When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks about cracking down on violence in the occupied West Bank, it only means one thing: Palestinian suffering. In the latest incidents there, spurred by a raid by Israeli forces on the Palestinian refugee camp and town of Jenin, 77 Palestinians were wounded by live and rubber bullets fired by the occupation forces.
Now, Netanyahu has ordered his security forces of oppression to speed up the demolition of homes of Palestinians who dare take their protests to the streets. And he has ordered them to arrest Palestinians and detain them without trial — a move in itself that can only escalate tensions and increase the cycle of violence.
What is interesting though, is that Netanyahu refers to Palestinian protests on the streets of the occupied West Bank as “terror”. If protesting the occupation of your lands, homes and suppression of your rights and nationhood is “terror”, then the brutal response of killing Palestinians equates to state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.
“Terror” is what happens when the full weight of a modern military machine is unleashed on a largely unarmed civilian population that has nowhere to hide and nowhere to run in the Gaza Strip.
“Terror” is what happens when political protesters are attacked with ammunition, arrested and taken to jail, never knowing if or when they’re going to be released, and never facing a charge.
And “terror” is what happens when a six-year-old boy is gunned down in his family’s field, and the perpetrator goes unpunished.
