Analysis

The Barghouti backfire

Tempting the jailed terror chief into sneaking food has actually prompted wider Fatah support for the hunger-strike he is leading

By Avi Issacharoff
  • Avi Issacharoff, The Times of Israel's Middle East analyst, fills the same role for Walla, the leading portal in Israel. He is also a guest commentator on many different radio shows and current affairs programs on television. Until 2012, he was a reporter and commentator on Arab affairs for the Haaretz newspaper. He also lectures on modern Palestinian history at Tel Aviv University, and is currently writing a script for an action-drama series for the Israeli satellite Television "YES." Born in Jerusalem, he graduated cum laude from Ben Gurion University with a B.A. in Middle Eastern studies and then earned his M.A. from Tel Aviv University on the same subject, also cum laude. A fluent Arabic speaker, Avi was the Middle East Affairs correspondent for Israeli Public Radio covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Iraq and the Arab countries between the years 2003-2006. Avi directed and edited short documentary films on Israeli television programs dealing with the Middle East. In 2002 he won the "best reporter" award for the "Israel Radio” for his coverage of the second intifada. In 2004, together with Amos Harel, he wrote "The Seventh War - How we won and why we lost the war with the Palestinians." A year later the book won an award from the Institute for Strategic Studies for containing the best research on security affairs in Israel. In 2008, Issacharoff and Harel published their second book, entitled "34 Days - The Story of the Second Lebanon War," which won the same prize.
 13 May 2017, 3:44 pm
Marwan Barghouti seen in video footage released May 7, 2017, unwrapping a candy bar in his cell while ostensibly leading a hunger strike among Palestinian prisoners. (Screen capture: Israeli Prison Service)

There are many clandestine operations of which the Israeli government can be proud, but the smuggling of chocolate wafers last week to the cell of Marwan Barghouti, cause célèbre among Palestinian prisoners, will not be one of them.

Sure, Internal Minister Security Minister Gilad Erdan’s “Operation Tortit” occasioned some memes and jokes on Israeli social media at the expense of the hunger-striking terror chief. But the target of the operation was not Israeli public opinion.

The move, which included broadcasting pictures of Barghouti huddled in his toilet, eating the wafer that had been planted in his cell, barely made a dent in the inmates’ hunger strike; it did not prompt a Palestinian outcry and the collapse of the strike over Barghouti’s ostensible perfidious snacking, as Erdan presumably expected.

The number of prisoners participating in the strike actually went up this week, and on Thursday Fatah’s Central Committee called upon all Fatah inmates to join in. Previously, the leaders of the Central Committee had not supported Barghouti’s strike and, some say, even tried to sabotage it.

The victory cries coming from Erdan’s office were premature. The press conference he convened in order to embarrass and humiliate Barghouti backfired: the snack sting increased support among the Palestinians for Barghouti and the hunger strikers.

Some say that Israel Prison Service officials were not enthusiastic over the instructions coming from the internal security minister’s bureau. But at this point it is futile to argue who birthed this bad idea; the damage has been done.

The hunger strike is far from winding down. There have been more and more demonstrations, strikes of businesses and schools, stone-throwing incidents, and clashes, despite the intensive efforts of the Palestinian Authority’s security services.

Next week the Palestinians mark Nakba Day, a commemoration of their national “catastrophe,” the founding of Israel. Shortly after, US President Donald Trump visits the region. Instead of trying to end the strike peacefully and quickly, the Israeli government decided to play hardball and the crisis, instead of fading away, has been compounded.

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