Alternet
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Israel's Ever More Sadistic Reprisals Help Shore up a Sense of
Victimhood
Israel's Ever More Sadistic Reprisals Help Shore up a Sense of Victimhood
By Jonathan Cook [1] / AlterNet [2]
July 12, 2017, 7:21 AM GMT
When Israel passed a new counter-terrorism law last year, Ayman Odeh, a
leader of the country's large minority of Palestinian citizens, described
its draconian measures as colonialism's "last gasp," comparing it to "the
panic of the French at the end of the occupation of Algeria."
The panic and cruelty plumbed new depths the first week of July, when
Israeli officials launched a $2.3 million lawsuit against the family of Fadi
Qanbar, who crashed a truck into soldiers in Jerusalem in January, killing
four. He was shot and killed at the scene.
The suit demands that his widow, Tahani, reimburse the state for the
compensation it awarded the soldiers' families. If she cannot raise the
astronomic sum, the debt will pass to her four children, the oldest of whom
is seven years old. Israel is reported to be preparing many similar cases.
Like other families of Palestinians who commit attacks, the Qanbars are
homeless, after Israel sealed their East Jerusalem home with cement. Twelve
relatives were also stripped of their residency papers as a prelude to
expelling them to the West Bank.
None of them has done anything wrong; their crime is simply to be related to
someone Israel defines as a "terrorist."
This trend is intensifying. Israel has demanded that the Palestinian
Authority stop paying a small monthly stipend to families like the Qanbars,
whose breadwinner was killed or jailed. Conviction rates among Palestinians
in Israel's military legal system stand at more than 99 percent, and
hundreds of prisoners are incarcerated without charge.
Israeli legislation is set to seize $280 million - a sum equivalent to the
total stipends - from taxes Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian
Authority, potentially bankrupting it.
On Wednesday, July 19, Israel loyalists will introduce in the US Senate a
bill to similarly deny the PA aid unless it stops "funding terror" Issa
Karaka, a Palestinian official, said it would be impossible for the PA to
comply: "Almost every other household.is the family of a prisoner or
martyr."
Israel has taken collective punishment -a serious violation of international
law-to new extremes. Israel argues that a potential attacker can only be
dissuaded by knowing his loved ones will suffer harsh retribution. Or put
another way, Israel is prepared to use any means to crush the motivation of
Palestinians to resist its brutal, five-decade occupation.
All evidence, however, indicates that when people reach the breaking point,
and are willing to die in the fight against their oppressors, they give
little thought to the consequences for their families. That was the
conclusion of an investigation by the Israeli army more than a decade ago.
In truth, Israel knows its policy is futile. It is not deterring attacks,
but instead engaging in complex displacement activity. Ever more sadistic
forms of revenge shore up a collective and historic sense of Jewish
victimhood while deflecting Israelis' attention from the reality that their
country is a brutal colonial settler state.
If that verdict seems harsh, consider a newly published study into the
effects on operators of using drones to carry out extrajudicial executions,
in which civilians are often killed as "collateral damage."
A US survey found pilots who remotely fly drones soon develop symptoms of
post-traumatic stress from inflicting so much death and destruction. The
Israeli army replicated the study after its pilots operated drones over Gaza
during Israel's 2014 attack - the ultimate act of collective punishment.
Some 500 Palestinian children were killed as the tiny enclave was bombarded
for nearly two months.
Doctors were surprised, however, that the pilots showed no signs of
depression or anxiety. The researchers speculate that Israeli pilots may
feel more justified in their actions, because they are closer to Gaza than
US pilots are to Afghanistan, Iraq or Yemen. They are more confident that
they are the ones under threat, even as they rain down death unseen on
Palestinians.
The determination to maintain this exclusive self-image as the victim leads
to outrageous double standards.
The first week of July, the Israeli supreme court backed the refusal by
officials to seal up the homes of three Jews who kidnapped Mohammed Abu
Khdeir, a 16-year-old from Jerusalem, in 2014 and burned him alive.
In May the Israeli government revealed that it had denied compensation to
six-year-old Ahmed Dawabsheh, the badly scarred, sole survivor of an arson
attack by Jewish extremists that killed his entire family two years ago.
Human rights group B'Tselem recently warned that Israel has given itself
immunity from paying compensation to all Palestinians under occupation
killed or disabled by the Israeli army, even in cases of criminal
wrongdoing.
This endless heaping of insult upon injury for Palestinians is possible only
because the west has indulged Israel's wallowing in victimhood so long. It
is time to prick this bubble of self-delusion and remind Israel that it, not
the Palestinians, is the oppressor.
A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.
Jonathan Cook is one of the winners of the 2011 Martha Gellhorn Special
Prize for Journalism. His most recent books are Israel and the Clash of
Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East [3] (Pluto
Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair [4]
(Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net [5].
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [6]
[7]
Sign Up!
Get AlterNet's Daily Newsletter in Your Inbox
EMAIL:
+ sign up for additional lists
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/world/israels-ever-more-sadistic-reprisals-help-shor
e-sense-victimhood
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jonathan-cook-0
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745327540/counterpunchmaga
[4] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1848130317/counterpunchmaga
[5] http://www.jkcook.net/
[6] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=Typo on Israel's Ever More
Sadistic Reprisals Help Shore up a Sense of
Victimhood&body=URL:http://www.alternet.org/world/israels-ever-more-sadistic
-reprisals-help-shore-sense-victimhood
[7] http://www.alternet.org/
[8] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B