Amira Hass, Haaretz, February 8:
"The attempt to explain to Israelis that such acts of vengeance are puny compared to the intensity of the Israeli assault on every individual, and against the entire Palestinian community, is doomed to failure. On a daily basis, Israel attacks every Palestinian with systematic variety. The aggregation is lethal, even if the killing of a nine-year-old girl or setting a dog on an elderly woman are not daily occurrences. It's that aggregation that undermines any attempt to conduct a normal life. It's being locked up in the West Bank's enclaves, so that simple routines like going to school, work, or visiting family are impossible. There's the unceasing expropriation of land for roads and security fences for settlements; the trees uprooted by the army, livelihoods that are cut off daily, and the insult of that; the army's prohibition, on security grounds, against accessing farm and grazing lands; the break-ins to houses in the middle of the night, which the Israeli public rarely if ever hears about; the hours of waiting at checkpoints; the frightened children; the aimed rifles."
"The attempt to explain to Israelis that such acts of vengeance are puny compared to the intensity of the Israeli assault on every individual, and against the entire Palestinian community, is doomed to failure. On a daily basis, Israel attacks every Palestinian with systematic variety. The aggregation is lethal, even if the killing of a nine-year-old girl or setting a dog on an elderly woman are not daily occurrences. It's that aggregation that undermines any attempt to conduct a normal life. It's being locked up in the West Bank's enclaves, so that simple routines like going to school, work, or visiting family are impossible. There's the unceasing expropriation of land for roads and security fences for settlements; the trees uprooted by the army, livelihoods that are cut off daily, and the insult of that; the army's prohibition, on security grounds, against accessing farm and grazing lands; the break-ins to houses in the middle of the night, which the Israeli public rarely if ever hears about; the hours of waiting at checkpoints; the frightened children; the aimed rifles."
3 Comments:
Yeh great. We know all about it. I love the "nobility of arms" with the sonic booms. That kind of cynicism says heaps.
..and the article ends with,
"The personal urge for vengeance and the understanding that people have for the avengers intensifies the more it becomes clear that there is no unified Palestinian plan against the occupation, and the more it becomes apparent that the Palestinian organizations and the leadership have failed to lead their people out of Israeli control."
(I don't know why, but on reading this I have this vision of an old bearded man with a stick leading a lot of people into the desert.)
An interesting angle to the issue. It will definitely take someone special to do this - a magician perhaps.
"...the more it becomes apparent that the Palestinian organizations and the leadership have failed to lead their people out of Israeli control."
And there I was thinking that the Israeli government was in control of "Israeli control". The Constitution of Israel is clearly more complicated than I was led to believe.
Israel has no constitution. However, leaders of the three parties are coming together tomorrow to approve of a new constitution.
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