Israel – Force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike is permissible according to Jewish law, Tzohar rabbis announced ahead of the final vote on a bill to that effect, expected to take place Monday.
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The measure, proposed by the Public Security Ministry, is meant to quell the ongoing Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike. It would allow prison services to request permission from the courts to bring those who refuse to eat to a hospital to be force-fed by a doctor via IV or gastrostomy tube. If the prisoners do not cooperate, they may, in some cases, be anesthetized.
Knesset Interior Committee chairwoman Miri Regev (Likud Beytenu) pushed the bill through an accelerated legislative process, calling five meetings in the two weeks between when the bill passed its first reading and when it is scheduled to have its second and third (final) reading on Monday.
MKs on the left and Yesh Atid spoke out against the legislation, saying it is torture and violates prisoners’ freedom to protest.
In addition, the Israel Medical Association said it will instruct its doctors not to obey the law, should it pass.
On Sunday, the legislative division of religious Zionist rabbinical organization Tzohar released a position paper stating there is no halachic problem with force-feeding prisoners.
“Tzohar rabbis support the bill and think that a judge can instruct [prison services] to force-feed a prisoner if there is a true danger to the life of the person on hunger strike or to national security,” Rabbi Uriel Ganzel, the head of Tzohar’s legislative division, explained.
From a halachic standpoint, a person can put him or herself in danger to improve his or her situation.
“Hunger strikes are usually used as a last resort by prisoners to improve their conditions. Therefore, even if they are endangering themselves, it is a legitimate act,” Ganzel explained.
However, a person cannot harm him or herself even for important values. As such, if the hunger strike reached a point where it is endangering a prisoner’s life, according to Jewish law, a judge must order that he or she be force-fed.
In addition, force-feeding is necessary if the hunger strike is a significant danger to national security or law enforcement, Ganzel wrote.
“Even in the days of our sages, criminals were punished by limiting their rights. Therefore, it is legitimate for a judge to block a prisoner’s basic right to go on hunger strike, specifically if it is part of a rebellion, even if there is no physical violence involved,” he added.
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
A hunger strike for your lost value in society is like eating your way to revolution by baking your own hands for their lost concentrated value. Good to see that the Rabbis are indeed in my feelings right on for Torah voice and reality on this matter. I disagree that you should not feed a patient who is starving himself. Self harm is not permissible in my opinion as a friendly way to keep a patient in good help.
Use a yidische kop! If Israel would announce that the murderers in prison were given the death penalty which they agreed to willingly fulfill by starving themselves, they will almost certainly start eating again.
Would this equates to the American prisons saying that Jewish prisoners should eat pork because it’s permissible under Christian law?
But is it required?
Does this apply to non-Jews? During World War II, Irish Prime Minister Eamon De Valera was faced with the problem of hunger strikes by members of the Irish Republican Army whom he had imprisoned because of their support for the Nazis. De Valera, who was secretly helping the Allies, let them die. The world was better off without them.