Jewish Settler Attacks = Terrorism

yosi

First, I'm simply amazed that you've actually just selectively quoted yourself in an effort to prove that your own response did not revolve around the settlements when anyone can simply scroll up this page and see that the next three paragraphs you wrote are all about the settlements. As for acquiring territory by war, I didn't say that it was legal. I said that since Israel hasn't annexed the West Bank the military occupation as such is not strictly speaking an attempt to acquire new territory. The settlements are another story, which is precisely why I was careful to distinguish them (too bad my care is wasted on you). I also didn't said that Israel had a legally recognized claim to the territory. I said that in the wake of a war where Israel found itself in control of a new territory inhabited by an enemy population likely to descend into a power vacuum in the absence of a sovereign power (since Jordan was no longer in the picture) it was not unreasonable for Israel to maintain a military occupation (again, as distinct from the settlements) pending a negotiated resolution for the territories.

It's great how you take my attempt to make careful analytical distinctions and pretend as if doing so is really my sneaky attempt to paper over the settlements, when I've, in fact, made no effort to defend the settlements. The whole point of the distinction I'm drawing is to separate what is indefensible from what, at least in principle, is not.

And yeah, Zionism is not monolithic. Just like any nationalism is not monolithic. Quick, tell me what the "American nationalists" think? Because they all think the same thing. Because that's how people work, they all come together and agree about everything. The very fact that you think that it's possible to say that all Zionists believe one thing is just more evidence that when you talk about Zionism you're talking about your own warped construct, not about reality.

yosi

Byrnzie said:

yosi said:

So explain to me, if the Jewish nature of the state derives from the fact that the state has a Jewish majority population why is that a racist state? There is no principled contradiction between a Jewish majority state that derives its Jewish character from the legitimate democratic will of the majority and the provision of full equal rights to all citizens regardless of whether they are part of that majority. Were the state not majority Jewish I would agree that there would be a real risk to democratic principles, but as things stand such a problem simply doesn't exist. That's not to say that Israel doesn't have laws on the books that are discriminatory, but those are particular instances, they don't undermine the democratic nature of the state as such, nor do they make the state as such, and the national project that created it, fundamentally racist.

Because as far as Israel goes, we're not talking simply about a Jewish majority population. We're talking about a state run by, and for Jews, that does not provide full equal rights to all citizens regardless of whether they are part of that majority, as has been amply documented. As for your 'particular instances', try telling that to those effected, including those living in the occupied territories.

So first, Palestinians living in the occupied territories aren't citizens of Israel. As poorly as they are treated that treatment doesn't speak to the equality of rights within the Israeli polity. And yes, there isn't perfect equality in Israel. But that doesn't mean that Israel isn't a democracy, or that Zionism and liberal democracy are inherently in conflict. It just means that Israel has its (serious) flaws. Just as the lack of full equality for African Americans made the U.S. flawed without making it somehow not also a democracy or placing it fundamentally at odds with liberal values. Again, I'm not saying that Israel is flawless, but your notion that Zionism is inherently racist simply doesn't hold water. Is Greece fundamentally a racist state because it conceives of itself as a nation-state whose national character is defined by the national majority? As long as such a state provides for the equal rights of minorities there is no philosophical reason why it should be considered inherently racist.

Byrnzie

yosi said:

First, I'm simply amazed that you've actually just selectively quoted yourself in an effort to prove that your own response did not revolve around the settlements when anyone can simply scroll up this page and see that the next three paragraphs you wrote are all about the settlements.

So what? Are you now dictating that no mention of the settlements is permitted in this thread? Is that where your arrogance has taken you?

yosi said:

As for acquiring territory by war, I didn't say that it was legal. I said that since Israel hasn't annexed the West Bank the military occupation as such is not strictly speaking an attempt to acquire new territory. The settlements are another story, which is precisely why I was careful to distinguish them (too bad my care is wasted on you).

A military occupation that protects the settlers. Sure. And you want to try and separate the two? the occupation per se is illegitimate. it's illegal. And by it's nature it constitutes a breach of international humanitarian law.
But you want to try and pretend that the occupation is benign.

yosi said:

I said that in the wake of a war where Israel found itself in control of a new territory inhabited by an enemy population likely to descend into a power vacuum in the absence of a sovereign power (since Jordan was no longer in the picture) it was not unreasonable for Israel to maintain a military occupation (again, as distinct from the settlements) pending a negotiated resolution for the territories.

Bullshit. The PLO were the rightful owners of that territory. The Israeli's had no right to it then, and they have no right to it now.

yosi said:

It's great how you take my attempt to make careful analytical distinctions and pretend as if doing so is really my sneaky attempt to paper over the settlements, when I've, in fact, made no effort to defend the settlements. The whole point of the distinction I'm drawing is to separate what is indefensible from what, at least in principle, is not.

Sure, the occupation is legitimate in your eyes. And because Jordan controlled the West bank for 20 years, Israel is merely 'looking after it' until a trusted Palestinian leader comes along, and then Israeli's can show how generous and benevolent they are by deciding how much of the territory to slice up and apportion to them. In the meantime, Israeli control of the area solidifies, and the settlements continue being built.

yosi said:

And yeah, Zionism is not monolithic. Just like any nationalism is not monolithic. Quick, tell me what the "American nationalists" think? Because they all think the same thing. Because that's how people work, they all come together and agree about everything. The very fact that you think that it's possible to say that all Zionists believe one thing is just more evidence that when you talk about Zionism you're talking about your own warped construct, not about reality.

For a start, Zionism in it's foundation didn't envision, and had no reason later to accommodate, a Partition of Palestine into two separate states. And the Zionist leadership down to the present day have made it perfectly clear that they don't accept anything other than full control of all the land between the river and the sea.
But let's ignore reality - the reality of the ever-expanding settlements, and the reality of statements made by the Israeli leadership - and indulge in self-serving hypotheses instead.

Byrnzie

yosi said:

Is Greece fundamentally a racist state because it conceives of itself as a nation-state whose national character is defined by the national majority? As long as such a state provides for the equal rights of minorities there is no philosophical reason why it should be considered inherently racist.

Once again, deliberately ignoring everything I've posted before on this subject and continuing to cling to the same self-serving falsehoods.

The people of Greece refers to the inhabitants of that country, not those who belong to any racial, or semi-racial, category.
Israel defines itself as a Jewish state - i.e, a state run by and for Jews. That makes it a racist state.

Byrnzie

Meanwhile...

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=688684
Soldiers stand by as Israeli settlers attack Palestinian school girls
09/04/2014

HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli settlers on Wednesday assaulted Palestinian school children in the southern West Bank, a school official said.

A school principal told Ma'an that a group of extremist Israeli settlers hurled stones at school girls in the village of al-Tuwani, leaving them bruised.

Israeli soldiers stood by and watched without taking action as the settlers threw rocks, the principal said.

...Regardless of Israeli military presence, settler attacks on children en route to and from school remain commonplace, the principal said.

In 2013, there were 399 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Over 90 percent of investigations into settler violence by Israeli police fail to lead to an indictment.

More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.

Byrnzie

Funny, that when the settlers throw rocks at Palestinian school girls the IDF stand by and do nothing. But when Palestinian children throw rocks at the IDF during protests the IDF don't hesitate in shooting them dead.

Byrnzie

http://www.imemc.org/article/68291?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+imeu+(IMEU+:+Institute+for+Middle+East+Understanding)
On Monday night...Israeli extremists attacked two Palestinians in Jerusalem. A taxi driver was sprayed with pepper spray, and a second man was beaten by Israeli settlers in West Jerusalem.

A child was seriously wounded Monday night when an Israeli settler ran her down. Sanabel Attous, 9, from Jab’a village southwest of Bethlehem was hit by an Israeli car which witnesses say deliberately ran her down.

She was taken to the Bethlehem Arab Society Hospital suffering serious fractures and bruises in the head, face and abdomen.

...One former Israeli Knesset (Parliament) member posted a video Monday called Palestinian children “little terrorists”, and called for “Death to the enemy, evacuation, and wiping off of [their] smile”, according to a translation by the Electronic Intifada.

Byrnzie

http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/features/human-rights/8221-israeli-civil-military-coordination-of-settler-violence
Israeli civil-military coordination of settler violence
26 June 2014
Israel's current offensive against Palestinians in the West Bank features strong coordination between the army and settlers in attacks against Palestinian-owned property. This coordination practically formalizes the settler attacks known as "price tag" into a joint civil-Israeli operation.

Israeli settlers from Betar Illit chopped down olive trees and grapevines near the village of Nahalin, west of Bethlehem, on Tuesday. The Israeli military denied Palestinian land owners access their land as settlers chopped down the trees, in addition to providing protection for the settlers.

Also on Tuesday the Israeli army razed land in Hassaka, a small Palestinian village to the north of Hebron. The land had been partially covered with greenhouses and was planted with vegetables. The Israeli forces further handed a demolition notice to a resident of the village.

Soldiers also handed a notice to a Palestinian for demolition of his egg farm in Khalet Ash-Sharbati in southern Hebron, giving him 72 hours to evacuate it.

Israeli forces handed 10 Palestinian residents of Jenin notices to evict their shops in the industrial zone of Barta'a, to the south of the city, pending demolition.

Byrnzie

And the Israeli's act shocked and surprised when revenge attacks occur. Three Israeli settlers were killed whilst walking in occupied Palestinian territory, and the World is outraged. Yet, verbal abuse, spitting, beating, stabbings, murder, and destruction of property is a daily occurrence for the Palestinians under occupation.

So where are their newspaper headlines?

Byrnzie

The searing hypocrisy of the West
July 1, 2014

By SUSAN ABULHAWA

The bodies of three Israeli settlers who went missing on June 12th were found in a hastily dug shallow grave in Halhul, north of Hebron.

Since the teens went missing from Gush Etzion, a Jewish-only colony in the West Bank, Israel has besieged the 4 million Palestinians who already live under its thumb, storming through towns, ransacking homes and civil institutions, conducting night raids on families, stealing property, kidnapping, injuring, and killing. Warplanes were dispatched to bomb Gaza, again and repeatedly, destroying more homes and institutions and carrying out extrajudicial executions.

Thus far, over 570 Palestinians have been kidnapped and imprisoned, most notably a Samer Issawi, the Palestinian who went on a 266-day hunger strike in protest of a previous arbitrary detention. At least 10 Palestinians have been killed, including at least three children, a pregnant woman, and a mentally ill man. Hundreds have been injured, thousands terrorized. Universities and social welfare organizations were ransacked, shut down, their computers and equipment destroyed or stolen, and both private and public documents confiscated from civil institutions.

This wonton thuggery is official state policy conducted by its military and does not include the violence to persons and properties perpetuated by paramilitary Israeli settlers, whose persistent attacks against Palestinian civilians have also escalated in the past weeks. And now that the settlers are confirmed dead, Israel has vowed to exact revenge. Naftali Bennet, Economy Minister said, “There is no mercy for the murderers of children. This is the time for action, not words.”


Israeli settlers torturing a young Palestinian

Although no Palestinian faction has claimed responsibility for the abduction, and most, including Hamas, deny any involvement, Benjamin Netanyahu is adamant that Hamas is responsible. The United Nations requested that Israel provide evidence to support their contention, but no evidence has been forthcoming, casting doubt on Israel’s claims, particularly in light of its public ire over the recent unification of Palestinian factions and President Obama’s acceptance of the new Palestinian unity.

In the West, headlines over pictures of the three Israeli settler teens referred to Israel’s reign of terror over Palestine as a “manhunt” and “military sweep.” Portraits of innocent young Israeli lives emerged from news outlets and the voices of their parents are featured in the fullness of their anguish. The US, EU, UK, UN, Canada and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) condemned the kidnapping and called for their immediate and unconditional release. Upon discovery of the bodies, there has been an outpouring of condemnation and condolences.

President Obama said,

“As a father, I cannot imagine the indescribable pain that the parents of these teenage boys are experiencing. The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms this senseless act of terror against innocent youth.”

Although hundreds of Palestinian children are kidnapped, brutalized or killed by Israel, including several in the past two weeks, there is rarely, if ever, such a reaction from the world.

Just prior to the disappearance of the Israeli settler teens, the murder of two Palestinian teens was caught on a local surveillance camera. Ample evidence, including the recovered bullets and a CNN camera filming an Israeli sharpshooter pulling the trigger at the precise moment one of the boys was shot indicated that they were killed in cold blood by Israeli soldiers.

There were no condemnations or calls for justice for these teens by world leaders or international institutions, no solidarity with their grieving parents, nor mention of the more than 250 Palestinian children, kidnapped from their beds or on their way to school, who continue to languish in Israeli jails without charge or trial, physically and psychologically tortured. This is to say nothing of the barbaric siege of Gaza, or the decades of ongoing theft, evictions, assaults on education, confiscation of land, demolition of homes, color coded permit system, arbitrary imprisonment, restriction of movement, checkpoints, extrajudicial executions, torture, and denials at every turn squeezing Palestinians into isolated ghettos.

...This exceptionalism and supremacy of Jewish life is a fundamental underpinning of the state of Israel. It pervades their every law and protocol, and is matched only by their apparent contempt and disregard for Palestinian life. Whether through laws that favor Jews for employment and educational opportunities, or laws that allow the exclusion of non-Jews from buying or renting among Jews, or endless military orders that limit the movement, water consumption, food access, education, marriage possibilities, and economic independence, or these periodic upending of Palestinian civil society, life for non-Jews ultimately conforms to the religious edict issued by Dov Lior, Chief Rabbi of Hebron and Kiryat Arba, saying “a thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail.”

...What should we do, then? Palestine is quite literally being wiped off the map by a state that openly upholds Jewish supremacy and Jewish privilege. Our people continue to be robbed of home and heritage, pushed to the margins of humanity, blamed for our own miserable fate. We are a traumatized, principally unarmed, native society being destroyed and erased by one of the most powerful militaries in the world.

...But none of that matters either. Does it? It matters that three Israeli Jews were killed. It doesn’t matter who did it or what the circumstances were, the entire Palestinian population will be made to suffer, more than they already are.

Byrnzie

The religious edict issued by Dov Lior, Chief Rabbi of Hebron and Kiryat Arba, saying “a thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail.”

Interesting.

yosi

Byrnzie said:

yosi said:

Is Greece fundamentally a racist state because it conceives of itself as a nation-state whose national character is defined by the national majority? As long as such a state provides for the equal rights of minorities there is no philosophical reason why it should be considered inherently racist.

Once again, deliberately ignoring everything I've posted before on this subject and continuing to cling to the same self-serving falsehoods.

The people of Greece refers to the inhabitants of that country, not those who belong to any racial, or semi-racial, category.
Israel defines itself as a Jewish state - i.e, a state run by and for Jews. That makes it a racist state.

I don't think you know very much about Greek national self-definition. But whatever, let me put it another way. What you're saying is that unlike every other national group in the world, when Jews exercise their right to self-determination they are acting in a racist manner. Why is Jewish self-determination racist while the self-determination of every other people on earth isn't?

Byrnzie

yosi said:

I don't think you know very much about Greek national self-definition. But whatever, let me put it another way. What you're saying is that unlike every other national group in the world, when Jews exercise their right to self-determination they are acting in a racist manner. Why is Jewish self-determination racist while the self-determination of every other people on earth isn't?

Jews had a right of self-determination in Palestine, just as they had a right of self-determination in the U.S and elsewhere.
Did they have a right to usurp the Palestinians, commit ethnic cleansing, and impose racial sovereignty over them? No, they didn't. And until Israel ceases defining itself as a Jewish state - i.e, a state run by, and for, Jews, then it will continue to be a racist state.

"Nation-states are, for the most part, not ethnic states. They are not states designed to perpetuate the power of a single ethnic group over everyone else within the territory over which that group holds sovereignty. All such states are illegitimate. No one ought to support that supposed right, and I certainly do not do so." - Michael Neumann - Canada - January 16, 2006

Byrnzie

Michael Neumann:
'The Zionists and their camp followers did not come simply to "find a homeland," certainly not in the sense that Flanders is the homeland of the Flemish, or Lappland of the Lapps. They did not come simply to "make a life in Palestine." They did not come to "redeem a people". All this could have been done elsewhere, as was pointed out at the time, and much of it was being done elsewhere by individual Jewish immigrants to America and other countries. The Zionists, and therefore all who settled under their auspices, came to found a soveriegn Jewish state.'

'Zionism was from the start an ill-considered and menacing experiment in ethnic nationalism. Neither history nor religion could justify it. The Jews had no claim to Palestine and no right to build a state there. Their growing need for refuge may have provided some limited, inadequate, short-term moral sustenance for the Zionist project, but it could not render that project legitimate. The mere fact of later suffering cannot retroactively convert a wrong into a right: my attempt to usurp your land does not become legitimate simply because I am wrongly beaten by someone else, far away, when my project is near completion. Nor did the well founded desperation of the Jews during the Nazi era provide any justification for Zionism; at most it provided an excuse. If someone is murdering my family in Germany, that does not entitle me to your house in Boston, or my "people" to your country. All Jews fleeing Hitler were indeed entitled to some refuge. One might even suppose that it was the obligation of the whole world, including the Palestinians, to do what they could to provide such refuge. But this is not the whole story.
For one thing, those with ample means to provide refuge, and those who are responsible for the need, have by far the greater share of responsibility. The Palestinians fell into neither category. Even more important, there is an enormous difference between providing refuge and providing a sovereign state. No amount of danger or suffering requires this, and indeed it may conflict with the demand for refuge. Simply to control one's own affairs isn't always the safest alternative. Arguably, for instance, the Jews were safer in the United States, where they are not sovereign, than they ever were in Israel. This is not only a fact but was always a reasonable expectation, so the need for refuge is also no basis for Zionism...

If there are any great lessons to be learned from the Nazi era , they are to watch out for fascism, racism, and ethnic nationalism. Supporting Israel hardly embodies these lessons.'

Byrnzie

"I am an enthusiastic advocate of the Jewish State, even if it involves partitioning Palestine now, because I work on the assumption that a partial Jewish State will not be the end, but the beginning. When we acquire 1,000 or 10,000 dunams of land, we are happy. Because this acquisition of land is important not only for its own sake, but because through it we are increasing our strength, and every increase in our strength helps us to acquire the whole country. The formation of a State, even if it is only a partial State, will be the greatest increase of strength we could have today, and it will constitute a powerful lever in our historic effort to redeem the country in its entirety." (David Ben-Gurion, Letters to Paula, Aubrey Hodes, tr., Pittsburgh (University of Pittsburgh Press) 1971 [1968], 154f.)


"I tell you explicitly that the Torah forbids us to surrender even one inch of our liberated land. There are no conquests here and we are not occupying foreign lands; we are returning to our home, to the inheritance of our ancestors. There is no Arab land here, only the inheritance of our God - and the more the world gets used to this thought the better it will be for them and for all of us..." - Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Kook

Byrnzie

yosi said:

http://isgap.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ISGAP-Working-Papers-David-Hirsh.pdf
There is not, and there never has been, a genocide of Palestinians; there are no Israeli gas-chambers, concentration camps or Einsatzgruppen; the numbers of deaths on both sides throughout the conflict are analogous to the number of murders that the Nazi regime routinely committed every few minutes.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/06/04/what-is-antisemitism/

What Is Antisemitism?
by Michael Neumann
June 04, 2002

'...Well before the Hitler era, Zionists came thousands of miles to dispossess people who had never done them the slightest harm, and whose very existence they contrived to ignore. Zionist atrocities were not part of the initial plan. They emerged as the racist obliviousness of a persecuted people blossomed into the racial supremacist ideology of a persecuting one. That is why the commanders who directed the rapes, mulilations and child-killings of Deir Yassin went on to become prime ministers of Israel.(*) But these murders were not enough. Today, when Israel could have peace for the taking, it conducts another round of dispossession, slowly, deliberately making Palestine unliveable for Palestinians, and liveable for Jews. Its purpose is not defense or public order, but the extinction of a people. True, Israel has enough PR-savvy to eliminate them with an American rather than a Hitlerian level of violence. This is a kinder, gentler genocide that portrays its perpetrators as victims.

Israel is building a racial state, not a religious one. Like my parents, I have always been an atheist. I am entitled by the biology of my birth to Israeli citizenship; you, perhaps, are the most fervent believer in Judaism, but are not. Palestinians are being squeezed and killed for me, not for you. They are to be forced into Jordan, to perish in a civil war. So no, shooting Palestinian civilians is not like shooting Vietnamese or Chechen civilians. The Palestinians aren’t ‘collateral damage’ in a war against well-armed communist or separatist forces. They are being shot because Israel thinks all Palestinians should vanish or die, so people with one Jewish grandparent can build subdivisions on the rubble of their homes. This is not the bloody mistake of a blundering superpower but an emerging evil, the deliberate strategy of a state conceived in and dedicated to an increasingly vicious ethnic nationalism. It has relatively few corpses to its credit so far, but its nuclear weapons can kill perhaps 25 million people in a few hours.'

Byrnzie

Yosi, Michael Neumann makes a good point here. http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/06/04/what-is-antisemitism/

What are your thoughts on it? If criticism of Israeli policies can be swept up in the dragnet of all things anti-Semitic, and if condemnation of Israeli policies can be felt as a moral obligation, then does that not make anti-Semitism a moral obligation?

'Suppose, for example, an Israeli rightist says that the settlements represent the pursuit of aspirations fundamental to the Jewish people, and to oppose the settlements is antisemitism. We might have to accept this claim; certainly it is difficult to refute. But we also cannot abandon the well-founded belief that the settlements strangle the Palestinian people and extinguish any hope of peace. So definitional acrobatics are all for nothing: we can only say, screw the fundamental aspirations of the Jewish people; the settlements are wrong. We must add that, since we are obliged to oppose the settlements, we are obliged to be antisemitic. Through definitional inflation, some form of ‘antisemitism’ has become morally obligatory.

It gets worse if anti-Zionism is labeled antisemitic, because the settlements, even if they do not represent fundamental aspirations of the Jewish people, are an entirely plausible extension of Zionism. To oppose them is indeed to be anti-Zionist, and therefore, by the stretched definition, antisemitic. The more antisemitism expands to include opposition to Israeli policies, the better it looks. Given the crimes to be laid at the feet of Zionism, there is another simple syllogism: anti-Zionism is a moral obligation, so, if anti-Zionism is antisemitism, antisemitism is a moral obligation.'

badbrains

Byrnzie said:

The searing hypocrisy of the West
July 1, 2014

By SUSAN ABULHAWA

The bodies of three Israeli settlers who went missing on June 12th were found in a hastily dug shallow grave in Halhul, north of Hebron.

Since the teens went missing from Gush Etzion, a Jewish-only colony in the West Bank, Israel has besieged the 4 million Palestinians who already live under its thumb, storming through towns, ransacking homes and civil institutions, conducting night raids on families, stealing property, kidnapping, injuring, and killing. Warplanes were dispatched to bomb Gaza, again and repeatedly, destroying more homes and institutions and carrying out extrajudicial executions.

Thus far, over 570 Palestinians have been kidnapped and imprisoned, most notably a Samer Issawi, the Palestinian who went on a 266-day hunger strike in protest of a previous arbitrary detention. At least 10 Palestinians have been killed, including at least three children, a pregnant woman, and a mentally ill man. Hundreds have been injured, thousands terrorized. Universities and social welfare organizations were ransacked, shut down, their computers and equipment destroyed or stolen, and both private and public documents confiscated from civil institutions.

This wonton thuggery is official state policy conducted by its military and does not include the violence to persons and properties perpetuated by paramilitary Israeli settlers, whose persistent attacks against Palestinian civilians have also escalated in the past weeks. And now that the settlers are confirmed dead, Israel has vowed to exact revenge. Naftali Bennet, Economy Minister said, “There is no mercy for the murderers of children. This is the time for action, not words.”


Israeli settlers torturing a young Palestinian

Although no Palestinian faction has claimed responsibility for the abduction, and most, including Hamas, deny any involvement, Benjamin Netanyahu is adamant that Hamas is responsible. The United Nations requested that Israel provide evidence to support their contention, but no evidence has been forthcoming, casting doubt on Israel’s claims, particularly in light of its public ire over the recent unification of Palestinian factions and President Obama’s acceptance of the new Palestinian unity.

In the West, headlines over pictures of the three Israeli settler teens referred to Israel’s reign of terror over Palestine as a “manhunt” and “military sweep.” Portraits of innocent young Israeli lives emerged from news outlets and the voices of their parents are featured in the fullness of their anguish. The US, EU, UK, UN, Canada and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) condemned the kidnapping and called for their immediate and unconditional release. Upon discovery of the bodies, there has been an outpouring of condemnation and condolences.

President Obama said,

“As a father, I cannot imagine the indescribable pain that the parents of these teenage boys are experiencing. The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms this senseless act of terror against innocent youth.”

Although hundreds of Palestinian children are kidnapped, brutalized or killed by Israel, including several in the past two weeks, there is rarely, if ever, such a reaction from the world.

Just prior to the disappearance of the Israeli settler teens, the murder of two Palestinian teens was caught on a local surveillance camera. Ample evidence, including the recovered bullets and a CNN camera filming an Israeli sharpshooter pulling the trigger at the precise moment one of the boys was shot indicated that they were killed in cold blood by Israeli soldiers.

There were no condemnations or calls for justice for these teens by world leaders or international institutions, no solidarity with their grieving parents, nor mention of the more than 250 Palestinian children, kidnapped from their beds or on their way to school, who continue to languish in Israeli jails without charge or trial, physically and psychologically tortured. This is to say nothing of the barbaric siege of Gaza, or the decades of ongoing theft, evictions, assaults on education, confiscation of land, demolition of homes, color coded permit system, arbitrary imprisonment, restriction of movement, checkpoints, extrajudicial executions, torture, and denials at every turn squeezing Palestinians into isolated ghettos.

...This exceptionalism and supremacy of Jewish life is a fundamental underpinning of the state of Israel. It pervades their every law and protocol, and is matched only by their apparent contempt and disregard for Palestinian life. Whether through laws that favor Jews for employment and educational opportunities, or laws that allow the exclusion of non-Jews from buying or renting among Jews, or endless military orders that limit the movement, water consumption, food access, education, marriage possibilities, and economic independence, or these periodic upending of Palestinian civil society, life for non-Jews ultimately conforms to the religious edict issued by Dov Lior, Chief Rabbi of Hebron and Kiryat Arba, saying “a thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail.”

...What should we do, then? Palestine is quite literally being wiped off the map by a state that openly upholds Jewish supremacy and Jewish privilege. Our people continue to be robbed of home and heritage, pushed to the margins of humanity, blamed for our own miserable fate. We are a traumatized, principally unarmed, native society being destroyed and erased by one of the most powerful militaries in the world.

...But none of that matters either. Does it? It matters that three Israeli Jews were killed. It doesn’t matter who did it or what the circumstances were, the entire Palestinian population will be made to suffer, more than they already are.

The silence is defining in here. Where u at Matt? Where's your condemnation of these acts attributed to Israel? Ohhhhhh, that's right, it's happening TO the Palestinians then it's OK! I forgot in your eyes, Israel is right in EVERYTHING they do. As those Palestinians lives ain't worth SHIT.

badbrains

And if that picture byrnzie posted of the Israelis torturing that Palestinian had been reversed and it was a Palestinian torturing an Israeli, we all know damn well that shit picture would be on the cover of EVERY paper in the WEST and world.

Byrnzie

...