When Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, is pilloried by Israel for expressing the view that too many homes and too much land is being seized by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, you know his administration there has simply lost the plot.
There can be no other rational explanation for the Netanyahu regime to respond in such a manner; it even went as far as to claim that Ban’s condemnation will actually result in an increase in terrorism. That’s a hypothesis that’s simply a tautology and the complete opposite to the reality on the ground.
This latest outburst of Israeli indignation comes after it quietly announced that it was taking over a fertile portion of land near Jericho, land that would be used to further the process of colonisation. At the same time, the government has also issued demolition orders for 83 Palestinian homes, mostly in and around occupied Jerusalem. The decrees came because residents of those homes were arrested and had participated in acts of protest and resistance against the illegal Israeli regime itself.
In the past, the demolition orders were used by Israelis up to 2005 and at the end of the second Intifada. They were stopped then because the occupation forces realised that bulldozing homes of Palestinians was simply fuelling the very injustices that had angered Palestinians in the first place. No one ever said Israelis had long memories. Clearly, by reverting to demolitions now, particularly after their land grabs and policy of admitting Jewish worshippers to Al Haram Al Sharif, the government of Netanyahu is only interested in antagonising Palestinians even more now to suit the policies of isolation, subjugation and repression.
The reality is that the government of Israel has no interest in reaching any agreement or accommodation with the Palestinian people. If anything, given the events elsewhere in Iraq, Syria and with the rapprochement of Iran and the West, Netanyahu now feels that he can get away with even more acts of oppression, adding insult to injury. His government has agreed to allow non-orthodox Jews more access to Al Buraq Wall, flying in the face of long-standing agreements and practices at the site.
Ban, in response to the Israeli criticism, simply uses the metaphor that the Israelis are shooting the messenger. Given Netanyahu’s past actions and murderous invasions into Gaza and against Palestinians, he and the occupation forces he controls are all too ready to shoot with live ammunition.
