We Cry Bloody Tears. If we still have them.
Here we are again. For those who are enough old or mature to remember (personally, I can’t), what’s happening now throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip sounds terribly familiar. It reminds them the horrible days of the Second Intifada.
Killings, night raids, tear gases, arrests, closure of checkpoints, terror.
Though, there has not been any Palestinian uprising in the last 10 days.
From where this violence stems from?
Basically, some 10 days ago, three Israeli teenagers disappeared while hitchhiking in unknown circumstances, near a settlement in the West Bank. That immediately led Israel to think that they were kidnapped by Palestinians and, namely, by Hamas. Since then, Israel has lead a violent and ruthless search campaign, whose aims go beyond the rescue of these three guys.
Indeed, many Israeli journalists, international human rights organizations and the civil society have called it a collective punishment. At least 6 persons, mainly children, have been killed, dozens of Palestinian cities and villages have been raided and many people have been arrested. Suffice to read the Israeli and Palestinian online newspapers to be updated on the figures.
Moreover, the Israeli army has put in place another mechanism, which allows them to use even more violence against the civilian population: provoke the people raiding cities at night and making them protesting against this unbearable situation. Every protest in Palestine, peaceful or not, is harshly repressed by the Israeli soldiers. Thus, they have another excuse to justify their illegitimate actions, alleging that for security reasons they had to stop the protest. And, to be honest, in the last days, the protests were not directed against the Israeli occupation, but against the Palestinian Authority for its cooperation with Israel, which allows it to enter the undefended Palestinian cities.
The situation has dramatically escalated and the level of ruthlessness and violence has reached warning levels. Similar to those Palestinians experienced during the Second Intifada and the various military operations lead in the Gaza Strip.
From right to left, there is a widespread consensus that the army and the government are behaving in the correct way and that raiding houses at night, killing Palestinian teenagers, closing checkpoints and locating snipers on the roofs of the Palestinian towns is fair. It’s creepy and scary, though, that any Israeli voice raised against these illegal and inhuman actions. It is scary that anyone is questioning the legitimacy and even the usefulness of these methods.
Maybe there are hidden and unsaid reasons for such a violence. Which?
First, Israel has not lost another occasion to show who is the stronger between the two and to reaffirm its presence on Palestinian territory, above all in the Jordan valley (which it was not willing to leave under Palestinian control), with the excuse that the three guys may be taken across the border with Jordan.
Secondly, it is trying to delegitimize both Hamas and Fatah: Hamas, because it was the hardliner opponent of Israel and it was the one claiming to do whatever possible to protect its population, even if that implicated the use of violence, Fatah, because once again it shows to the Palestinian population that it is not able or willing to protect it in any manner whatsoever. Thus showing that anything that resembles a State exists.
Thirdly, this disappearance or kidnapping serves Israeli interests in the international arena. Indeed, it can show itself as the threatened and not as the aggressor. In a moment where Palestinians were gaining some legitimacy in the international community, the boycott and divestement program was achieving some results and Israel was losing legitimacy, here again they try to draw the attention and the sympathy for the settlers and themselves, obscuring the critics they received in the last months for the failure of the negotiations and the illegal actions they undertake since more than half a century.
Additionally, it’s their tactic to find reasons to put the Palestinian territories on fire regularily: every excuse is a good excuse to break and mess the lives of Palestinians up, in order to make them feeling that they don’t control their lives and that they can’t make plans for the future. Moreover it is also an opportunity to remind the younger generation, that didn’t experience the Second Intifada and that doesn’t experience the siege of the Gaza Strip, that is Israel that controls the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and that if something similar to a Palestinian State would ever to born, it will be only because of Israel’s consensus. Clearly, this tries to nullify the perception Palestinians have of the last results they achieved, in particular I refer to the UNGA Resolution of 2012, recognizing Palestine as a non- member State of the UN.
Of course these goals have not been announced by Netanyahu and his government, though they’re there.
As we are used to, nobody will stand up by us or will spend a word for us.
We’re alone watering our land with our blood as it has been in the last 6 six decades. The only thing we can do is to resist and to not lose the hope and the faith in a better, fair and just future, where Palestine and Israel, Palestinians and Israelis may live side by side.
In the meanwhile, what we, as conscious and active members of the society and world in which we live, can do is to sign this petition to send to the European Parliament and the United Nations in order to ask them to put an end to this illegitimate collective punsihment.
Here’s the link, where you can find the text of the petition. Thank you for your support.
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