in the month of Ramadan. Happy holidays. Your son." The writer is a scholar of international law and international relations who taught at Princeton University in the US for 40 years.
