I think the main positive point is that the authors have at least helped to bring some visibility for Samer Issawi. Certainly their position is in my opinion wrong, but now that they have made a public stance, that opens a possibility of engaging them in arguments and perhaps helping them to see situation from Samer’s point of view.

The thing is, even if Samer would accept a deal to be deported to Gaza or Europe etc, Israel could very well break the deal. It has happened three times this year, with Samer al-Barq for example. First Israel makes a deal, prisoners stop the hunger strike waiting to be released, their situation vanishes from view and then Israel refuses to release them.

That said, even if Samer would be released to East Jerusalem like he demands, it’s very likely that after a few months Israel would re-arrest him like it has done for other hunger strikers.

In the end, in the political prisoners situation there is only one solution that can be trusted to bring lasting freedom: The end of the occupation overall.

But, in the short term, Samer and other hunger strikers need help to survive and be released. Personally I don’t understand the silence about them in the world media nor the attitude of governments. If they die, there will be protests in the occupied areas and Israel will use force to break them, it’s more than likely that others will die when Israel does so, there will be rocket attacks from Gaza, Israel will bombard Gaza and there will be yet another Gaza conflict and perhaps even a third intifada. A lot of people who will at least pretend to be upset if there will be a new surge of violence as a result of the deaths of political prisoners are at the moment doing nothing to avert the looming scenarioo above.

It should be in the interest of Israel, in the interest of Egypt, of United States and European Union that Samer Issawi and the other hunger strikers survive (same goes for otherwise ill political prisoners), yet all of those seem largely once more under the misguided belief that nothing major will happen if Samer Issawi and the others die. It’s just not the lives of the hunger strikers at risk, as much as they matter themselves as human beings in need of help, but the lives of many other people will be endangered if they die.