Political and Social Activism
According to Yezid Sayigh, an "inadvertent consequence" of Israel's internal security measures was to contribute to the social mobilization of Palestinian society. Due to the large number of students and youth in prison from the mid-1970s to early 1980s, the prison population "tended to be young, educated, and familiar with the tactics of civil disobediance and unarmed protest." In prison, they were exposed to political indoctrination and instruction in security and organization from veteran guerillas. Prisoners organized themselves according to political affiliation and initiated educational programs, making the prisons "unsurpassed 'cadre schools'". Upon their release, they became leaders of students movements in Palestinian universities and colleges. An Israeli investigation among Palestinian prisoners in the early stages of the First Intifada found that their political mobilization was not so much ideologically based, as it was a function of repeated humiliations at the hands of Israeli forces.
Read more about this topic: Palestinian Prisoners In Israel
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or social:
“A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“In bourgeois society, the French and the industrial revolution transformed the authorization of political space. The political revolution put an end to the formalized hierarchy of the ancien regimé.... Concurrently, the industrial revolution subverted the social hierarchy upon which the old political space was based. It transformed the experience of society from one of vertical hierarchy to one of horizontal class stratification.”
—Donald M. Lowe, U.S. historian, educator. History of Bourgeois Perception, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1982)