Sixty-four years of hunger 

(MENAFN - Arab News) All eyes last week were fixed on the controversial trial of Khader Adnan, a 33-year-old Palestinian bakery shop owner, who was arrested by Israeli forces and detained for almost two months with no declared charges. So what made this unique individual the focus of attention of all major media channels around the world?

The story began on Dec. 17, 2011, when Khader was arrested during a night raid on his home and was dragged in front of his wife and two daughters. He was suspected by Israeli forces to be the spokesperson for a Palestinian organization known as Islamic Jihad.

When Khader was denied the right of information on the reason of his detention, he decided to go on a hunger strike. He was demanding a fair trial for himself or the release from imprisonment. Little did he know that his simple act of civil defiance will trigger an international movement that will put the Palestinian cause back onto the international agenda.

International human rights organizations and social media activists started a trending campaign to make the hash-tag #HungerStrike63Days known to everyone. In a matter of hours it was the number one worldwide trending hash-tag. The case grabbed global attention to the response of Israeli government.

Khader was not only representing the fight for his civil rights. His hunger strike was a symbolic gesture of the Israeli repression. When his hunger strike entered the 64th day it symbolized the 64 years of Israeli occupation of the Arab lands. Emotions were moved again by the hope of finding a possible solution to one of the longest political conflicts in modern history.

As the world was watching, the Israeli court found Khader Adnan not guilty and ordered that he be released on April 17, 2012. Khader announced his agreement to stop the hunger strike and is under treatment so he can go back to his family. But it seems that this extraordinary action started something that is going to have further implications.

Going back to a similar case in recent history, the hunger strike of 1980 done by IRA (Irish Republican Army) prisoners, changed the perspective of how the world saw them as only an extremist and terrorist group. After some of them died in the hunger strike the world started treating the IRA as a legitimate representative of the Irish struggle. This led to forming international pressure on the British government to start political negotiations with the IRA. Could this be the case here also?

Last Friday Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian prime minister in Gaza, showed his support for the Syrian opposition for the first time. This is considered a major shift in Hamas' leadership to move away from its old political ally, Syria. They are clearly entering a new historical phase of their political calculations. It seems that the Palestinian struggle is moving in a new direction. If they follow into this new path of opportunity they may finally get the respect and acceptance they deserve of the international community. That will certainly create tremendous and worldwide pressure on the Israeli government to deal with Hamas and Palestinian resistance as a legitimate political entity.

The sad lasting truth is that the Palestinian cause was always a prisoner of its miscalculated political alliances with the losing side of the Cold War. This long-lived struggle of the striving Palestinian nation was constantly depicted as a result of geopolitical and ethnic conflicts. Maybe now it will have new hope to be resolved when different factions of the conflict see eye to eye on political alliances.

It was very hard for many Arabic and Islamic countries to be seen in the same boat as the Palestinian resistance. But now that the resistance decided to join the Arab Spring movement they opened the doors for new political maneuvers that can bring many positive possibilities.

Sixty-six days of sacrifice of a hungry man could finally lead to the end of over six decades of siege of a deprived nation. Khader Adnan may find his name written in history as the man who solved the most complex case in modern times.