Now, Fatah is FORCING prisoners to join hunger strike! (CORRECTION - WRONG)

Back in the 1940s, Arabs in British Mandate Palestine started a boycott of Jewish businesses.

It failed. The Jews opened up new trade markets in Europe and Arab shopkeepers lost lots of money.

Many Arab shopkeepers ignored the boycott in order to keep their livelihoods.

So Arab leaders, zealous to enforce their boycott, started bombing their own people who didn't participate.

The only people hurt by this action were the Arabs themselves, and their wounded pride at the ineffectiveness of their grand plan to hurt Jews caused them to double-down and hurt their own people even more.

That self-defeating mentality of Palestinian Arabs is still here.

The Fatah is demanding that all Fatah prisoners in Israel join the hunger strike this Saturday - or else they will be punished.

The Office of Mobilization and Organization of the Central Committee of the Fatah movement issued instructions to all its members in Israeli jails to join the open hunger strike immediately or else face consequences, with the exception of sick prisoners and those under 18.

It is not clear what the consequences would be for not joining the hunger strike. The only leverage they have are the salaries that the PLO pays prisoners. It would be richly ironic that prisoners who decide not to join the boycott would be the only ones that the PLO stops rewarding for terror.

Forcing prisoners to act in a certain way doesn't add to the legitimacy of the hunger strike, it makes it into even more of a joke than it already is. It also shows that there is a level of desperation from Palestinian leaders who thought that this stunt would be more effective than their many other stunts. The hunger strike has not generated any real interest from the world media.

We know what will happen. The prisoners will pretend to join, they will sneak candy bars like Marwan Barghouti, the PLO will claim that they now have 5000 hunger strikers while the real number will hover at 10% of that figure, and nothing will change.

CORRECTION: It doesn't happen often but I completely misunderstood the story. Fatah is denying rumors that it will force prisoners to go on hunger strike, I apologize. (h/t Ibn Boutros)

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