Israeli officials and commentators are once again clamoring nervously and making all sorts of vitriolic statements following ostensible renewal of sporadic incidents involving desperate Palestinian youngsters attacking Israeli security personnel and settlers especially in East Jerusalem.
In most cases these incidents end up with the Palestinian youth getting killed. Yet such incidents continue which means the Israeli policy of deterrence is failing to deter potential attackers from attacking Israelis.
Israeli political commentators and Shin Beth prefer to blame secondary and non-essential factors for the occurrence of such incidents. They would cite inter alia religious fanaticism anti-Semitism and extremist ideological indoctrination as likely motives behind a Palestinian youngster’s decision to embark on a fateful feat that very often ends up with him getting killed on the spot or getting arrested and sentenced to multi-prison sentences for life.
It is sad really sad to see the bloodshed in the Holy Land continue unabated. But let’s be honest Israel which has been tormenting the Palestinians and denying them the most basic human rights and civil liberties is first and foremost responsible for the enduring violence.
People irrespective of their faith don’t embark on desperate acts unless they are desperate themselves. Needless to say Israel is responsible for that desperation.
Israel is a cruel state par excellence. It is an evil entity based on oppression racism and inequity and when the victims rise up for their dignity and for justice Israeli leaders pretend to have committed no wrongs.
Thus according to the Israeli logic it is always the Palestinians who are to blame. As to the manifestly criminal even Nazi-like treatment constantly meted out to the Palestinians Israeli leaders and spokespersons ignore everything in this regard as if these desperate incidents carried out by Palestinian youngsters just came out of the clear blue skies.
Nearly 20 years ago none other than former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak declared during a newspaper interview that “If I were born a Palestinian I would probably be a terrorist.”
Needless to say if this was true 20 years ago it is even more true today.
Israel is mistaken
Israel has effectively killed any remaining chances for the creation of a Palestinian state thanks to the ubiquitous proliferation of Jewish settlements.
Israel is also continuing to narrow Palestinian horizons at every conceivable level. A 22-year-old female student from the West Bank who wanted to join her fiancée in marriage in the Gaza Strip was recently told by members of the Israeli Shin Beth security service that she would have to wait until she reached the age of 40 before she could be allowed to travel to Gaza.
Young students returning from abroad to the West Bank are arrested for no real reason and told that they would have to work as informers on their colleagues or forget about completing their studies.
Even the pettiest task cannot be taken for granted as Israel seeks to make the daily life of each and every Palestinian a relentless nightmare.
In the meantime Israeli officials continue to have “chummy chats” with European and other diplomats communicating to them Israel’s “desire for peace and reconciliation.”
It is really lamentable that some probably many foreign diplomats continue to be bamboozled by Israeli lies.
I really don’t know why these gullible diplomats hesitate to ask the right questions when meeting with Israeli officials and spokespersons.
Indeed is it an expression of a genuine desire for peace to build hundreds of large colonies in occupied land and transfer hundreds of thousands of fanatical settlers to live on land that doesn’t belong to them?
Israel is mistaken if it thinks that Palestinians would succumb to Israeli pressure.
