Soccer Dad

Strike One. Strike Two.

The NY Times reported on Saturday "Palestinians on Fast in Israeli Jails Struggle for Attention":

Several thousand Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails were in their 13th day of a hunger strike on Friday, but their protest has so far not inspired great public support and Israeli officials insist that the effort is beginning to founder.

Might it be because Marwan Barghouti was found to be sneaking food while his fellow prisoners starved?

The Prisons Service distributed pictures yesterday of Marwan Barghouti eating lunch, as part of its psychological warfare campaign against the hunger strike of Palestinian security prisoners that began on Sunday.

Barghouti, Israel's most senior Palestinian prisoner, is not one of the strike's initiators - mostly from the ranks of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. However, the Fatah leader is being held in the Ohalei Kedar Detention Center, whose security prisoners declared weeks ago that they intended to join the hunger strike.

Funny, but the New York Times didn't report that little detail.
It's also interesting that the Times reports demands such as a stop to body searches and more visitation from the prisoners' families. The Times does not note what all of the demands of the prisoners were (at least initially.) Arutz-7 reported that though:

The imprisoned terrorists demand the removal of the glass walls separating them from their visitors, as well as other improvements in their visiting arrangements. They also want telephones in their cells or wings, as well as the right to have cell phones, a computer in each cell, no Value Added Tax on their canteen purchases, air conditioners in their cells, no more body checks, and more.

The Prison Service responded to their refusal to take meals by taking away the televisions from their cells, canceling all visitations and sports activities, and more.

Prison and police officials say that they will not give in on any demands that have to do with security. "The jails have become, over the past few years, top headquarters for the Palestinian terror organizations," they say. Dozens of terror attacks have been planned during this period by imprisoned terrorists, with the aid of cell phones smuggled to them by visiting relatives. Some 850 such phones were found and confiscated over the past year.

Arutz-7's report might also explain why Israel would have a problem with a seemingly reasonable request for more family visitation.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at August 30, 2004 05:26 AM | TrackBack