Epilogue: Does the Prisoners Movement Still Exist?

Abstract

Abstract The Epilogue sums up this book’s major findings and extends its analysis of the Prisoners Movement to 2021. Using three case studies and the explanations of still-imprisoned Palestinian political leaders, it explores whether the Prisoners Movement has any power within Israeli prisons. Looking at Marwan Barghouti’s 2017 hunger strike, clashes in 2019 between Hamas and the Israel Prison Service over the installation of cell-phone-blocking devices, and finally at the 2021 escape through the ‘Tunnel of Freedom’ in Gilboa prison, the chapter shows that Palestinian prisoners still control a great deal of the environment of their ‘fortresses’. The Prisoners Movement, and Palestinians in prison generally, respond to and symbolically lead Palestinian resistance. In prison, where Israeli power has the greatest weight, Palestinians are not immune from the issues plaguing group resistance overall, yet might still innovate ways to overcome them.