Melting Palestinian consciousness and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Re-reading Walid Daqqa’s prison text

Abstract

Introduction: “Melting consciousness” is a thorough exploration of Palestinian prisoners’ status, authored by Walid Daqqa As’aad Daqqa from within Israel’s Gilboa Prison. The book, stemming from Daqqa’s 25-year prison, goes deep into the psychological and spiritual targeting of prisoners, beyond the physical. It emphasises that the Israeli policies aim to reshape the Palestinian prisoners’ minds to align with an Israeli perspective, especially focusing on the resistant elite within prisons. This microcosmic study of prisoners’ lives offers a simplified yet clear understanding of the broader Palestinian societal context.

Method: In the first part of the text, Daqqa’s book is widely summarise. In the second part, his predictions are analysed considering current events in the West Bank and Gaza.

Results: The authors argue that the model described by Walid Daqqa is now being escalated to the whole Gaza, as already predicted by him. We argue that Walid Daqqa’s prison writings are strikingly prescient, theorising the deliberate moulding of Palestinian consciousness in prisoners in ways that anticipate core features of the current genocidal campaign in Gaza.