As we live in distress about the potential of American authoritarianism, nearly three million West Bank Palestinians live under military authoritarianism each day. And it just got worse. Overnight, the Israeli army staged a massive "raid" — a euphemism for "invasion" — on the enclave, including drone strikes. "At least 10 people were killed," reports The NY Times.
The Israeli government's justification of the invasion fits the pattern. Palestinian violence has increased. This cannot be tolerated. That's one-half of the pattern. The other half is to ignore that Israeli extremists have increased their violence against Palestinians and their homes. And while the violent natives of the West Bank must be punished, most murderous Israeli mobs face no "corrective measures" whatsoever.
The word "raid" is The Times' usage. This is odd, since Israel's foreign minister, Israel Katz, describes the operation as a "full-fledged war." He went on — to no one's surprise, I should think — to say the West Bank is no different from circumstances in the Gaza Strip, and so the military must apply the same force, the same tactics.
Goodbye West Bank, Palestine, now that you've already sent your condolences to Gaza. There will be no Palestinian state, not under the likes of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his jingoistic war cabinet. Bibi means to stay a while, and he probably shall. As long as he can keep Israel on a war footing, keep the Israeli citizenry petrified and keep receiving arms from the United States, he can have his wars.
In medias res, these are not really wars. They are slaughters. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. As of Sunday, "the death toll among Israeli troops [stood] at 337," reported the Jewish New Syndicate. In the West Bank, since 7 October more than 580 Palestinians have been killed (a United Nations estimate). Today, The Guardian reports that "19 Israelis – soldiers and civilians [some, the extremists involved in violent attacks] – have been killed" since 7 Oct.
So far, the Israeli army has concentrated its forces in the West Bank cities of Jenin and Tulkarm, militant strongholds. There has also been movement in the Far’a neighborhood farther east, writes The Times. It is there that drone strikes were reported by locals. Jenin, a northern city, is pinpointed in the map, Tulkarm is in the northwest. If Foreign Minister Katz is correct about a "full-fledged war," then as in Gaza, the slaughter will move southward.
There is an instructive — as well as stupefying — entry in The Times' reporting. Noting that Jenin is a symbol, it continues: "The city is synonymous with Palestinian rebellion.... More recently, the impoverished city has been a hotbed for recruiting by Hamas and the militant group Islamic Jihad, as well as newer militias that have emerged among a disaffected younger generation."
Netanyahu knows this. He knows that the more he pushes and the more Palestinian civilians he kills, Hamas and other militant groups will swell in numbers, the young replacing the older dead faster than Israel's war cabinet can kill them, too. And surely most Israelis have figured this out: No amount of deadly force can kill a movement for freedom.
But on it goes, bloodier and more lethal than ever, while a final resolution of all the death, destruction and misery lies on an unattended negotiating table. Meanwhile, the U.S. conducts a self-defeating — in fact a self-defeated — policy toward Israel. It pushes the two-state solution as it ships yet another cargo of arms to Israel, with which it only continues the slaughter.
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