HAARETZ WRITER ASKS: “WHO IS SUPPOSED TO PROTECT
PALESTINIANS?”
Allan C. Brownfeld, Editor
Special Interest Report
August 2023
Writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (June 25, 2023), commentator Gideon
Levy, argues that “There aren’t many populations in the world as helpless as the
Palestinians who live in their own country. No one protects their lives and
property, let alone their dignity and no one intends to do so. They are totally
abandoned to their fates, as is their property. Their houses and cars can be
torched, their fields set on fire. It’s all right to shoot them mercilessly,
killing old people and babies, with no defense forces at their side. No police,
no military, no one.”
Levy notes that, “Amid the utter chaos created by the occupation, the ban on
Palestinians defending themselves is one of the craziest rules; it’s an accepted
norm that isn’t even discussed. Why aren’t the Palestinians allowed to defend
themselves, who exactly is supposed to do it for them? Why, when talking about
‘security,’ it’s only about Israel’s security? Palestinians have more victims of
assaults, bloodshed, pogroms, and violence—-and no defensive tools at their
disposal.”
Since the beginning of the year, Levy points out, “35 pogroms have been carried
out by settlers; around 160 Palestinians have been killed by soldiers, the vast
majority of them unnecessarily and most of them criminally. From baby Mohammed
Tajikistan to the elderly Omar As’ad, Palestinians have been killed for no
reason.”
In early July, a massive military operation, described by The Forward (July 5,
2023) as “the fiercest attack on the occupied West Bank in nearly two decades,”
killed at least 12 Palestinians, including 3 children, and at least 120 were
injured in the raid on Jenin. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the
operation as “open war against the people of Jenin.” Haaretz (July 22, 2023)
reports that two former U.S. ambassadors to Israel, Dan Kurtzer and Martin Indyk,
both of whom are Jewish, called on the Biden Administration to cut U.S. aid to
Israel “while Israel pursues policies we oppose,” in Kurtzer’s words. **
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