Israel has said its word to the Palestinian prisoners and given its answer to all prisoners that came - as usual- in terms of killing prisoner martyr ‘Arafat Jaradat who died in the Israeli prison of Meggido on the 24th of February after being tortured to death by his investigators . This is what Israel has to say to the Palestinian prisoners and to all those promoting their cause or speaking on their behalf . There is a message here that says to the prisoners , and to their families and supporters : either you die from hunger on a hospital bed , or you get killed under torture , and - in both cases- you have no helper in the world. Jaradat was detained a week before his death and accused of throwing stones on an Israeli . He was in perfect health when he was imprisoned and it is still a mystery why he was killed by his investigators . He was not carrying a bomb or planning a terrorist attack and it seems his investigators were trying to make him admit of some crime that he refused to admit . His funerals caused a single rocket to be fired from Gaza unto Israel breaking the truce between Israel and HAMAS and bringing the Palestinian prisoners’ issue again to the front lines . If this incident shows anything it shows the great danger Palestinian prisoners find their selves in between dubious NGOs that are not fit to carry the prisoners’ cause and reluctant Palestinian organizations that have forsaken the whole matter.
Previously hundreds of arab and Palestinian prisoners were released by way of exchange deals. The last exchange deal arranged by the Egyptian authorities and HAMAS on one hand, and Israelis -on the other - had released more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons against Soldier Gilad Shalit . But these were the good old days where releasing prisoners was in the perspective of the Palestinian leadership and one of their major concerns . But these days are over now and- with no prospect of kidnapping any Israeli soldier - Palestinian Political prisoners are left to rot in prisons without any hope of being released sometime soon .
The deal struck around Shalit was not the best of deals and a great number of the released Palestinian prisoners had little incarceration time left and were to be released soon. Some prisoners -now on hunger strike- were not included in the deal or were included but were withdrawn before the actual exchange took place . The prisoners thus are left with no one to cater to their cause and seek their release from the unjust incarceration they are being subject to . Of course there are activists active on the ground and foreign and local NGOs and lots of cyber activities and internet campaigns , still with all this fuss the only choice left to the Palestinian prisoner is to starve himself to death. The local NGOs affiliated to other foreign NGOs and in coordination sometimes with Israeli NGOs are now conducting the whole activities around Palestinian prisoners after HAMAS has withdrawn and joined the sectarian camp and started the process of reconciliation with the Palestinian Authority and normalization with the enemy .
These activities and functions are to no avail and will not solve the prisoners’ problem and the demonstrations they organize and conduct are not the least convincing . The multiple Palestinian factions were complaining about the fact that they did not share in organizing any of the functions around the funeral of martyr Jaradat that included direct confrontations with the Israelis . These confrontations were not- in any way- likely to turn into a third Intifada according to observers , they lacked the essential since they carry foreign agendas that do not favor uprisings but work rather on normalization with the enemy . On the other hand – as an additional precaution- Israelis has also released funds that belonged the Palestinian Authority in order to have order maintained in the West Bank . Caught between the crippled collaborating Palestinian factions and the inefficient world NGOs the prisoners and their families are at a loss of what to do . Israelis have infiltrated almost everything related to the Palestinian Cause starting from Palestinian organizations to local and world NGOs. What is left for the cause itself is very little and the Palestinian prisoner should provide for himself and expect nothing from dubious NGOs serving foreign agendas for the benefit of Israel and using Palestinians for this purpose and even exposing them to the worst. The mysterious death of martyr Jaradat can maybe find an explanation here.