Haaretz Writer Asks: “Who Is Supposed To Protect Palestinians?”

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. **