What's now occurring in the West Bank and other illegally occupied Palestinian land is a classic case of asymmetric warfare, if, indeed, "warfare" can describe violence between neolithic combatants and soldiers armed with modern weapons, including jet-fueled pterodactyls that drop bombs.
The asymmetry is, no doubt, one reason why Palestinians see themselves not as "victims" of right-wing Israeli governments, but as enslaved people. Military occupations are rarely conducive to peace, as Nazis discovered in France and Americans learned in Afghanistan. Slaves revolt.
Also infuriating to those in bondage is this type of reporting: "Recent Palestinian attacks ... have targeted Israeli settlements and settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The settlements are considered illegal under international law and by much of the international community."
They're not considered illegal. They are illegal. After a New York City bank robbery, does the Times report that the act is "considered" illegal?
"The [most recent] violence comes as Israel's new government, the most right-wing administration ever, has signaled even tougher actions against the Palestinians." Bebe is back, lavishly praising his country's incomparable firepower as did George W. Bush after the U.S. defeated Saddam's pathetic, ragtag Iraqi army. One would think they'd be embarrassed to hail such a mismatch, but in politics, shame is a scarce commodity.
Prime Minister-on-an-official-lam Bebe Netanyahu's equally far-right minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, seems to believe that Israel's shock troops are just too constrained by law. Hence he has advocated "open-fire regulations" when confronting Palestinians armed only with "stones and firecrackers." Ben-Gvir also desires immunity from criminal prosecution for reckless, homicidal security forces.
Even Israel's military leaders oppose such changes, and so they remain unimplemented. The security minister's recommendations, however, reveal the government's deadly, take-no-prisoners approach. Palestinians have noted that Israeli soldiers in the West Bank already possess "near total impunity."
What Israel's far-right government is doing is freeing the military and police to execute more arrests of Palestinians, to loosen regs on search-and-seizure raids, and to speed gun licensing for Israeli citizens. All of which, as the Times writes, will "further inflame the situation and stoke violence."
The violence now raging in the West Bank and Jerusalem resulted from an Israeli military raid on Thursday, which killed nine people. The government's answer is to stage more raids. The pitiable Palestinian Authority called the killings "a massacre" and pledged to file a U.N. complaint and heave this one atop many others already piled before the International Criminal Court.
Today, a Palestinian man was shot and killed outside an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and Israeli settlers there have "carried out nearly 150 attacks on Palestinians and their properties across the region."
What does the U.S. State Department have to say about the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem's infinite carnage? "With both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, the secretary [is underscoring] the urgent need for the parties to take steps to de-escalate tensions in order to put an end to the cycle of violence that has claimed too many innocent lives." That should settle matters.
Peter Beinart, probably the most astute Jewish observer of all things Israeli and Palestinian, writes in his newsletter that he is "frustrated with a lot of what I read about American foreign policy in general and Israel-Palestine in particular. I don’t think the US possesses any inherent right to run the world. If America wants moral authority, it must earn it. And I believe that the best way to secure the safety of the Jewish people, my people, is through equality and justice for Palestinians."
His premise is so prima facie as to make Occam's Razor seem complicated. One reels at the U.S.'s refusal to coerce Israel to withdraw from illegally occupied Palestinian lands, for to support the occupation is to mock our "moral authority." Coercion might fail, but at least we would have tried to right several wrongs.
Beinart's other endless battle is that of sorting out allegations of antisemitism — based on criticism of Israel's government — from the real thing. Last month, in a discussion with the Times' Tom Friedman, Beinart smartly observed that "the conversation about antisemitism has had a tendency to exceptionalize antisemitism and disassociate it from other questions of bigotry against other people. Not to center the question that the point that antisemitism is wrong, because bigotry—to deny the dignity and humanity and equality of any group of people—is wrong. Instead, what happens I think often is antisemitism is discussed in isolation."
For that matter, Palestinians, as are all Arabs, are Semites. Thus Israel's assaults on the Palestinian people could be branded antisemitic. They are not, however, for that would be a contradiction of a term. Rather, the Israeli government is hegemonic.
And the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem's violence will persist as long as Israel's hegemony persists. It really is as simple as that.