El futuro en la feminización quirúrgica de la voz

The geographical distribution of the facilities holding Palestinian prisoners represents another facet of Zionist practice in breach of the GCIV - in this case the explicit requirement that detainees serve their sentence in their own country (Adameer, 08/08/12). Zionist carceral structures are spread across the entirety of the former Mandate Palestine area, and while only Ofer prison is within the OPT, it is run by the IPS. Palestinian prisoners are held in a total of seventeen prisons (including Ofer), four interrogation centres and four military detention centres within the 1948 borders of Israel. The geographical distribution of prisons exemplifies a blend of colonial-era military domination and civilian policing, intended to project an image of legitimate law and order. The prisons consist of British Mandate-era constructions, augmented by those built by the state of Israel.124

When the numbers of Palestinians incarcerated reached peaks during the first and second intifadas, some previously closed facilities were re-opened to accommodate the extra thousands arrested (Hunter, Groten, Abu- Qtaish, 2003:14).

In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict these prisons are more than just buildings. Given their locations they add a “structural isolation” to the internal prison punishment of solitary confinement and isolation. The illegal transfer of Palestinians from their own territory purposely disconnects prisoners from families and the

122 _{This practice of paying security prisoners is mandated in 2003 legislation which stipulate the amounts paid to prisoners serving}

various offences. A 2011 decision to increase the money sparked an outcry from Israeli and international right wing media (e.g. The Times of israel, Commentary, The Jerusalem Post) who billed it as paying Palestinians for suicide bombings while the PA cries poor. Daka, who has spent 25 years in prison, argues the IPS makes it necessary for the prisoners to buy additional food and products, with the insult being the produce is supplied by Israeli companies. Daka is however concerned at the impact the basic issue of ‘employing’ prisoners has on those prisoners. It reinforces the prisoner as being at the centre of the liberation struggle, but, it can also change the focus of the prisoner from struggling with the occupation government to succumbing to an Israeli tactic to immerse prisoners in struggles with their national authority (2011:246-7). Addameer quotes the Palestinian Ministry of Prisoner Affairs in 2010 as having paid NIS 500,000 in fines, and “transferring NIS 13 million to Palestinian prisoners to assist them in purchasing food and other basic necessities from the prison canteens”. These figures represent a significant increase on the 2009 figures of NIS 369,195 and NIS 28 million respectively (2010:5).

123 _{Sabbah is quoting Abbas who was responding the September 2012 Israeli threats to abandon the OPT and void the Oslo Accords}

and the Paris Protocol should the PLO forge ahead with its UN bid for observer-state status in November, 2012.

124 _{See Parsons (2010; 2011) and Bornstein (2001) for analysis of the difficulties the PA has in operating detention and prison}

facilities within Area A. Violence by prison officers is often due to poor training in how to transform from revolutionary/liberation movement to institutional operation; arrests are often the result of political vendettas between Fatah and Hamas (complicated further by Hams control of Gaza); there are high numbers of deaths and torture in custody; and, competing penal codes - for example in Gaza the death penalty applies to 15 offences, in the West Bank to 17, and under the operation of the PLO penal code which is in force because there is no Palestinian state, 42 offences are subject to the death penalty. Added to this is the IDF overall control over security, interference in methods of Palestinian policing and targeting of Palestinian security personnel.

outside world, and from each other - particularly political leaders who are frequently transferred between prisons.125 _{Isolation as punishment was exacerbated for Gazan families who were denied visits to prisoners in}

retaliation for the capture of Shalit (Francis and Gibson, 2011: 217).126 _{Israeli prisons therefore represent}

institutions in which fields of multiple political, legal and social forces interact in what is Foucault’s wider carceral continuum. The knowledge the IPS gleans from its Palestinian inmates is exported back from the OPT via prison tactics of surveillance, control and punishment, and the recruitment and deployment of collaborators.

125 _{See Francis and Gibson for details of prominent political detainees, including Ahmad Sa’adat, former General Secretary of the}

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who is in 2012, four years into a 30 year sentence for “offences arising from his leadership of the PFLP, and has been held in “continuous isolation or solitary confinement” since arrest in 2006 (2011:219).

126 _{This policy has been slightly eased following the release of Shalit in 2011, but at the time of writing only a few Gazan families have}

This map locates prisons, detention centres and interrogation centres in which all Palestinian prisoners are detained. The areas shaded grey are the OPT and Gaza127

4.11 Conclusion

Israel’s rule over the OPT is strikingly isomorphic of the colonial British Mandate era for the very reason that Israel has adopted and adapted practices, doctrines, laws, regulations and policing methods it inherited. Scrutiny of Israel’s legal and carceral framework, including breaches of IHLs, regulations, and UN resolutions with respect to Palestinians, unmasks the distinctive colonial ideology which pays little heed to the rights of the indigenous peoples. Yet, while every facet of Palestinian life is hyper-regulated by a colonial-Zionist security doctrine spawning thousands of racially specific laws and military orders, Israel denies it is even an occupying force. Each section of this chapter has presented legal and carceral practices resulting from the combination of colonial ideology and Zionism. Serendipitously for early 20th Century Zionists settling in Palestine, the doctrines of colonialism were acceptable to world powers at the time. Israel is not unaware of the international and domestic political issues associated with its occupation. If it was, it would not go to such lengths to justify mass arrests, detention, and albeit officially restricted torture under a questionable security doctrine. Nor would it need to so tenaciously fashion Palestinians as suspect citizens, so dangerous as to merit the destiny of homo sacer. Israel has taken full advantage of the Oslo Accords in as much as they have facilitated its outsourcing of the occupation. This minimizes the political downside of being the enforcer by turning the Oslo-created PA into an arrest and incarceration proxy. Foucault warns of the folly in considering prisons as corrective or reforming, but Israel’s conduct gives no hint of concern with carceral - or any other legal reform - in the first place. The reforms that would give Palestinians the rights international law and the United Nations have repeatedly stipulated they are entitled to, would require major alterations to the relationship between Israel and Palestine. Not the least would be a halt of illegal settlement construction on Palestinian land, and ultimately the end of the occupation with its mass incarceration strategy of control and more generally, the carceral tactics which rule Palestinians in the OPT.

Chapter5