Israeli Prisons Depriving Palestinians Of Candy To Sneak During Ramadan Fast

Chocolate-covered wafers are a staple of Ramadan daytime eating.

Ofer Prison, May 4 – Human rights organizations issued yet another denunciation of Israel’s security and defense policies today following revelations that the Jewish State has not given Palestinians incarcerated in its facilities chocolate and other snack foods from which to take surreptitious bites as they pretend to uphold the Islamic monthlong daytime observance of fasting that began a week and a half ago.

Representatives of several Europe- and Israel-based rights groups such as Amnesty International and Btselem condemned Israel Monday morning upon the release of reports that even veteran prisoner and popular Fatah figure Marwan Barghouti – serving multiple life sentences for murder and related terrorism convictions – has not received from the prison administration even a single chocolate-covered wafer to shovel into his maw while hiding in his cell’s toilet stall during daylight.

“This represents another Israeli violation of Palestinian rights, this time in the religious sphere,” declared Amnesty spokeswoman Hipp O’Krissy. “It falls to the jailer to uphold prisoners’ rights to all religious observances, including traditional Ramadan cheating. It is not enough to simply provide generous Iftar meals at nightfall; the sneaking of snacks throughout the day has a rich and venerable history in Palestinian culture, and Israel bears responsibility to facilitate it.”

Btselem spokeswoman Ivana Tortit seconded Amnesty’s position. “Chocolate-covered wafers are a staple of Ramadan daytime eating,” she explained. “Whether stuffed into one’s mouth behind the closed bathroom door, or in a closet somewhere, this cherished Palestinian Ramadan custom is attested even in Jewish sources. There is no way Israel’s Prison Services didn’t know in advance of this practice, but they made no discernible effort to accommodate it. So much for the freedoms the country’s defenders claim it allows.”

A Prison Services representative denied any such policy exists. “Inmates may engage in the same smuggling, consumption, and contraband commerce that they do the other eleven months of the Islamic year,” insisted Megiddo Prison Warden Hirno Ivvel. “We allow our Muslim inmates to behave exactly as they were accustomed outside our walls, where surreptitious violation of the Ramadan fast remains an individual endeavor, not an organized or communal affair. It would constitute an improper imposition on our part to decide what foods each observant inmate wishes to sneak and provide them, and a practical impossibility to provide the entire potential range of such foods.”

Other NGOs conceded the hubbub revolves more around public relations and publicity than any specific religious rights violation, since Palestinian inmates in any case enjoy a flourishing trade in smuggled phones through which to plan and coordinate terrorist attacks, and that trade can easily handle the extra Ramadan volume of a few thousand candy bars.

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