dna edit: Chronicle of violence

The recent spiral of violence in West Asia, at its heart the murders of teenaged Israeli and Palestinian boys, has yet again exposed the deep fault lines in keeping the peace in this conflict-ridden region. The fresh bout of killings erupted with the kidnappings of three Israeli teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19, who were subsequently murdered in the West Bank. In retaliation, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy abducted from his home was burned to death in a Jerusalem forest. Since the incidents, Israelis have indiscriminately rounded up Palestinians, including members of Parliament. The death toll in Gaza continues to move upward as Israel has intensified its attack on Hamas. Reports claimed that eight members of the same family — including five children — were killed in an air strike on two homes in Khan Younis, south of Gaza. 

Clearly, West Asia is in the throes of yet another full-blown crisis. The tragedy of the three murdered Israeli teenagers appears to have triggered a bloody process of collective retribution against all Palestinian citizens, across the occupied territories. One must remember that most of the victims in the line of fire of the Israelis are unarmed civilians. It is feared — and with good reason — as the violence continues to play itself out, more innocent Palestinians, many among them children and adolescents, could fall prey to it. Its pertinent to remember in this context that not a single Israeli has lost his life in the Hamas propelled rocket attacks. By the Israeli army’s own admission, over 80 Palestinian children were killed in its last major attack on the Gaza Strip in 2008-09. The toll could be even higher, according to other estimates.

This is an unfair, unjust and unequal war. And so it has been from the very outset. For the last four decades and more, Palestinians have been forced to live a life of indignity and humiliation under an illegal military occupation: A form of 21st century apartheid kept in place with the huge military and financial aid from the United States of America. Following the abduction of the three Israeli teenagers, a racist campaign raged on the Internet which finally led to the terrible murder of the Palestinian teenager. Without bringing down this system of apartheid and setting the Palestinians free from military occupation, peace will not endure in this region.

Recall a similar outbreak of deadly violence in the region last year during which the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) killed 27 Palestinians in the West Bank, the highest figure since 2008, and three times higher than in 2012, when nine Palestinians were killed in the West Bank.

In an emotive article in the newspaper Haaretz, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy rightly asks: “What exactly were we thinking? That Gaza would live forever in the shadow of Israeli (and Egyptian) caprice, with the restraints sometimes loosened a bit, or sometimes painfully tightened?”

Palestinians both physically and mentally inhabit spaces fraught with danger and uncertainty. Entire generations are forced to live on edge — in fear of sudden intrusions by Israeli soldiers. The citizens of Gaza have no ‘secure spaces’ to retreat to. The present Operation Protective Edge, in the words of Levy, “started and will end like all previous operations — giving us no protection and no edge.” This bloody chronicle of destruction will go on till the day Israel withdraws its illegal occupation and the Palestinians can reclaim the land as their own.