'These Chains Will Be Broken': An Account of Palestinian Resistance

The book “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons" by Palestinian author and journalist Ramzy Baroud in collaboration with The Palestine Chronicle editorial team, was launched on Jan. 20, the publishing company Clarity Press Inc. announced.

“These are the stories of Palestine’s true organic intellectuals,” Baroud said, “women and men, mothers and fathers, children and teens, teachers, fighters and human rights advocates, united by a single motive that transcends region, religion, and ideology: resistance. Regardless of the cost, they are taking a brave, moral and internationally defensible stand against injustice in all of its forms.”

The book was born from a will of its authors to try to convey the Palestinian hardship and suffering inside Israel’s prisons and jails through the prisoners’ own words.

The foreword to the book was written by a member of the Palestine Legislative Council Khalida Jarrar, who has been detained and in prison since October 2019.

Jarrar said that the collection will let readers “delve into the lives of men and women, read intimate stories that they have chosen to share with you, stories that may surprise you, anger you and even shock you. But they are crucial stories that must be told, read and retold.”

Praising the work as “remarkable,” award-winning Australian journalist John Pilger affirmed that “with each story, there is a roll-call of the best of humanity: courage, struggle, determination, generosity, passion, humility and, above all, defiance of injustice.”

“Everyone, especially those of us in the West subjected to unerring propaganda, should read this searing and beautiful book. Then understand all over again that peace and justice are not possible in the world until the Palestinians are free,” Pilger added.

Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories Richard Falk, who wrote the book’s afterword, addressed the international legal integrity of the prisoner’s struggle and resistance to the occupation of their homeland.

“The rationale for Palestinian resistance is heightened by having law and morality on the side of demands for an end to the oppressive Israeli occupation and the persistent abuse of fundamental Palestinian rights,” he said.

Mohammed al-Deirawi, a former Palestinian prisoner whose story is included in the publication said that “this book exposes the ugliness of the Israeli occupation and its sadistic practices against Palestinian prisoners – the daily humiliation, the medical neglect, the administrative detention, the imprisonment of minors, the solitary confinement, the killing of prisoners”.

“What we have witnessed in prison cannot be truly be comprehended by anyone who hasn’t lived these harrowing experiences. This is why “These Chains Will Be Broken” is crucial work. It carries our voices and our stories to the world, confronting it, especially civil society, with its legal and moral responsibility towards Palestine, Palestinian prisoners, and the Palestinian people,” Al-Deirawi added.

“We urge you to read this book. Our voice, that of pain and resistance, deserves to be heard,” he concluded.