The Jerusalem bomb - a terrible setback for the Palestinian cause

The recent bomb in Jerusalem - after 7 years of relative peace in that city - is a terrible event. First of all, for the innocent civilians involved. No decent human being can support the use of violence against civilians.

Of course the Israelis, too, attack civilians. Over 400 Palestinian children were killed in the attack on Gaza. And they should be (and were) widely condemned for it.


According to news reports, the bus bombing killed one person and left up to 50 injured



But that is not a justification for anybody else to do the same thing. It is easy to understand the frustration that could have led to this. But it is not morally justified - and equally important - it is a tactical disaster.

Murdering Israeli civilians is a huge setback for the Palestinian cause. Not just because it will drive Israelis even further into the militant camp, (though not many are in a peace camp today), but more importantly, because it will  undercut the sympathy for Palestinians in the West.

The Israel lobby work hard to convince Canadians that Israel is under threat and justifies everything it does to protect its security. If it didn't blocade Gaza, build the wall, imprison Palestinians, etc. etc., Israel says in effect, the Arabs would kill us all. This bomb seems to confirm that message.

No decent Canadian, however sympathetic to the cause of human rights for Palestinians, can approve of this terrorist attack. Many will today be shaken in their belief that Palestinians just want human rights. ("Perhaps they do want revenge", they will wonder. "And if they want "revenge" I don't want any part of it.")

We still don't know who did it. (Hamas is blamed - of course - but who knows??) It doesn't even matter. In fact, the bomb might as well have been placed by Israeli secret agents - judging by the effect it will have. This act will make it much harder to develop support for Palestinians in Canada.

Palestinian Canadians, those who want to develop support for their cause in Canada, must be very disappointed.

Background

Of course, the Jerusalem bombing has a context. It comes after days of mounting tension between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel has attacked Gaza several times from the air, killing many Palestinians including children. Hamas has been lobbing more of its ineffective rockets in to Israel.

And then there was that terrible murder near Nablus of 5 Jewish settlers. Of course, the settlers shouldn't have been there in the first place. Of course, it is not clear who murdered them. (Suspicion has fallen on an immigrant worker who was not Palestinian.)

But that has not stopped the Israeli government from telling the whole world that the act was done by Palestinian terrorists. Nor has it stopped Israeli settlers from what they call a "day of Rage" attacking Palestinians all over the West Bank "in retaliation".

On Monday a Palestinian was stabbed by settlers, a shop was set on fire and later a group of settlers were seen stoning Palestinians' cars in Hebron in the southern West Bank. One of the Hebron settlers also ran over a five-year-old Palestinian boy causing moderate injuries while on Sunday an 11-year-old Palestinian girl walking to school was run over. 

Jewish settlers armed with machine guns and accompanied by Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers uprooted hundreds of olive trees planted by Palestinian farmers near Bethlehem.

Israel will take full advantage of this opportunity to paint Palestinians in an unfavourable light, and Palestine's western supporters will be nervously holding back, trying to make sense of it.

For more information on the "Day of Rage" and its impact on Palestinians, read here.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54954

Palestinians deserve their human rights. We can develop a broad Canadian base of support for this. But those efforts are seriously undermined when it appears that Palestinians have attacked innocent Israeli citizens.

Is it true that Palestinians "danced in the streets" of Gaza over the murder of the 5 settlers?

A Brand New Myth

In the wake of the horrific murders of five Jewish family members, including three children, in the West Bank settlement of Itamar, a number of conservative blogs have been pushing a story that crowds of Palestinians in Gaza turned out to “celebrate” the murders. The stories were accompanied by photos apparently from Getty Photos.

A Palestinian man is shown offering sweets to Hamas policemen in the streets of the Gaza town of Rafah to celebrate an attack which killed five members of an Israeli family in Itamar

 A Palestinian man distributing sweets in the streets of the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on March 12, 2011 to celebrate an attack which killed five Israeli settlers at the Itamar settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus

Ynet news reported, “Gaza residents from the southern city of Rafah hit the streets Saturday to celebrate the terror attack in the West Bank settlement of Itamar where five family members were murdered in their sleep, including three children. Residents handed out candy and sweets, one resident saying the joy ‘is a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank.’”

The story was subsequently picked up by the Israeli press which reported jubilant Muslims crowded Gaza’s streets, handing out candy and sweets in the wake of the murders.Later, it came to North America and has been widely circulated by Zionist circles as a way to prove the basic, inhuman nature of Palestinians.

However, all of these claims appear to be based on a single story from last Saturday in the Israeli tabloid Ynet. http://www.ynetnews.com An internet search shows several pictures of the same man offering sweets to various people. He also seems to have a camera in his other hand. No “jubilant Muslims” are to seen in the background of the pictures. In fact, it looks like a normal day in Rafah.

All this appears to be an elaborate propaganda piece aimed – again – at portraying Palestinians as hate-crazed and Anti-Semitic. In fact, almost all organizations in Palestinian society have denounced the murders and called for an impartial investigation of what happened.

Murder in the West Bank

Last Friday, somebody brutally murdered 5 Israelis in the West Bank settlement of Itamar, near Nablus. Apparently the murderer entered the fenced and guarded compound in the middle of the night, and murdered 5 settlers, including the father and mother and 3 children in their beds.

Five victims - two adults and 3 children

An atrocious act which no circumstance could ever justify.

But who did it? And why?

Immediately suspicion fell on Palestinians. They certainly would have motive. Israeli settlers are illegally occupying Palestinian land, cutting down Palestinian trees, killing Palestinian animals, throwing stones at Palestinian kids. They are protected by the Israeli army. Some Palestinians can't take it any more. That is the objective: to discourage the Palestinians. The settlers believe that God gave them the land of Israel, and they have the God-given right to try to chase the Palestinians away.

(For a concrete example of this daily harassment, see a letter from The Christian Peacekeepers Team in Hebron, which I have reprinted below. Their letters, every week, detail the vicious war that the Israeli "settlers" are waging against the Palestinians in the area.)

But did Palestinians commit the murder? And if so who? A frustrated shepherd? A terrorist cell?

The Israeli Press and the Israeli Government were quick to implicate Palestinian "terrorists". Some attributed the murder to "The Al-Aqsa Brigade" even though they disclaimed any responsibility. (It's hard to image that any political organization would expect to gain sympathy by killing babies). Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas condemned the killing and Hamas also dissociated it self from it.

The Israeli government quickly announced that it would build 500 more settlements in the West Bank in reprisal for the murder. (The announcement was so quick it seems likely they were already planning to do so but that the murder provided a convenient justification that would be hard for the international community to criticise.)

Israel Approves New Construction in Wake of Massacre

In response to this bloody incident the Israeli cabinet approved the construction of several hundred new homes in several different localities in the disputed West Bank, including in Gush Etzion, Maale Adumim, Ariel and Kiryat Sefer. The Associated Press reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office sent a text message to journalists stating that all the new construction has been approved in areas which are considered to be major settlement blocs that Israel intends to keep after a final peace settlement has been reached.

Mideast Newswire 

But do we know who did it? The police investigation is still under way

Now it appears that there is another possible explanation. Apparently the murdered family had one (or more) immigrant Thai workers in their employ. Israel has increasingly resorted to using immigrant workers to do menial and agricultural jobs. One of these workers seems to have had some issues with the family, including the fact that he was owed a significant amount of back wages. According to the Jerusalem Post, he has also been arrested, although police have now put a "gag" order on the press.

I do not know how this will turn out. However, the political temptation to blame the murders on "Palestinian terrorists" seems all too powerful. It has begun to circulate as a 'fact" in the Western Jewish diaspora. And I do not have confidence that the Israeli police investigation will be able to resist the political pressures to put further blame on Palestinian "terrorists".

Here is the most recent post from the Christian Peacemakers Team in Hebron. It gives you an idea of the kind of constant tension that the Palestinians are living under in the West Bank. The CPT is a Christian group dedicated to peace and justice in the Middle East.
You can get on their mailing list by writing to: cpthebron@yahoogroups.com

CPT RELEASE

Settlers from Harsina Attack Palestinian Home

Paulette Schroeder

16 March 2011

On Monday March 14, fifteen (Israeli) settlers from Harsina Settlement attacked the (Palestinian) Jabber home in Baqa’a Valley.  The Jabber home sits at the bottom of the mountain housing the Harsina Settlement. The Jabber family consists of several families including 17 persons with 12 children.  At 2:30 pm fifteen settlers from Harsina Settlement  began throwing stones at the Jabber home  but were stopped by the Israeli Military.  They returned at 6:30pm and stoned the house for one hour with no interference from the Army.

One of the Jabber brothers who lives across the road from Harsina Settlement  said he was so afraid for his family that he wondered whether he should move his family to one of his cousins’ homes.  He said he does not sleep until 1:30 am or 2:30 am each night.