More than compelling, and valid, points made in this op-piece on Consortiumnews.com about what the writer describes as "selective sympathy" in the ongoing Palestinian / Israeli conflict.
"The display of anxiety and aggressive agitation in Israel, triggered by the kidnapping of three young men from an illegal settlement on the West Bank, seems to be accompanied by a near total denial of any legitimate relationship between government actions (the occupation) and Palestinian reactions (the kidnapping).
No matter what the Israelis do to the Palestinians, the Israelis insist that those actions are justified, and no matter how the Palestinians react, the Israelis insist those actions are never justified. By objective standards this Israeli attitude borders on the pathological.
There are multiple tragedies that result from this disconnect. The tragedy of the three Jewish kidnap victims is the one that is foremost in both Israeli consciousness and also in the Western media, accompanied by speculation that the young men were taken as hostages to be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
As if to put out the message that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu will not play that game, the Israeli military is arresting hundreds of Palestinians, including some who had been released in exchange for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. The military is also destroying Palestinian property in a wholesale manner, wounding scores and even murdering a steady number of Palestinians in the search for the kidnap victims.
But all this mayhem, which only deepens Palestinian hatred, may be based on an Israeli false assumption. Quite likely this kidnapping was not carried out to set up some future exchange. Quite likely it was an opportunistic act of revenge, striking back against exactly the kind of repression that the Netanyahu government is again carrying out.
Many Zionists cannot fathom the fact that there are literally millions of Palestinians desiring vengeance for Israeli acts of abuse. That blindness is part of their denial that their own actions define much of the Palestinian reaction. This denial is reinforced by the gambit of labeling nearly all Palestinians as “terrorists.”
Another tragedy, which gets much less media attention, is the tragedy of the collectively kidnapped people of Palestine. That is the phrase used by Avraham Burg, a disillusioned Zionist who, apparently, is slowly but surely replacing his old ideology with contemporary disgust.
As Burg puts it, “All of Palestinian society is a kidnapped society … many of the Israelis who performed ‘significant service’ in the army … entered the home of a Palestinian family in the middle of the night by surprise, with violence, and simply took away the father, brother or uncle .… That is kidnapping and happens every day.”
Continue reading here.
Palestinian street art. (Photo: Wanderlasss/ cc/ flickr)
"The display of anxiety and aggressive agitation in Israel, triggered by the kidnapping of three young men from an illegal settlement on the West Bank, seems to be accompanied by a near total denial of any legitimate relationship between government actions (the occupation) and Palestinian reactions (the kidnapping).
No matter what the Israelis do to the Palestinians, the Israelis insist that those actions are justified, and no matter how the Palestinians react, the Israelis insist those actions are never justified. By objective standards this Israeli attitude borders on the pathological.
There are multiple tragedies that result from this disconnect. The tragedy of the three Jewish kidnap victims is the one that is foremost in both Israeli consciousness and also in the Western media, accompanied by speculation that the young men were taken as hostages to be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
As if to put out the message that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu will not play that game, the Israeli military is arresting hundreds of Palestinians, including some who had been released in exchange for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. The military is also destroying Palestinian property in a wholesale manner, wounding scores and even murdering a steady number of Palestinians in the search for the kidnap victims.
But all this mayhem, which only deepens Palestinian hatred, may be based on an Israeli false assumption. Quite likely this kidnapping was not carried out to set up some future exchange. Quite likely it was an opportunistic act of revenge, striking back against exactly the kind of repression that the Netanyahu government is again carrying out.
Many Zionists cannot fathom the fact that there are literally millions of Palestinians desiring vengeance for Israeli acts of abuse. That blindness is part of their denial that their own actions define much of the Palestinian reaction. This denial is reinforced by the gambit of labeling nearly all Palestinians as “terrorists.”
Another tragedy, which gets much less media attention, is the tragedy of the collectively kidnapped people of Palestine. That is the phrase used by Avraham Burg, a disillusioned Zionist who, apparently, is slowly but surely replacing his old ideology with contemporary disgust.
As Burg puts it, “All of Palestinian society is a kidnapped society … many of the Israelis who performed ‘significant service’ in the army … entered the home of a Palestinian family in the middle of the night by surprise, with violence, and simply took away the father, brother or uncle .… That is kidnapping and happens every day.”
Continue reading here.
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