The Palestinian Monitoring Group at the Negotiations Affairs Department of the Palestine Liberation Organization is continuing on a daily basis to report the events of the previous day. The report is concise and tends to be repetitive, with some omissions that are understandable and others that are not. (For example, they do not keep track of Israeli bureaucratic harassment, perhaps because they lack the manpower to keep an eye on all these events ). The report provides boring but necessary statistics that remind us where we are living.
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A protest in Sheikh Jarrah on June 25, 2010 |
| Photo by: Michal Fattal |
In the past week, a daily average of 174 occupation-related incidents were reported in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem ) and the Gaza Strip. What brought the average down was Saturday, which had a mere 138 events, mainly because there were no "wall construction events," which are counted on other days (at present at 19 sites ). This daily item also does not appear in the summary for May. That is perhaps one of the reasons why the daily average in May is much lower than what is mentioned in the daily reports.
Six Palestinians were killed during May - four armed men and a 65-year-old civilian by fire from the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip, while in the West Bank, settlers apparently shot and killed a 16-year-old youth who apparently threw stones. Outside this count, there was also a year-and-a-half old toddler from the village of Beit Ummar who choked to death after inhaling tear gas and a woman from the same village who was killed by an Israeli car.
A total of 70 people were injured, including 10 children and nine armed Palestinians in Gaza, both by the IDF and settlers. During the month of May, 289 Palestinians were arrested (two in Gaza ) and the largest number in the Jerusalem district - 66. Among these were 35 minors and 16 Palestinian security officers.
During the past few months, another sub-chapter has been added to the daily report - "Provocation" of the Palestinian security forces by the Israeli army. There were 22 such events in May, a rise of 83.3 percent over the previous month. What is considered provocation? For example, there were eight cases in which Israeli troops presented Palestinian security forces with a summons to the Shin Bet security forces - including a general intelligence officer from Jerusalem and three officers of the national security force who returned from training in Jordan via the Allenby Bridge. There were also three instances in which an Israeli unit was stationed right next to positions held by the Palestinian police or preventive security forces. The statistics also note 11 cases where Palestinian security officers were stopped and their vehicles searched, including three buses carrying 150 officers from the national security force at the Hamra roadblock in the Jordan Valley.
Indirect statementThe choice of the term "provocation" in connection with the Palestinian security forces is interesting. Unintentionally, this term gives legitimacy to the army's others actions - raids, shooting and arrests. This term exposes, clearly without meaning to do so, the philosophy of coordination between the security forces, a philosophy that is distorted by the IDF and the Shin Bet when they treat Palestinians in uniform as they do any other person, that is, as part of an occupied people.
The IDF carried out 669 raids in civilian residential areas during May, 25 of these in the Gaza Strip. On June 19, a week ago Saturday, for example, there were 18 raids. They included one in the village of Azoun and another in the village of Iraq Bourin. In Iraq Bourin the residents were demonstrating against the expropriation of their lands when the army raided the village and declared it a closed military area. Clashes broke out with the residents. The army used tear gas and started shooting rubber-coated bullets. A wheat field went up in flames when tear gas grenades fell there. In a similar demonstration three months earlier, two youths were killed by live fire.
Of 35 raids on June 23, one took place in Gaza. A large force of armored vehicles and a bulldozer entered an agricultural area east of the large village of Abasan El Khabira. While the bulldozer was digging up the earth, intensive fire was directed toward the houses. The daily report takes pains to note that at 2:55 P.M. and at 7:30 P.M., fire was opened from Abasan in the direction of an Israeli patrol on the Green Line, and that the IDF returned fire.
The Palestinian group noted 82 incidents of settlers' violence during May. This is a 4.7 percent drop as compared with April but a 39 percent rise compared with March.
Mainly on Fridays, there is another clause in the report - "Demonstrations." On June 18, at 1:30 P.M. in Bil'in, at 1.40 P.M. at Na'alin, at 2 P.M. at the court checkpoint, at 2:10 P.M. at Nabi Salah. The court checkpoint in East Ramallah (on the way to the settlement of Beit El ) has for a decade blocked direct access to Ramallah from 19 villages.
The group's reports speak of "international peace activists" who participated in demonstrations and were also detained by the army. Spokesmen for the popular struggle committees reported that three activists were detained on the same day in Bil'in, a British woman and two Israeli women.
No coincidenceThe omission of the Israeli presence in the demonstrations is systematic and not coincidental. Even in the weekly regular demonstration at Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, according to the daily report, there is massive participation by "international peace activists." But we know that the demonstration's organizers, most of the participants and most of those arrested are Israelis. True, there are Palestinians who oppose any joint activity with Israelis against the occupation and who consider it part of the "normalization" (befriending the occupier, accepting the occupation as a normal situation ) that they reject (therefore they are cross with the Popular Struggle Committees, which consider Israelis active against the occupation as partners to all intents and purposes ).
It seems their influence has permeated the PLO's Negotiations Department as well, which is one of the strongholds for meetings with Israelis, even of the type that perpetuates the occupation. Perhaps in the political department they are afraid that mentioning the regular activity of the Israelis who oppose the occupation will cast suspicion on them as promoting "normalization" with the occupation.
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And everyone says 'where's the context?' Must be nice to hate the other side so much that infanticide is always justified.
I'm glad the Israeli forces are active in dealing with the occupation of violent Arabs in the West Bank. The author of this anti-Israel article forgets that Israel has hostile relations with a population that refuses to live with Jews in peace.
For each of these murders and imprisonments there is an extended family which is suffering daily as well.. it adds up to an amount of physical and emotional degradation hardly comprehensible.
I spent several weeks in the West Bank observing demonstrations, checkpoints and settlers. By far the most violent are zealot settlers that attack and insult Palestinians. The IDF provides the protection to the settlers so they can spread their violence freely. However the IDF initiates its own brand of violence. The Palestinians have been continuously under attack but have courageously carried on.
it's nice to cite statistics. you know, there are lies, damned lies, then statistics. are you prepared to write a book about all these incidents or are they clear proof of a brutal and ruthless occupying regime? oh, won't the world be a better and peaceful place when the occupation is over, and peace will bloom, huh?
Is for Jews
Amira as usual mentions the results of Palestinian terrorism, but not the acts of terrorism Israel responded to. I am amazed with all the violence, terror attacks, mobs of Arab rioters attacking soldiers that Israel manages to keep casualties of Arabs to a minimum. This proves the IDF compassion and purity of arms.
Many in the BDS movement don't think Israel should even exist. The logical conclusion is also that Israelis don't exist either. Personally I oppose the occupation and deplore what is happening, but can't work with people who won't work with me.
If this commentary was a spear, would it ever come to a point?
While the Israeli right sings the familiar tune of terrorism, self-defense, and Biblical legitimacy, *Jews the world over* are bearing the brunt of this violent and irresponsible government. This is a long-term problem. First consider that when actions like these occur, no one hears the Israeli Left, the opposition. No one hears about the invisible Israeli Jews who fight against the wild fanatics who provoke the Palestinians and harass them. Instead, they see cries of anti-Semitism and the same droning moan of one-sidedness. As if the ridiculous discrepancy of power between the IDF and the settlers it protects on the one hand, and the Palestinian citizens under siege on the other, is anything BUT one-sided. It's absolutely NOT to be seen as an equal playing field. And due to the unfortunate invisibility of the internal Israeli left, these actions are identified with "Israel" rather than "a crazy and wild subset of primarily Ashenazi extremists who currently wield disproportionate power in a Parliamentary [and not a winner-take-all electoral] system". The world turns against Israel, rather than the Israeli government. Second, *the entire world* can no longer stand to not turn against Israel, because morality demands that they do. The EU Parliament, previously friendly Muslim countries like Turkey and Egypt, and even American Jews (check this weekend's New York Times -- 26-27 of June) have realized that standing unequivocally for the irresponsible, arrogant, and ultimately self-defeating government of Israel is no longer feasible. However, due to the shtetl mentality so prevalent among Jewish extremists that has unfortunately had some influence in mainstream society, it is not uncommon to find such criticisms dismissed as anti-Semitism. As a Sephardic Jew completely at odds with the Eastern European extremists who run Israel, I fear that Israel is fostering a wicked, closed-minded, and frankly embarrassing view of Jews as arrogant perpetrators of war crimes. It is frustrating to have to have to defend Israel at times and correct people's association of Israelis and "Jews". No, not all Jews hang Israeli flags with pride. There are limits to what morally aware people will put up with. We do not all have ancestors who grew up in, and want to recreate in a state, a closed shtetl. Hopefully, the Israeli left can make headway in fighting the wildly stupid foreign policy of Israel of the last decade. I am hoping someone, somewhere in Israel, also starts to realize that the phrase "oh, the world hates us anyway, so it does not matter what we do" is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I read about occasional incidents of brutality by the Israel forces and the settlers, but I had no idea that these kind of attocities are so common. If this is not state sponsored or state condoned terrorism, than I do not know what is. No humans should be subjected to this kind of treatment on a daily basis for decades.
Try "Settler Violence against Palestinians". The IDF is almost every video you can find. Always abetting the violence simply by the implied imbalance.
so so soooo bad that arabs are all rushing to leave .... can u imagine how sad the arabs felt when the kept seeing jewish israelis getting bombed in pizzerias, discos and buses...
is it Israeli's paper who is doing the reporting. or some Arabic news paper????????
... and self-questioning in the form of this article (and Haaretz in general) is huge evidence of democracy. The Arabs don't have such a thing, so consider yourself lucky -- if you can get past your intolerance that is.
Some nations just can't tolerate democracy... We saw that, not just Arabs.
about every other day there are reports in PMW and MEMRI about Palestian incitement to kill Jews and destroy Israel.Why doesn't this article report that that the include that this info is also missins from the report of the Palestinian Monitoring Group at the Negotiations Affairs Department of the Palestine Liberation Organization ?
Who are you reporting for and what exactly was the point of this article other than to stir the pot of anti semitism. As if the Arabs (there is no such thing as Palestine) need your help. What about the CONSTANT rocket, rock, and knife attacks that are perpetrated on a multi-daily basis against innocent Israeli's. Should the IDF not be proactively defending the land. And, did you forget to mention the 1000's of illegal land grabs by your arab neighbors or the fact that all the so called "peace" organizations are funded by other countries trying to destroy Israel? Your reporting is just one more example of the injustice Israeli's are facing by people who have their head's on backwards. Quit pouring out your bleeding heart for a people who are trying to destroy YOU and YOUR COUNTRY-FOOL!
You refuse to call them Palestinians, by doing so you are saying they have no right to the land and to live. Yet you expect and demand they recognize you and Israel?
Surely you got things a bit mixed up here...It is ISRAEL who is grabbing the land...trying to create "facts on the ground" in good old Sharon-style...! Very sad indeed!
They are enemies occupying Jewish Lands.
Read the UN resolutions carefully and you will see that the wording actually supports Israel's claims and justifies Israel's defense of the disputed territory.
'They are enemies occupying Jewish Lands.' Where to start? The Palestinians are definitely the most authentic descendants of the original inhabitants. There's no serious doubt of that.
The lands are only 'Jewish' if one happens to be an observant Jew -- in fact, only if one happens to be a religious Zionist. It's equally reasonable to say the lands are Muslim, because THEIR book says that Israel belongs to them, or to Christians because...
wow. that's a stupid article.