Sir, – Last week, Israel’s military once again imprisoned the elected Palestinian lawyer, political activist and feminist Khalida Jarrar. Notable for her involvement in Palestine’s application to join the International Criminal Court, Jarrar has been repeatedly imprisoned without trial, and has been denied the right to travel outside the West Bank for nearly two decades.
A favoured rhetorical line of successive Israeli governments is to bemoan the lack of a “partner for peace” on the Palestinian side.
Meanwhile, a familiar refrain among well-meaning hand-wringers worldwide is to observe that Palestinians have (allegedly) never adopted the tactics of passive resistance exemplified by Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and others.
In fact, Khalida Jarrar is one of numerous Palestinian activists who have for years pursued a peaceful struggle for freedom and equality. Their names are largely unknown in the West, because their stories are rarely covered by western media. They are unable to become “partners for peace” in their homeland because successive Israeli governments favour imprisoning them under military legislation rather than engaging with them in genuine negotiations. – Yours, etc,
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BRIAN Ó ÉIGEARTAIGH,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4.