Democratic Palestine : 9 (ص 17)
غرض
- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 9 (ص 17)
- المحتوى
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At first people thought most of arranging their everyday life
and relations with others; how to react to the prison service pol-
icy and improve their living conditions. Gradually, with
increased political knowledge and experience, the prisoners
began to feel the need for solid organization among them-
selves. All the resistance organizations engaged in this pro-
cess, but the PFLP was most advanced in this field due to our
larger proportion of prisoners with extensive political and
organizational background. In 1968, our comrades had a clan-
destine newsletter in the prison, though we suffered from lack
of paper and pencils, the problems of smuggling it from cell to
cell, section to section, etc.
From our first days at Nafha (1980), we prepared for a
hunger strike, because we felt that if the prison continued in
this way, it would become a model for other prisons. Treatment
and living conditions were back to the severe level of 1967. All
our acquired rights, the concessions extracted by struggle,
were denied. if the Israelis had succeeded at Nafha, they could
build several prisons on this model, transferring successive
groups of prisoners to be ‘softened’, then returned to the larger
prisons. So, 75 days after Nafha opened, we initiated a hunger
Strike with daring demands for total change in the living condi-
tions, including changing the physical structure, enlarging the
small windows and courtyard, having a dining room, beds,
id
Prisoners liberated at Quneitra, Syria ~Operation Galilee»
The concept developed of electing committees for certain
duties, and to represent the prisoners before the prison
authorities. In the years 1971-73, Kfar Youna prison (near Tul-
karm) was a vanguard experience in this respect. There were
meetings, elected leadership, organizational discipline, criti-
cism and self-criticism, political study and organized contact to
the outside, plus well-organized actions against the prison
authorities. This encompassed prisoners from all the resis-
tance organizations. In 1973, during a disobedience strike, all
the Kfar Youna prisoners were transferred to the prison at Bir
Sheeba, along with some prisoners from Askelon. Thus Bir
Sheeba became a melting pot for experience from different
prisons.
In these years the political prisoners came to really feel
and act as such: having representatives to speak collectively,
not individually, courageous struggles, and struggles with a
clear political content, such as refusing to work. All this coun-
tered the Israeli practice of treating us as individuals and com-
mon prisoners, for the status of a political prisoner is different
in terms of rights and duties.
The Israelis made new efforts to break the political prison-
ers via worsening living conditions and implanting agents in the
prisons, to provoke quarrels and break solidarity. As a result,
the prisoners acquired a greater sense of security matters; we
developed our own ‘security network’ and were able to isolate
suspects and sometimes even liquidate persons involved in
serious collaboration.
The concept of Nafha
In the context of the prison authorities’ failure to break the
political prisoners, the concept of Nafha was born. The prison
service wanted a jail with the hardest possible conditions and
maltreatment for the most active militants.
decent sanitary facilities, the same food and treatment as
Israeli prisoners. We demanded bimonthly not monthly family
visits, radios, newspapers and magazines; many of the things
we demanded were lacking in other prisons as well.
Would you evaluate the hunger strike as a
weapon?
An open-ended hunger strike, win or die, is the prisoners’
best weapon, but it must be used carefully to keep it sharp. If an
open-ended hunger strike is unsuccessful, it will take a long
time to rally fellow prisoners to such a struggle again. The
hunger strike is a strategic weapon and should be used in a
situation where it can be maximally effective. The hunger strike
waged this year in Askelon and other prisons was partial, tak-
ing only bread and tea. This had the purpose of prolonging and
spreading the strike as much as possible.
Would you describe the relation between the
Struggle in the prison and the overall struggle of
the Palestinian people? .
Political prisoners are part of the resistance movement,
having their own battle inside the jails according to the con-
crete conditions. In fact, the Israeli prisons where Palestinians
are held have become higher institutes of political and organi-
zational learning; they are a place for measuring the potential
energies of the person. Now, a large number of the most active
militants in the resistance, especially in the occupied ter-
ritories, are prison graduates.’Inside, resistance is the only way
to keep hold of oneself; otherwise you will break, even physi-
cally. One can see how morale, political motivation and integ-
rity affect the health of the prisoner. ;
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17 - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 9
- تاريخ
- يونيو ١٩٨٥
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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