The Ramallah bubble just popped.
Just a few days ago I reassured a colleague living in Jerusalem not to worry, because Ramallah is safe. “Is that what you tell yourselves?” she asked. I knew, of course, that anything could happen here, but had wrongly assumed that Ramallah was to some extent off-limits, even amidst all that’s been happening around us.
How easily I’ve become accustomed to these safe spaces. And it’s not just Ramallah. Beit Sahour, where I used to live, was raided. My workplace for more than two years, Birzeit University, was invaded a few nights ago. Then there are the regular spots: Jalazone camp, where one of my best friends lives, lost someone a few days ago; Nablus, where I often go to visit friends and relax at the Turkish baths, lost someone who was shot on his way to Morning Prayer; Hebron. My friend’s village of Jayyous was invaded a few nights ago; its main road connecting it with the city of Qalqilya blocked by a giant mound of rocks and earth put there by the Israelis. The army has raided practically every village, town and city in the West Bank over the past week. Five young people have been killed in the last week in the West Bank, plus one elderly man who had a heart attack when the Israeli army invaded his home. Gaza was also bombed a few times – killing a seven-year old child – but who was paying attention?
This is all not to mention the 80 political prisoners that had not eaten but for water and salt for the past 63 days (!) to protest being detained without charged. It’s scary just how unmoved the world is by such things when they involve Palestinians. What’s even scarier is how desensitized so many Palestinians have become. Or maybe disillusioned is a better way to describe it. But who can blame them? They are up against one of the most powerful militaries in the world, which for more than 60 years has been able to colonize, kill, displace and steal with impunity. To make matters so much worse, they have to deal with the PA, whose primary uses for the occupation have become suppressing any type of resistance and sharing intelligence.
Sunday’s raid on Ramallah was just the latest example of the grotesque charade that is the Israeli occupation. After the army left the downtown area of Ramallah, protestors re-focused their discontent at the Palestinian Authority (PA) police station in light of the PA’s ongoing security coordination with Israel. The PA responded by shooting live bullets at the crowd, but had difficulty holding back the enraged protestors. Like true teammates, the Israeli army then returned to chase the protestors away from the police station and save the PA from the people! If this isn’t a wake-up call for Palestinians to resist the PA I don’t know what is.
The Israelis say they are searching for three kidnapped Israeli settlers, and that it is Hamas who is responsible. Yet if it were Hamas, wouldn’t they have admitted it and wouldn’t they have been making demands like releasing the hunger striking prisoners? What is much clearer is that Israel is using this incident to undo the unity pact between Fatah and Hamas. They say they are trying to weaken Hamas, and to destabilize the unity government. But it is just as likely that Palestinians will instead turn to Hamas and other Islamist parties since they are the only ones seen to be resisting in any way.
Or who knows? Maybe they will turn on Hamas for bringing the wrath of Israel on their communities. A lot of Palestinians I talk to these days—maybe even the majority—just want to live their lives. They don’t want to get involved in the resistance movements because they don’t want to get arrested and don’t see what it will accomplish. As a young Palestinian guy and former political detainee I met a few nights ago told me, he and his friends just want to make a bit of money and live their lives in Ramallah, or if possible, leave Palestine altogether. “Cus-ukht al-ihtilaal,” (fuck the occupation), bas shoo bidna nsawe (what can we do)?” As much as I wanted to break into my shpeil about BDS etc, I realized there is nothing I could really say that would re-ignite his motivation.
I wish I could say that the popping of the Ramallah bubble is what was needed to mobilize people to take to the streets on mass here and demand change—a sort of third Intifada, first Intifada style. But unfortunately, without any real faith among Palestinians that anything will truly change for the better as a result, such a scenario remains highly unlikely.
“I knew, of course, that anything could happen here, but had wrongly assumed that Ramallah was to some extent off-limits,”
You gave the Zionists too much credit. Hell, giving them ANY credit to act like decent people or even human beings is giving them too much credit.
Gideon Levy on form
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.601243#
“It takes considerable effrontery to demand that the world interests itself in the fate of three abducted Israelis, and considerable chutzpah to be disappointed by the fact that it has kept silent. Granted, Israel tried to move heaven and earth, and its ambassador/propagandist at the UN gave a moving speech in an effort to scrape up a few more public diplomacy points against Hamas. But once it was paying attention already, that bizarre world was more interested in the campaign of collective punishment imposed on thousands of West Bank residents after the kidnapping.
That’s the way things are with the world-that’s-entirely-against-us: It’s more interested in the half-century-old occupation; it’s more upset over the fate of three million Palestinians than the fate of three Israelis. The world has no lack of kidnapping victims, but none of them ever got the attention received by kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. With the three current kidnap victims, however, Israel no longer had a chance. Over the last two weeks, which I spent in Sweden, I didn’t run across a single mention of the abduction in the media. Not one.
That’s what rotten fruit looks like. The world has no reason be more interested in the fate of Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrah and Gilad Shaar than it is in the fate of their age mate Mohammed Dudin, a boy of 15 who was killed by live fire from Israeli soldiers in Dura last Friday.
It has no reason to be especially moved by the haunting words of Rachel Fraenkel, who related that her Naftali is a good boy who loves to play guitar and soccer, when Mohammed was also a good boy, who helped his father build their house during his school vacations and sold sweets to help support his family. Rachel wants to hug Naftali? Jihad, Mohammed’s bereaved father, also wants to hug his son. Incidentally, nobody brought him to Geneva. He remained alone with his mourning, at the wretched house whose construction hasn’t yet been finished, and perhaps never will be.
The world is a mess, as they say. In Iraq, Nigeria, Syria and even Ukraine, the situation is far crueler. Yet the complete lack of interest in the kidnapped Israelis doesn’t stem from that alone. It’s impossible to demand sympathy from the world when Israel ignores the world’s decisions; it’s impossible to demand action when Israel is perpetuating the occupation; and it’s impossible to demand solidarity with the fate of Israeli victims when that same victimized Israel continues to kill, wound and arrest innocents as a matter of routine.
Now Israel is discovering that it’s no longer the center of attention as it always was before, and that the fate of its kidnapping victims no longer stops the world in its tracks, not even in the United States. The world is sick of Israel and its insanities”
It’s a pity Hyman Minsky is no longer with us. Zionism is now in its Ponzi stage.
Attacking Ramallah is a sign of the insanity. Bennett called Abbas a terrorist this week. They are nuts.
They make Bernie Madoff look rational.
Ramallah has been under siege before. I really never thought it was over.
Nothing like freedom and peace of mind ever seems to last for long in the OPT because of the naked aggression and cruelty of Israel. That is, nothing except for the fortitude of the Palestinians. How they can keep their hope alive is truly something to behold. Perhaps their strength springs from the absolute rightness of their position and the necessity for justice to be done, and a fierce hope that the world will actually help them in their struggle to live and breathe free.
It’s not only time for Israel to stop their latest murderous siege, it is also time for Israel to face sanctions and punishment. I don’t wish for another intifada… I wish for the US to face up to the facts– just once in my lifetime. This intifada needs to happen from the outside in. The US has the power to change life for the better with even a soupçon of honesty and a whole lot less hypocrisy. The US enables the Israeli belligerence and Occupation, and has done so with impunity since the beginning.
Thanks for the Levy article seafoid. His essays are heartfelt, honest, and rife with his despair for a country that has failed so miserably.
Stay safe Corey. Many thanks.
Hey folks. Is the last word of this article a typo. Should it say “un”likely? Seems like maybe so…