SDD:
Ok, lets take this one step at a time…
What is with your fixation on Israel? Where in the opening post does it say Israel?
Admittedly, nowhere. But, I assumed, as you yourself have already said, that this post was inspired by recent events in Israel. I therefore based my answer on that particular case. So, as I have already said, I refer in all my questions to a case where the prisoner is doing it for political/ideological reasons, not simply because they’re suicidal, and that the prisoner in question is a non-Jew, eliminating the above halachic discussion from my consideration. I simply use Israel as an example, as it is a pertinent one. But you could just as easily put any other government in their place.
In all three of your posts, this the first time you wrote this.
True. In that it is the first time I have gone into this mucch detail about why hunger strike have such an effect. But the actual central point hasn’t altered. And anyway, this kind of detail is not necessary to answer the question. Recognizing that hunger strikes cause this kind of reaction is a fact. And recognizing that fact was the basis of the answer to your question, which, if I may remind you, was:
If a prisoner wants to commit suicide by starving him/herself, why stop them?
My answer to that question, succintly put, is: Because people dying of hunger strikes leads to negative press attention and increased security risk for the country involved. Giving in means allowing themselves to be blackmailed. So force feeding is mmaking the best of several unwanted decisions.
That’s it. I bought proof that this is the case, by bringing the example of Bobby Sands, for whom all the dangers I just enumerated, here and above, occured. I, obviously naively, thought that explaining why was unecessary, both because I thought it was self-evident after a bit of thought, and because it was not necessary to ask the given question. Simply acknowledging that that is the case is sufficient in this context.
And it still begs wonder why intelligent people give in to perceptions of crazies instead of clearly and coherently stating their position, and pointing out that someone refusing to eat isn’t their fault.
Well, there are several problems with your reasoning. Firstly, who said ‘intelligent’? Secondly, we are not talking of previously uninterested people, but people already with a strong connection to the cause, be it Irish republicanism or Palestinian nantionalism. A case like this, where people die, leads to an increase in the strength of feeling surrounding the case, and through protests and media increases the public’s level of emotion, and therefore response, both violent and otherwise. So, an ordinary Arab/Palestinian, who already wrongly believes, through biased media reports and propoganda, that Palestinian prisoners are wrongly imprisoned, might get further inflamed by that prisoner killing themselves in protest.
Also, death is emotional, and can cloud rational judgement. In ch’vsh a similar case involving a yid, you too might not approach it fully rationally. And furthermore, a high publicity event like a hunger strike engenders news reports, press releases and public attention. This gives those with an agenda a platform from with to espouse their views. This ensures their message, and therefore their influence and ability to cause problems, is spread yet further. Perhaps only crazies would believe in the justice off this cause, as you, probably errantly, suggest. Then a successful hunger strike allows the message to reach more of those who would be easily influenced, or easily inflamed. I have already said this, and this is one of the reasons I suggested you read my earlier posts, if not for the first time, then properly. Because this point about publicity providing a wider platform to spread their general views was neither picked up on, nor rebutted, in any of your previous posts.
…in reality they’re not dying for the cause but rather trying to scare their wardens into freeing them from jail.
Actually, in most cases not. In Bobby Sands case, as I have also already explicitely said (hence my request for you to read my post), the aim was not to get released, but to be treated as political prisoners, a request the British Government could and should not have given into, and didn’t, because that would have granted a terrorist organization, the IRA, legitimacy.
So, in summation, I could have answeredall your questions with a ‘see above’, not for the first time, and this is precisely why I suggested you read, or at least reread, the point you are denigrating before deigning to write a response. Thank you.