Is Half A Right Better Than No Rights?

Today I spoke with Bahar Elmadhoun, Assistant Deputy Minister of Detainee Affairs in Gaza, and member of the Central Committee of the Leadership of the Strike, about how matters are progressing following the deal brokered by Egyptian officials to end the hunger strike of some 2000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Elmadhoun informed me that all of the Palestinian prisoners held in solitary confinement have been returned to the general prison population, and that family visits will commence within a month, following co-ordination between the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Israeli Prison Service.

He also expects Israel to fully comply with its commitment to revoke the Shalit Law because it is well aware of the strength of the prisoners’ determination, and that failure to do so will have serious consequences.

“If Israel does not implement what it has agreed to, the prisoners will return to the hunger strike, and call on the Egyptian brokers to intervene,” he told me. “Our experience has taught us that sometimes Israel does keep its promises, and sometimes it doesn’t. There is pressure on both Israel and the prisoners to honour the deal,” he added.

I asked if he considered the inability to get a commitment from Israel to end administrative detention to be a failure.

“Firstly, we haven’t heard our prisoners say that. The prisoners themselves know they have achieved a momentous victory, they have succeeded in having all prisoners released from solitary confinement, something that has never been achieved before. Remember, some of these prisoners have been in solitary confinement for over ten years – that is a huge victory.

Secondly, family visits for prisoners from Gaza have not been possible for over five years, and now these will occur. Again, that is a great victory.

Thirdly, revoking the Shalit Law will make daily life so much more bearable for the prisoners, which is perhaps a victory only the prisoners themselves – and ex-prisoners - can fully appreciate.

You have to remember that Palestinians are the innocent victims of Israeli occupation, and that we are up against the huge military machine of the Zionist state. Any progress we achieve, however small it may appear to someone from the west, is a victory. The simplest, smallest thing that you take for granted, is a huge struggle for us, and constitutes an enormous victory when we achieve it.”

I laboured the point about the end of administrative detention, and received this response.

“Although we did not achieve the end of this practice, which is obviously what we wanted, we have at least succeeded in ending some of the worst abuses of it, such as indefinite extension, and failure to charge prisoners or produce evidence against them. Again, while these may seem like failures to you, to us after 64 years of gross abuse and no change, even the slightest improvement is a significant gain. It may be only one step, but it is a very significant step, and it will have an enormous impact on the prisoners detained under it.”

There have been reports in the media today that Israel extended the administrative detention of six detainees in Negev prison whose terms of administrative detention expired yesterday. What is your comment on that, in light of the fact that the ink is barely dry on the deal, I asked?

“We have only heard about this through the media, not from the prisoners themselves, so I cannot comment. But Israel is well aware of the strength of commitment of the prisoners, and that Palestinians are prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect their gains.”

My reading of the agreement suggests that the prisoners have agreed to the revocation of the Israeli concessions, should prisoners participate in the future in ‘security’ related activity or hold another hunger strike, which appears to be a voluntary giving up of minimum rights guaranteed under international law. While it is a telling indictment that the situation of Palestinian prisoners is so dire that they are prepared to accept ‘half a right’ in order to obtain anything like minimally acceptable conditions, surely Israel cannot be permitted to use the agreement as a justification to withdraw these rights, and apply collective punishment for the acts of perhaps one or two individuals?

“This is where we must seek the assistance of the international community to interfere, and to take decisions in international fora to force Israel to comply with international standards of behaviour,” said Elmadhoun.

The point is not so much that Israel must comply with the agreement with the Palestinian prisoners, but that Israel must comply with international law itself, and in its totality.

“Regarding the Palestinian cause in general, Israel has committed, and continues to commit, many crimes against Palestine, and the international community must cease co-operating with this culture of Israeli impunity, and must hold them to account. As time passes, more and more people around the world are seeing the reality, and the truth is becoming known,” he said.

The ball is back in the court of the international community. It must demonstrate unequivocally, and through action not words, that human rights are indeed universal, indivisible, and interdependent – that they apply to Palestinians along with everyone else, that they cannot be partially applied, nor some accorded and not others.

And it must be vigilant to ensure the situation is not perpetuated, where a people enjoy so few that half a right seems better than none at all.

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