For all I care, they can starve to death! announced Tzahi Hanegbi, after Palestinianprisoners declared an open-ended hunger strike against prison conditions. Thus theMinister for Internal Security added another memorable phrase to the lexicon of theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanegbi became famous (or infamous) for the first time when, as a student activist, he wascaught on camera with his friends hunting Arab students with bicycle chains. At the time Ipublished a photo of him that would not have shamed German or Polish students in the 1930s. Witha small difference: in the 30s the Jews were the pursued, now they were the pursuers.
In the meantime, Hanegbi has changed like many young radicals he has turned into anunrestrained careerist. He has become a minister, wearing elegant suits even on hot summerdays and walking with the typical, self-important gait of a cabinet minister. Now he evensupports Ariel Sharon s disengagement plan, much to the distress of his mother, Geula Cohen,an extreme-right militant who has not changed her spots.
But beneath the minister s suit and the statesman s robe, Tzahi has remained Tzahi, asevidenced by the total inhumanity of his statement about the prisoners for whose wellbeing heis officially responsible. His influence is not limited to words: the current prison crisiswas caused by his appointment of a new Director of Prisons, who immediately proceeded tocreate intolerable conditions for the Palestinian prisoners.
Let s not dwell too much on the personality of the honorable minister. It is much more importantto turn our thoughts to the strike itself.
Its basic cause is a particularly Israeli invention: the one-sided war.
The IDF generals declare again and again that we are at war. The state of war permits them tocommit acts like targeted eliminations , which, in any other situation, would be calledmurder. But in a war, one kills the enemy without court proceedings. And in general, thekilling and wounding of people, demolition of homes, uprooting of plantations and all theother acts of the occupiers that have become daily occurrences are being justified by thestate of war.
But this is a very special war, because it confers rights only on the fighters of one side. On theother side, there is no war, no fighters, and no rights of fighters, but only criminals,terrorists, murderers.
Why?
Once there was a clear distinction: one was a soldier if one wore a uniform; if one did not wear auniform, one was a criminal. Soldiers of an invading army were allowed to execute localinhabitants who fired at them on the spot. But in the middle of the 20 th century, thingschanged. A worldwide consensus accepted that the members of the French resistance and theRussian and Yugoslav partisans and their like were fighters and therefore entitled to theinternational protection accorded to legitimate fighters. International conventions andthe rules of war were amended accordingly.
So what is the difference between soldiers and terrorists? Well, the occupiers say, there is atremendous difference: Soldiers fight soldiers, terrorists hurt innocent civilians.
Really? The pilot who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and killed tens of thousands ofinnocent civilians was he a soldier or just a criminal, a terrorist? And what were the pilotswho destroyed whole cities, like Hamburg and Dresden, when there was no valid militarynecessity anymore? The declared aim was to break the will of the German civilian populationand compel them to capitulate. Were the commanders of the British and American air forcesterrorists (as the Nazis indeed called them, inventing the term Terrorflieger )?
What is the difference between an American pilot who drops a bomb on a Baghdad market and theIraqi terrorist, who lays a bomb in the same market? The fact that the pilot has a uniform? Orthat he drops his bomb from a distance and does not see the children he is killing?
I am not saying this, of course, to justify the killing of civilians. Indeed, I stronglycondemn it, whoever the perpetrators may be soldiers, guerillas, pilots above or terroristsbelow. One law for all.
Soldiers who are captured become prisoners-of-war, entitled to many rights guaranteed byinternational conventions. A particular international organization the Red Crossoversees this. P0Ws are not held for punishment or revenge, but solely in order to prevent themfrom returning to the battlefield. They are released when peace comes.
Underground fighters captured by their enemies are often tried as criminals. Not only arethey not entitled to the rights of POWs, but in Israel their prison conditions are even worsethan the inhuman conditions inflicted on Israeli criminals. The American have learned fromus, and President George W. Bush has been sending Afghan fighters to an infamous prison set upfor them in Guantanamo, where they are deprived of all human rights, both the rights of POWs andthe rights of ordinary criminal prisoners.
Years ago, when the Hebrew underground organizations were fighting the British regime inPalestine, we demanded that our prisoners be accorded the rights of POWs. The British did notaccept this, but in practice prisoners were generally treated as if they were POWs. Thecaptured underground fighters could enrol for correspondence courses, and in fact, many ofthem completed their studies in law and other professions in British prison camps.
One of the prisoners at that time was Geula Cohen, Tzahi Hanegbi s mother. It would beinteresting to know how she and her Stern Group comrades would have reacted if a British policecommander had declared that he didn t give a damn if she died in prison. Probably they would havetried to assassinate him. Fortunately, the British behaved otherwise. They even brought herto a hospital for treatment (where she promptly escaped with the help of Arab villagers.)
Towards the Irish underground fighters, the British took a different line. When theydeclared a hunger strike, Margaret Thatcher let them starve to death. This episode, on top ofher attitude towards workers and the needy, contributed to her image as an inhuman person.
A humane treatment of political prisoners is preferable even for purely pragmatic reasons.Ex-prisoners are now filling the upper ranks of the Palestinian Authority. Men who have spent10, 15 and even 20 years in Israeli jails have become political leaders, ministers and mayors.They speak fluent Hebrew and know Israel well. Almost all of them now belong to the moderatePalestinian camp, advocating co-existence between Israel and a Palestinian state. Theyalso head the forces seeking democracy and reforms in the Palestinian Authority. The fairtreatment they got at the time by the prison personnel must have contributed to this.
But for me, the main thing is that the State of Israel should not look like Tzahi Hanegbi and hisilk. It is important for me that human beings Palestinians as much as Israelis should notstarve to death in Israeli prisons. It is important for me that prisoners whether Israelis orPalestinians should be accorded humane conditions.
If Tzahi Hanegbi were in prison, I would be demanding the same even for him.