We missed this story last week, and it’s important. The New York Times‘ Isabel Kershner reports Israel’s response to Palestinian stone throwers. It might have to shoot them!
The government of Israel said on Wednesday that it was considering sharper measures against Palestinians who throw stones and firebombs, including allowing more use of live ammunition
Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch promptly tweeted:
Israel is wrong to suggest lethal force unless last option to stop imminent lethal threat.
Kenneth Roth is a leading expert on international law, which governs this conflict. But you never heard Kenneth Roth’s voice anywhere in the article. The piece left out the human rights law issue entirely, while tacitly treating Israel’s army as just about the most moral one in the world, able to police itself:
Standing orders are said to limit the use of live ammunition by soldiers to situations that they deem to be life-threatening. It was not clear what changes to those rules might be under consideration.
Deemed “life threatening” is not “last option to stop imminent lethal threat.”
Kershner quotes the Israeli army spokesperson, respectfully. And this hat tip to Israeli code:
The idea of loosening regulations on the use of live fire appeared at odds with current Israeli policy in the occupied West Bank, where the military has tried to avoid fanning tensions.
Not till way way down in the story, paragraph 13, do we get a human rights group.
Palestinian officials and human rights groups denounce what they view as an already excessive use of live fire by Israeli forces. Al-Haq, a human rights organization based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, has said the killing of Palestinian civilians is the result of a “climate of impunity granted to Israeli soldiers.”
Why do human rights groups think there’s excessive force? In paragraph 15, Kershner provides this choice fact from B’Tselem:
According to B’Tselem, 12 Palestinian minors were shot and killed by Israeli forces during protests and clashes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2014.
Twelve minors already shot and killed, and now these orders might be further loosened? Why is the Times burying these essentials? And why can’t they find an expert in international human rights law such as Ken Roth to put in their article?
“standing orders are said to limit the use of live ammunition by soldiers …”
Putting it like that certainly saves on time and money spent on fact checking.
What about this? Are these harsh actions applicable for the Jewish settlers too?
Jewish settlers threw stones at the cars of a delegation of American diplomats, who came to inspect suspected vandalism of nearby Palestinian-owned trees in the occupied West Bank, Israeli police said Friday.
The U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv and U.S. consulate in Jerusalem had no immediate comment on the incident, which occurred outside the Adei Ad settlement and incurred no casualties. Washington has been vocal in its disapproval of Israeli settlement policy, though such attacks against the U.S. are rare in Israel.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/2/israel-settlers-usconvoy.html
IDF doing sweet nothing when Palestinians are stoned by masked settlers:
Soldiers stood idly by as masked settlers threw stones at Palestinians on the outskirts of the West Bank village of Oreef, charged the non-governmental group B’Tselem, which provided extensive video evidence on Wednesday of an event that occurred there two days earlier.
“The soldiers did nothing to stop them or distance them,” B’Tselem said in a statement to the press.
http://www.jpost.com/National-News/WATCH-IDF-stands-idly-by-as-settlers-throw-stones-at-Palestinians-337476
Dutch government even warns it’s citizens about stone throwing (crazy) settlers:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4664045,00.html
Beyond a certain degree stone –throwing becomes a real issue for those subject to it. In particular it can easily cause fatalities or injuries to children travelling in cars and buses – so there are children on both sides of the equation.
This is the usual story in the Israel-Palestinians saga. It always starts low key and tolerated, which is interpreted as am opportunity that should be further exploited so it becomes bigger until at some pint it passes limits. This was the case with the Intifada – first just stones or low-key shootings until it became a full-pledged terror war – and with the missiles from Gaza – first just primitive Kassams and later advanced Grads. The final phase – which comes after a long period of tolerance – is invariably the same: a brutal confrontation which ends with a fundamental change in the arena itself.
This time around it is probably the long anticipated start of the “war over Jerusalem” (most of the stone-throwing is around there) – when the dust settles a new situation will emerge there.