Jenin raid

Less than 48 hours after an Israeli military raid on a refugee camp in the Palestinian city of Jenin that left six Palestinians dead and promoted UN Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland to call for a stop to the violence, Israeli forces killed three more Palestinians in what the local media describes as a shootout in Jenin. According to the Israeli authorities, one of those killed in the Jenin raid was suspected of being involved in the killing of two Israeli settlers in the Palestinian town of Huwara. Israeli occupying settlers retaliated to the killing by torching dozens of homes, shops and cars in Huwara. Shockingly, the rightwing Israeli finance minister called for the town of Huwara to be erased, prompting the US State Department spokesperson to call the remarks “irresponsible”, “repugnant” and “disgusting” and urge PM Netanyahu to “disavow” the comments.

While the Americans’ uncharacteristically aggressive rebuke of the Israeli finance minister’s comments are a breath of fresh air, as acknowledged by the Palestinian leadership, the response of the UN and Israeli allies still leaves much to be desired. Wennesland’s calls for “the parties to observe calm and restraint” continue the long tradition of bothsidism in response to Israel’s unjust occupation of Palestinian lands and creating a false moral equivalence between the occupiers and the occupied. The responses have nothing to say of the fact that Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank is a crime under international law, that the Israeli government has vowed to increase illegal settlements in the West Bank, that many of its settlers are armed and often backed by the Israeli military and that the Israeli government has explicitly rejected the two-state solution. Any reasonable interpretation of these facts would lead one to conclude that the Israelis are the ones instigating violence in the West Bank. To call on Palestinians to restrain themselves in light of these circumstances is akin to asking people to keep their cool as their homes and communities are razed to the ground and they are made refugees in their own land.

Then there is the issue of Israel’s persistently disproportionate response to Palestinians defending themselves from the occupying force’s atrocities. In the Jenin raid, Israel’s army saw fit to attack a refugee camp with shoulder-fired missiles to hunt down a Palestinian. Israeli citizens and settlers have the protection of one of the world’s most powerful militaries, but who do the Palestinians have to turn to when their rights are violated and they are murdered without justification? Recognizing this imbalance of power and the primary role of Israel’s occupation and illegal settlements in stoking violence is crucial to any fair response or opinion on what is happening in the West Bank.