By: Hani Hazaimeh

In any given scenario, spilling of innocent blood and wanton violence is condemnable and inhuman. Such acts committed by anyone are below humanity. Sadly though, such ideals don’t apply when it comes to Arab blood. It’s an entirely different story when the sanctity of an Arab life is compromised.

As soon as the report about the discovery of three Israeli teenagers’ bodies — who were allegedly abducted — came to the fore, all hell broke loose. Israelis did not waste any time in showing their true darker sides on various social media platforms and through the mainstream Israeli media.

Going through various comments posted by Israelis on social media, I kept hovering between the feelings of astonishment and disgust. People should do a research to gauge my true feelings. While some called Arabs animals and should be annihilated, others urged their government to raze the West Bank and Gaza to the ground. And some coined the idea of gassing Palestinian territories to get rid of all Arabs in one go. An Israeli politician even called for turning Ramadan into a “month of darkness.” Meanwhile, the United States called for exercising “restraint.”

The day the bodies were discovered was followed by massive Israeli airstrikes against the occupied Gaza Strip in the wee hours of Tuesday. In Hebron, the Israeli occupation forces destroyed homes of two Palestinian men whom Israel accused of abducting and murdering the three teenage settlers.

While studying the entire situation, this writer realized that for reasons best known to the Zionists, the Israeli media kept mum on the entire issue as if it had been manipulated not to publish details about the alleged kidnapping.

Now after the gag order has been apparently lifted and with the release of the new details regarding the missing three Israeli youngsters, one can only read the scene as follows:

From day one since the three settlers went missing the Israeli government knew they had been killed but decided not to make it public. Even the bereaved families were kept in the dark. This gag order, for sure, was not meant for the discretion of the investigation simply because the settlers were not actually kidnapped but murdered on the spot.

So why wasn’t their deaths not declared to the public? The answer is that Israel wanted to make the best out of it in its interest by blaming and shaming the Palestinians, particularly Hamas, in order to gain more support and sympathy from the international community.

In the immediate aftermath of the missing of the three settlers, the Israeli propaganda apparatus operated extensively to take advantage of this issue and to use it against the Palestinians.

Without any incriminating evidence, the Israeli government accused Hamas of being behind the kidnapping. Why? The answer is: Such an accusation would lend credibility to Israeli claims that Hamas was a terrorist organization and that President Mahmoud Abbas committed a grave mistake by joining hands with Hamas, which is part of the unity government formed after a painstaking reconciliation process.

It still remains unclear whether the Israeli teenagers were even kidnapped or not. No evidence has so far surfaced pointing to the abduction. It remains doubtful that anything in that regard will emerge in the near future, if ever.

An objective analysis of the entire episode leads one to believe that Israel employed the principle: Kill two birds with one stone. The Zionist regime made good use of a criminal case. By effectively manipulating the media, as usual, it portrayed Palestinians as savages and terrorists and once again played the role of a helpless victim. What a joke! Ironically, the world appears to have turned a blind eye to the Israeli atrocities committed against the Palestinians on a daily basis. Israel has once again succeeded in gaining support from the international community including some Arab individuals who had been actively involved in social media campaigns for the release of the allegedly abducted settlers.
Despite the US calling on Israel for restraint, anything Israel does will be unofficially justified as a response to the “brutal murder” of their children.

Until proved otherwise, it is still possible that the murder of the three settlers was not politically motivated. It cannot be ruled out that the perpetrators of the crime had no links with any Palestinian group.

Finally, like it or not, Palestinians are still the victims; have been and will always be the victims as they are an occupied people.

Per the official statistics from the Ministry of Information in Ramallah, Israel’s occupation forces during a period from September 2000 (beginning of the second Intifada) to April 2013 killed 1,518 Palestinian children. That’s equivalent to one Palestinian child killed by Israel every 3 days for almost 13 years. The ministry added that the number of children injured by Israelis since the start of the second Intifada against Israel’s occupation has now reached 6,000.

The traditional hypocrisy of the international community is not new to Arabs and the Palestinians who have been braving Israeli occupation for the past six decades and have lost thousands of lives to their just cause.

It should not be forgotten that nearly one month before the three settlers went missing; two innocent Palestinian students were shot dead by the Israeli soldiers in cold blood. This was clear in a CCTV footage released by a house owner who happened to have a surveillance camera installed at the threshold of his house and had recorded the whole incident.

And on Tuesday, a Palestinian youth was abducted and subsequently murdered in Occupied Jerusalem. The situation in the occupied territories is getting tense. According to reports, young Israelis are openly chanting slogans like “death to the Arabs.”

However, when it comes to the Arab-Israeli struggle and the over six-decade long occupation of the Palestinian lands and the Israeli atrocities, it is a different case and things should not be weighed. With every sunrise, there is a new story describing the miserable conditions under which Palestinians are forced to live in the West Bank or the Gaza enclave. Not a single day passes without a mother crying over the loss of her beloved ones. Yet, the world continues to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the Israeli aggression against the innocent Palestinians as if Arab blood is cheaper than water or of no value whatsoever.

In reality, killing innocent people is inhuman and can never be justified. Israeli has been occupying Palestinian lands for many decades. It is every nation’s right to resist illegal occupation by all possible means.

Nevertheless, the Palestinians have chosen to take the path of negotiations hoping it would lead to the creation of their dream state. Unfortunately that has not yielded any result; instead it has resulted into a manifold increase in the number of illegal settlements constructed in the disputed Palestinian territories. Israel should understand that the language of force will never bring them peace. It is in everyone’s interest to resort to the use of peaceful measures. Violence only begets further violence and hatred will result in more atrocities both sides will continue to sustain.

The Palestinians will never accept to live under occupation and the security plan Israel has been implementing in the West Bank and Gaza and the deterrent actions by the Israeli forces will soon backfire at their own citizens.

The harsh conditions the Palestinians are forced to brave is creating frustration and feelings of hopelessness among them. These feelings will only radicalize the new generations and should that happen the consequences would be apocalyptic. I shudder with even the mere thought of such a day.

—

Email: [email protected]

 

 

[wpResize]

 

 

 

---

---

Related articles across the web

• Contributing Op-Ed Writer: Israel Reacts to the Kidnappings in the West Bank
• Why there can be no Peace with Israel
• Hamas: Israel to pay for Palestinian teen murder
• Suspected Israeli revenge killing of Palestinian triggers clashes
• Israel FM calls for wide-scale Gaza operation
• Abducted Israeli Teenagers Found Dead – A Convenient Development (for Israel) Ya gotta wonder…
• Suspected Israeli revenge killing of Palestinian raises tensions
• Netanyahu exploits the deaths of children to kill all hope of peace with Palestinians
• Palestinian leadership condemns Israel over teenager’s death
• Israel bombs Palestinian villages after discovery of settlers’ bodies