of Palestinian activists and elected officials have occurred several times in the past. For example, in the lead-up to the January 2006 PLC (Palestinian Legislative Council) elections, 450 members of the Change and Reform (Hamas) bloc were detained by occupation forces. Dozens of cabinet officials and members of parliament were also rounded up following the capture of Israeli soldier Gilat Shalit by Hamas operatives in June 2006. According to the Palestinian prisoner solidarity network, Samidoun, there are currently twelve legislators, representing Hamas, Fatah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, sitting inside Israeli jails.But, if Israeli prisons function as tools to regulate the native population, they simultaneously serve as sites for Palestinian political and social mobilization.To mark Palestinian Prisoners Day, on Monday, April 17, some 1,600 Palestinian prisoners across the political spectrum launched an open hunger strike, calling for an end to their inhumane treatment and the establishment of a mass movement against the Israeli occupation. Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip responded to the call, by rallying in support of the initiative and clashing with Israeli forces.The hunger strike is being led by jailed Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti, who has been commonly referred to, in the international press, as the Palestinian Mandela; in an attempt to foil the hunger strike, Barghouti has been forced into solitary confinement, along with six other hunger strikers.Israeli prisons served as training and recruiting grounds for the resistance after June 1967 and well into the 1980s. In confinement, Palestinian detainees received instruction and developed a revolutionary culture through educational programs, seminars, smuggled literary/historical writings, and ideological curricula organized and disseminated by other prisoners (usually veteran guerrillas). This instruction prepared these detainees for leading roles in political organizations upon their release.Because the Israeli military and security apparatus penetrates virtually all aspects of Palestinian life, just about every Palestinian family has had a relative incarcerated by the Israeli regime. As a result, prisoner initiatives have tended to spread and resonate within Palestinian society.Marwan Barghouthi has shaken headlines by leading this last hunger strike among Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and by publishing an op-ed in the NYT. The Israeli establishment is frothing at the mouth against what they call his lies, denying his allegations that he was tortured in earlier prison stints, denying that Israel even has political prisoners implying that all 6,500 Palestinians in Israel jails, including 500 administrative detainees, are security prisoners and bashing the New York Times.Marwan Barghouti has been a charismatic Palestinian leader for decades and a committed and consistent two-state supporter, before and after the second Intifada. He is a mortal political threat to Mahmoud Abbas and Mohammed Dahlan. Surveys have long shown that he is the most likely to win a presidential election among Palestinians of the region; they also consistently show that nearly two-thirds of Palestinians wish for Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) to resign.Moreover, Marwan has previously taken on the punishing task of criticizing human rights abuses by the PA against Palestinians a sign that he might commit himself to a more democratic form of