News

Israel sows despair and senseless violence

A Statement of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)

And the “Zionist answer” to the downward cycle of senseless violence in which Jerusalem finds itself: house demolitions, mass arrests, revoking the “residency” of native-born Jerusalemites, closing Palestinian neighborhoods with concrete blocks, arming Israeli Jewish vigilantes and cheap shots at the last person who believes in a two-state solution, Abu Mazen. Everything, that is, except an end to occupation and a just political solution. This is what happens when a powerful country forgoes any effort to address the grievances of a people under its control and descends into raw oppression.

Israel is not in “the grip of a terrorist onslaught,” as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stated in this press conference tonight; it is in the grip of senseless violence spawned by despair and repression. The Palestinians, having lost all hope of the Occupation ending and a tiny state of their own, imprisoned in tiny islands of their country, victimized, impoverished, lacking the minimum in individual and collective rights, displaced, even their only place of refuge, their homes, demolished (some 48,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished in the Occupied Territory since 1967), have been reduced to lashing out. Threats to al Aqsa mosque – and there are palpable threats coming from the Israeli right, which wants to partition the holy site as it did to the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron – only add to the danger that what has been until now a political conflict that can be resolved may turn into an uncontrollable religious war.

Israel, having given up all pretense of seeking a just solution, has answered Palestinian despair with pure, atavistic repression. Once again Prime Minister Netanyahu’s analysis is dead wrong: the “core of the violence,” as he puts it, is not the Palestinians’ refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state (they recognized the state of Israel on 78% of historic Palestine 26 years ago), but Israel’s refusal to address – even acknowledge – Palestinian national rights and claims. His “Zionist answers” of increased repression are empty of any political policy that could ease the conflict; not only do they not deter, as an IDF commission concluded in 2005, but they inflame the situation and lead to an endless downward spiral of violence. The Israeli political scene has deteriorated to raw revenge – and revenge for both crimes and acts of resistance that could have been avoided by a genuine Israeli aspiration for a just solution.

In the meantime, the people suffer and hatred prevails, stoked by the only party strong enough to end it all, the Occupying Power, Israel.

30 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Here’s one more:

“JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli forces on Wednesday demolished the family home of the suspect in a Jerusalem car-ramming attack last month, witnesses said.

Dozens of Israeli troops raided the al-Bustan area of the Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem and proceeded to explode the home of Abd al-Rahman al-Shaludi.

The forces entered the area after midnight, surrounded the five-story building where the al-Shaludi family lives, and forced residents out of the building without allowing them to bring any of their possessions with them, witnesses said.

Troops also evacuated three houses near the building and held residents in a tent for over four hours.

They told residents to remove their cars from the area, before planting explosives in the al-Shaludi home and destroying it at around 3:45 a.m.”

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=741041

and

“BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Israel has approved the construction of 78 new settlement units in East Jerusalem, the Israeli news site Walla reported Wednesday.

The report said 50 houses would be built in the Har Homa settlement, which is built illegally on Jabal Abu Ghneim, a private Palestinian property between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

The other 28 settlement houses will be built in the illegal Ramot settlement which is built on private Palestinian land between Jerusalem and Ramallah.”

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=741065

Thank you for the article, Jeff. It’s really well- written.

“In the meantime, the people suffer and hatred prevails, stoked by the only party strong enough to end it all, the Occupying Power, Israel.”

The US has the power to make the Occupying Power end it.

They have stated these two killers acted on their own, but had planned this attack before.
Again, I must say this was a despicable act, but it will not be the last, from both sides.
Lives are being lost because of greed and an occupation which never ceases.
No one can fault the Palestinian people, all they keep asking for is to be free and given their
basic rights.

It’s just Zionist logic iterating away to the final collapse.
Beit Hallahmi called 1948 the original sin and Zionism still doesn’t know how to deal with the Palestinians.
Judaism is being destroyed in the process.

>> Israel, having given up all pretense of seeking a just solution …

Israel long ago dropped any pretense of seeking a just solution.

>> Once again Prime Minister Netanyahu’s analysis is dead wrong: the “core of the violence,” as he puts it, is not the Palestinians’ refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state … but Israel’s refusal to address – even acknowledge – Palestinian national rights and claims.

The core of the problem is Zio-supremacism – the belief that Jews are entitled to a supremacist “Jewish State” in Palestine.

No group of people (not even Jews) is entitled to a supremacist state and no-one (not even Palestinians) should be expected or required to recognize or accept any supremacist state (not even a Jewish one).

Not exactly a 360 degree vision of what’s happening including the slaughter of four Rabbis and a police officer yesterday in a West Jerusalem synagogue. Hussein Ibish, not exactly a friend of Benjamin Netanyahu fears that Palestinians and Israelis are pursuing a Right to Revenge that will only cause more death and anguish:

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564416-the-right-to-revenge

We all have to work for a peace that will be found beyond incitement and blame.