The local KKK hopes its violence will spur an angry Palestinian reaction to justify murdering more Palestinians and expelling the majority of them to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon
Be aware that for every news report that you read about an act of settler terror, the Jewish Ku Klux Klan is carrying out dozens more acts of assault, harassment and bullying, while the army attacks and abuses Palestinians in dozens of neighborhoods and checkpoints to protect the KKK and its missions.
Be aware as well that these so-called rampages are part of a calculated, multi-pronged plan. Their ultimate goal is a land “cleansed” of Palestinians (in German, that already sounds clichéd). There is a direct line between the events of today and the violent takeover of Palestinian lands and springs by settlers in the 1990s and early 2000s. Similarly, there is a connection between the apathy back then and the fatalism of today, as if the rioters are a biblical swarm of locusts and we are helpless against them. Perhaps the fatalism at least testifies to the fact that some are shocked, rather than delighted, by our hardy pioneers, who remind us of the great-grandfather from an Anita Shapira biography.
Remember that behind every man with a mask, weapon and tzitzit stands a normative society, warm and loving. It comprises of local settlement councils, rabbis, social workers and synagogues. Its warm embrace comes in the form of donations, the provision of herds, and water and support with logistics that enable hundreds of so called rotten apples to take pleasure in abusing the elderly, the young, and children, and then to squat on their land and infest the homes of the owners they’ve evicted.
Do not forget that behind every attack, act of destruction and theft of sheep, there are police officers who do not bother to answer calls for help, and soldiers who rush to the scene to arrest those under attack and join in the beatings, if not killing. And behind everything, there is a glorious legal system – prosecutors and judges – who never knew, saw or heard what was happening around them, while legalizing the abomination called settlements. They sit at home and mourn (or not) for Israeli democracy, and are content with its Jewish part, with their grandchildren, the promotions and pensions.
Please refresh your memory: Every shepherd community that these dark, ultra-kosher forces managed to expel had struggled for decades with the “legal” prohibition against living with dignity that Israeli governments put in place. Civil Administration officials prepared the demolition orders for every new tent or renovated cave dwelling, every connection to water and electricity or installation of solar panels. They signed off on fines for the offense of transporting drinking water in a tanker, using a tractor and grazing their herds. These former officials sit in their homes and mourn (or not) for Israeli democracy, but are proud of their children who go on to “meaningful and value-based” army service which means the killing of many Palestinians and Lebanese.
And regarding the WhatsApp groups of hilltop jugend shouting “gevalt” over the few among them who have been arrested by the police, or over a fraction of an outpost that was destroyed for the eighth time and will be rebuilt tomorrow: behind every person known to have been arrested are dozens of bone-crushing bandits who fall into the category of “no suspects found.”
When you drink beer, or work on research that examines the impact of global warming on the color of butterfly wings, or plan your trip to Rome, choose which watermelon to buy, fill up your bus pass or get quietly angry at your boss at work – what you don’t want to know is indeed happening. Moment by moment, even if our media refrain from reporting it, and the world is preoccupied with other matters, Israel continues its war of annihilation in Gaza. Or rather, in about a third of the 365-square kilometers of the Strip that the state representing the victims of the Holocaust and its survivors allows two million living-dead to stay in, at a density that only the devil could create.
The living-dead walk kilometers between growing piles of trash and stinking puddles of sewage to bring home water. They walk on crutches and one leg waiting for a coupon from the World Food Programme that will keep their families alive, and take their daughters to a makeshift clinic, perhaps there they will know what to do about the fleas, the ticks and the rat bites. As they play music, write poetry, or plant mint and beans among the tents, dozens of their dead loved ones cry out from the ground. And in between, the living are slaughtered by more Israeli bombs.
Pretend you are surprised: The Jewish KKK is hoping for a Palestinian reaction to their violence to advance its goal – a campaign of mass killing of Palestinians in the West Bank, and then a campaign of deportation of the living to Jordan, Syria or Lebanon. The Blue-and-White KKK knows full well that the Palestinians are afraid, shocked and angry. Their hands are tied, and they are alone. Both of their unelected leaderships are concerned with their own survival. No country has issued the appropriate ultimatum to Israel: Stop the pogroms and arrest the perpetrators, now, or we will ban Israelis from our countries and halt all trade and scientific collaboration.
The KKK is waiting for some Palestinians who have personally been assaulted, or have seen their loved ones assaulted, or for young people unable to bear the helplessness in the face of so much evil to get weapons, money and advice from Iran to organize and take revenge on the Israelis. The weeds (as they are termed by other settlers) are waiting for a stone to cause a bus full of children to roll over.
And then the majority of the people of Israel will be united with the heroes of the KKK and the army, which will carry out most of the killing and deportation, because after all, we were attacked. We are the victims.
Amira Hass is an Israeli journalist, columnist, activist, and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaperHaaretz covering Palestinian affairs in Gaza and the West Bank. Frustrated by the events of the First Intifada and by what she considered their inadequate coverage in the Israeli media, she started to report from the Palestinian territories in 1991. As of 2003, she was the only Jewish Israeli journalist who has lived full-time among the Palestinians. She lived in Gaza from 1993 to 1997. In 1999, Amira Hass published her memorable book, Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege, an account of life in Gaza during a time of conflict and hardship.
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PAJU NOTE:
This excellent and important opinion article written by eminent Israeli journalist Amira Hass states in unhindered terms the ugly truth about the racist, fascist Jewish settlers and complicit Israeli soldiers in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian West Bank, and the calculated ethnic cleansing project which reflects Israeli policy regarding the embattled Palestinian population.
Amira Hass’ reference to the ‘Jewish Ku Klux Klan’ could not be more appropriate in describing the nature of the extreme-right Jewish settlers. Nor can there be any doubt whatsoever of the veracity of the late Israeli academic Yeshayahu Leibowitz’s reference to the coming of a Judeo-Nazi regime in Tel Aviv as an offshoot of the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories. (Leibowitz first used the term publicly to criticize Israeli authorities whom, Leibowitz, claimed would transform Israel into a police state. His reference to Judeo-Nazism came during the 1982 Lebanon War, when Israeli troops laid siege to Beirut and allied Christian militias massacred civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Leibowitz described the perpetrators as “Judeo-Nazis).
It is all the more significant to remark that Amira Hass, like Gideon Levy and other Haaretz journalists and editorialists state the inconvenient truths about the Israeli apartheid-genocide regime while living in ‘the Belly of the Beast,’ so to speak. Let it be noted that if Amira Hass and Gideon Levy were journalists in Canada, they would be media outcasts; they would be ‘tarred and feathered’ by our feckless political Jacks-in-the-Box and contrite corporate media (include the CBC and Radio-Canada among the latter) who do the bidding of the pro-Israel lobby in Canada with unconscionable moral cowardice.
The truth, however, shall come out. It can no longer be constrained. Let it be understood, therefore, that there will be no place for our feckless Canadian political class and less than honest corporate media to hide!
