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While the Israeli Assault in Gaza Rages On,The Silent Genocide Continues in the West Bank
by Hamde Abu Rahma |
Three nights ago I was relaxing in my home with my family and a few friends and enjoying the beautiful evening. We were drinking coffee and talking when we heard the sound of Israeli military jeeps invading our village.
It was a nighttime raid, something so frequent that we have almost gotten used to it. The Israeli military comes fully armed in the middle of the night to arrest people, shoot tear gas and skunk water, harassing the residents and scaring the children. This is a common experience in most villages in the West Bank—a relative calm can turn to a violent situation in an instant and we never know when this might happen. They do not give us any warning or legitimate reason for their invasion into our homes.
Just because the Israeli military is not dropping bombs on the West Bank like in Gaza, does not mean we are not also living under Occupation, military siege, experiencing oppression on a daily basis and living in fear of the Israeli military presence.
Since the bombings in Gaza have started, Israeli forces in the West Bank have killed more than 20 Palestinians, and more than 1,000 have been injured. But this violence, these numbers, these human lives rarely make it into the Western news media because it disrupts the perception that the West Bank is safe and Gaza is the place of violent Occupation. The Israeli propaganda machines have an interest in keeping the Palestinians separated within the minds of the Western audiences—suggesting Gaza as the only place of violent resistance and Israeli Army massacres and the West Bank as a safe, prosperous, and cooperative place.
Following Nobel Peace Prize winner Yitzak Rabin’s policy to break the Palestinian popular resistance during the First Intifada by literally breaking our bones, the Israeli military now routinely shoots demonstrators in the legs with live ammunition. This strategy is designed to deter participation in marches and protests against the ongoing Israeli Occupation. If they shoot and kill a Palestinian, it might make the news, and many family members and friends will be so saddened and angry that they will join the popular resistance efforts in the place of the fallen. But when they shoot us in our legs, maiming but not killing, this never makes the news and prevents the individual from returning to join in future demonstrations. This policy is not only illegal under international law, but it is absolutely inhumane and not the actions of a government that honestly wants to make peace with their neighbors.
With easily over 350,000 illegal Israeli settlers living in more than 120 settlements throughout the West Bank, the Palestinians are experiencing a special type of hell-like Occupation in the West Bank. There is a Wall built on our land, surrounding us and cutting us off from our neighbors, and there are countless checkpoints within the West Bank that prevent us from moving freely. These structures are a daily reminder that the Israeli military is not here for Israeli security. They are here to humiliate us, imprison us and make our lives difficult.
If the Israeli government was so concerned about their security, they could build the Wall on their own side of the 1967 border and build the checkpoints between their cities and towns, not deep within our side of the Green Line and between our villages. This is not for security, this is for control, harassment and continued oppression.
According to the Israeli human rights group Btselem, as of May 2014 Israel was holding over 5053 Palestinian prisoners, the majority of whom were arrested in the West Bank. This includes over 450 prisoners who are being held under administrative detention, with no charges, no trial, and no set date of release. Israel also holds over 215 Palestinian children in their prisons.
In an effort to further humiliate and destroy the lives of the Palestinians, since 1967 the Israeli government has demolished over 27,000 homes and other structures within the West Bank and East Jerusalem (Ichad.org). Many families living in the West Bank have demolition orders on their homes, particularly those living in what is known as Area C, which makes up over 70% of the West Bank.
This is land that Palestinians already live on, but that Israel has complete military and civil control over since the signing of the Oslo Accords. Controlling Area C in particular allows the Israelis to continue their campaign of silent genocide throughout the West Bank, slowly and quietly annexing more of our land, controlling all of our movements between our villages, schools and places of work, and imposing a violent military regime that they are hoping will make life here so miserable that we will simply leave.
people in the west bank must continue to engage in popular resistance against the Israeli Occupation and tell the truth about what is happening to them here . Of course what is happening in Gaza is terrible and the suffering and violence at the hands of the Israeli military there cannot be measured and must be ended. But the story that is all too often evaded, ignored or simply washed over is that there is daily violence, oppression and Occupation in the West Bank as well. Here our citizens are imprisoned and tortured, our homes are demolished, our brothers and sisters are injured and killed and our voices and suffering goes unheard.
people must end this Israeli strategy of silent genocide. they let the world know that the people also are suffering in the West Bank, also are living under Occupation.
by Hamde Abu Rahma .
by Hamde Abu Rahma |
Three nights ago I was relaxing in my home with my family and a few friends and enjoying the beautiful evening. We were drinking coffee and talking when we heard the sound of Israeli military jeeps invading our village.
It was a nighttime raid, something so frequent that we have almost gotten used to it. The Israeli military comes fully armed in the middle of the night to arrest people, shoot tear gas and skunk water, harassing the residents and scaring the children. This is a common experience in most villages in the West Bank—a relative calm can turn to a violent situation in an instant and we never know when this might happen. They do not give us any warning or legitimate reason for their invasion into our homes.
Just because the Israeli military is not dropping bombs on the West Bank like in Gaza, does not mean we are not also living under Occupation, military siege, experiencing oppression on a daily basis and living in fear of the Israeli military presence.
Since the bombings in Gaza have started, Israeli forces in the West Bank have killed more than 20 Palestinians, and more than 1,000 have been injured. But this violence, these numbers, these human lives rarely make it into the Western news media because it disrupts the perception that the West Bank is safe and Gaza is the place of violent Occupation. The Israeli propaganda machines have an interest in keeping the Palestinians separated within the minds of the Western audiences—suggesting Gaza as the only place of violent resistance and Israeli Army massacres and the West Bank as a safe, prosperous, and cooperative place.
Following Nobel Peace Prize winner Yitzak Rabin’s policy to break the Palestinian popular resistance during the First Intifada by literally breaking our bones, the Israeli military now routinely shoots demonstrators in the legs with live ammunition. This strategy is designed to deter participation in marches and protests against the ongoing Israeli Occupation. If they shoot and kill a Palestinian, it might make the news, and many family members and friends will be so saddened and angry that they will join the popular resistance efforts in the place of the fallen. But when they shoot us in our legs, maiming but not killing, this never makes the news and prevents the individual from returning to join in future demonstrations. This policy is not only illegal under international law, but it is absolutely inhumane and not the actions of a government that honestly wants to make peace with their neighbors.
With easily over 350,000 illegal Israeli settlers living in more than 120 settlements throughout the West Bank, the Palestinians are experiencing a special type of hell-like Occupation in the West Bank. There is a Wall built on our land, surrounding us and cutting us off from our neighbors, and there are countless checkpoints within the West Bank that prevent us from moving freely. These structures are a daily reminder that the Israeli military is not here for Israeli security. They are here to humiliate us, imprison us and make our lives difficult.
If the Israeli government was so concerned about their security, they could build the Wall on their own side of the 1967 border and build the checkpoints between their cities and towns, not deep within our side of the Green Line and between our villages. This is not for security, this is for control, harassment and continued oppression.
According to the Israeli human rights group Btselem, as of May 2014 Israel was holding over 5053 Palestinian prisoners, the majority of whom were arrested in the West Bank. This includes over 450 prisoners who are being held under administrative detention, with no charges, no trial, and no set date of release. Israel also holds over 215 Palestinian children in their prisons.
In an effort to further humiliate and destroy the lives of the Palestinians, since 1967 the Israeli government has demolished over 27,000 homes and other structures within the West Bank and East Jerusalem (Ichad.org). Many families living in the West Bank have demolition orders on their homes, particularly those living in what is known as Area C, which makes up over 70% of the West Bank.
This is land that Palestinians already live on, but that Israel has complete military and civil control over since the signing of the Oslo Accords. Controlling Area C in particular allows the Israelis to continue their campaign of silent genocide throughout the West Bank, slowly and quietly annexing more of our land, controlling all of our movements between our villages, schools and places of work, and imposing a violent military regime that they are hoping will make life here so miserable that we will simply leave.
people in the west bank must continue to engage in popular resistance against the Israeli Occupation and tell the truth about what is happening to them here . Of course what is happening in Gaza is terrible and the suffering and violence at the hands of the Israeli military there cannot be measured and must be ended. But the story that is all too often evaded, ignored or simply washed over is that there is daily violence, oppression and Occupation in the West Bank as well. Here our citizens are imprisoned and tortured, our homes are demolished, our brothers and sisters are injured and killed and our voices and suffering goes unheard.
people must end this Israeli strategy of silent genocide. they let the world know that the people also are suffering in the West Bank, also are living under Occupation.
by Hamde Abu Rahma .
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