{"id":127816,"date":"2014-06-20T18:09:18","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T18:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/2014-06-20\/israelis-close-their-ears-to-reasons-for-kidnap\/"},"modified":"2014-06-20T18:09:18","modified_gmt":"2014-06-20T18:09:18","slug":"israelis-close-their-ears-to-reasons-for-kidnap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/israelis-close-their-ears-to-reasons-for-kidnap\/","title":{"rendered":"Israelis close their ears to reasons for kidnap"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Middle East Eye \u2014 20 June 2014<\/p>\n<p>The apparent abduction of three teenagers \u2014 blamed by Israel on the Palestinian Islamic group Hamas \u2014 has provoked a wave of revulsion in Israel but almost no readiness to examine the causes of the incident or the appropriateness of Israel\u2019s response.<\/p>\n<p>The youths, one aged 19 and the two others 16, have been missing since they were seen hitchhiking in a settler area of the West Bank late on 12 June. A huge Israeli military operation, which has involved mass arrests of Palestinians, a lockdown of the city of Hebron and raids on hundreds of homes, has so far failed to locate them.<\/p>\n<p>There are indications that tensions are rising rapidly. On Friday morning, a 16-year-old Palestinian was <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F.premium-1.600059\" >reported<\/a> to have been shot dead by Israeli soldiers during a raid on the West Bank village of Dura, and another seriously injured during confrontations in Qalandia. Israeli airstrikes on Gaza have left six people, including four children, wounded.<\/p>\n<p>But with most Israeli Jews welcoming Israel\u2019s harsh response, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, Haneen Zoabi, discovered the cost of not joining the chorus of outrage. She was assigned a bodyguard this week after <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jpost.com%2FOperation-Brothers-Keeper%2FKnesset-gives-Zoabi-bodyguard-after-threats-to-her-life-359766\" >receiving<\/a> a flood of death threats, but is also being investigated by state prosecutors for incitement.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview, she <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2F972mag.com%2Fthe-israeli-medias-hit-job-on-mk-haneen-zoabi%2F92230%2F\" >refused<\/a> to dismiss those who carried out the abductions as simple \u201cterrorists\u201d, describing them instead as people driven to desperate acts by living under occupation.<\/p>\n<p>Foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.israelnationalnews.com%2FNews%2FNews.aspx%2F181824%23.U6McfBY8r4U\" >responded<\/a> by calling Zoabi a terrorist, adding: \u201cThe fate of the kidnappers and the fate of Zoabi, an inciter, should be the same.\u201d A popular Israeli <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F1.599180\" >Facebook page<\/a>, meanwhile, urged the army to \u201cShoot a terrorist every hour \u2014 until the boys are returned\u201d.<\/p>\n<h4>Kidnapped Palestinians<\/h4>\n<p>Reflecting on the furore, Zoabi said she was \u201csurprised\u201d by the controversy \u201csince the injustice inflicted on the other side is so much greater. There are thousands of abducted Palestinians in Israeli prisons.\u201d She <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F.premium-1.599654\" >concluded<\/a>: \u201cJust as I want the kidnapped Palestinian prisoners to be freed, I want the [Israeli] boys to be freed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That kind of moral equivalence \u2014 however justified \u2014 is one very few Israeli Jews, or many in the international community, are willing to countenance. But if they hope to avoid a future of ever-escalating violence that sucks in both Israelis and Palestinians, they need to listen to Palestinians like Zoabi.<\/p>\n<p>As Zoabi noted, Palestinian attempts to abduct Israelis are intimately tied to the issue of the 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, especially the nearly 200 of them held without charge in administrative detention. More than half of the latter group are nearly two months into a hunger strike to <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.middleeasteye.net%2Fnews%2Fpalestinian-prisoners-refuse-settlement-hunger-strike-sets-record%2F855621504\" >protest<\/a> their continuing incarceration.<\/p>\n<p>Palestinian groups have long seen abductions of Israelis as leverage to free prisoners, as occurred in dramatic fashion in 2011 with the release of more than 1,000 prisoners in return for an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, captured by Hamas five years earlier.<\/p>\n<p>Gaining bargaining chips has become an even more valued goal since Israel\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reneged in April on a promise to release a final batch of long-term prisoners. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, had engaged in months of fruitless peace talks in return for an agreement to free more than 120 prisoners.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Netanyahu has responded to the abductions not with a new wariness on the issue of prisoners\u2019 rights but by massively adding to Palestinian grievances about the prisoners.<\/p>\n<h4>Mass arrests<\/h4>\n<p>The Israeli army is making mass arrests across the West Bank of politicians and anyone with the loosest connection to Hamas. It is also re-imprisoning many of the Palestinians who had been released in return for Shalit. The chances that any of the more than 350 people arrested so far have information on the abductions is highly unlikely, as even Israeli military analysts <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F.premium-1.599735\" >have conceded<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, the government is racing through legislation to <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fnational%2F.premium-1.599503\" >force-feed<\/a> the hunger-striking prisoners, and has okayed the effective <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jerusalemonline.com%2Fnews%2Fpolitics-and-military%2Fmilitary%2Fhamas-investigation-ticking-bomb-6001\" >reintroduction<\/a> of torture as standard procedure against the people it is arresting. This reverses a ruling 15 years ago by Israel\u2019s supreme court that for the first time severely limited the use of torture.<\/p>\n<p>Even more emotive in this case than the general issue of the prisoners is the matter of Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinian children. Up to 700 pass through Israeli prisons each year, most held for throwing stones on evidence their lawyers have not seen, often based on forced confessions from the child himself or other children in detention. The <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.vice.com%2Farticle%2Fisrael-is-holding-even-more-palestinian-children-in-solitary-for-throwing-rocks\" >conviction rate<\/a> of minors stands at over 99 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>Human rights groups note that Israel is the only country that systematically <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Fmiddle-east%2Fisrael-government-tortures-children-by-keeping-them-in-cages-human-rights-group-says-9032826.html\" >prosecutes<\/a> children in a military court system.<\/p>\n<p>The Israeli army\u2019s night-time raids on Palestinian homes, in which children as young as 10 or 11 can be seized from their beds at gunpoint, and then transferred into prisons in Israel in violation of Israeli law, look every bit like abductions to most Palestinians.<\/p>\n<p>Israelis and international observers might arrive at the same conclusion were they to watch the horrifying footage contained in a recent documentary on Australian television, <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.net.au%2F4corners%2Fstories%2F2014%2F02%2F10%2F3939266.htm\" >Stone Cold Justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h4>Nakba Day executions<\/h4>\n<p>So the slogan visible on T-shirts across Israel \u2014 \u201cBring back our boys\u201d \u2014 could just as easily be worn by Palestinians in the streets of Ramallah or Nablus.<\/p>\n<p>Israelis\u2019 current expectations of Palestinian remorse for the abductions are also unlikely to stir much soul-searching among Palestinians. They wonder instead why there was so much less interest from either Israelis or the international community when Israeli soldiers executed, rather than abducted, two Palestinian children near Ramallah last month during Nakba Day protests.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than evoking the outcry being heard now, most Israelis rejected the evidence clearly visible in video footage of the killings of Nadim Nuwara, 17, and Mohammed Abu al-Thahir, 16. Both were unarmed when they were shot. A recent autopsy <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fnational%2F.premium-1.598304\" >confirmed<\/a> what was already obvious: they were killed with live ammunition by Israeli sharpshooters.<\/p>\n<p>Israel\u2019s dangerous self-absorption \u2014 and its refusal to consider the wider political and military framework within which the abductions occurred \u2014 is only reinforced by the international response. World leaders who <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jpost.com%2FPillar-of-Defense%2FKerry-calls-kidnapping-of-Israelis-despicable-terrorist-act-359404\" >leapt<\/a> to issue condemnations of the abductions have failed to offer similar denunciations of even graver Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, such as the Nakba Day killings.<\/p>\n<h4>Red Cross intervenes<\/h4>\n<p>Human rights organisations have performed no better. The International Committee of the Red Cross, the official arbiter of the Geneva Conventions, the bedrock of international humanitarian law, issued a <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.icrc.org%2Filot%2F2014%2F06%2F15%2Ficrc-calls-for-the-immediate-and-unconditional-release-of-the-three-israeli-teenagers%2F\" >statement<\/a> urging the three Israeli teenagers\u2019 immediate release.<\/p>\n<p>But the Red Cross carefully avoids making critical statements about Israel\u2019s many war crimes in enforcing the occupation. As was expected, the Red Cross <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Felectronicintifada.net%2Fblogs%2Fali-abunimah%2Fred-cross-refuses-call-israel-release-palestinian-children-held-army\" >refused<\/a> requests to issue a similar call for Israel to release the Palestinian children it is holding.<\/p>\n<p>What the international responses have overlooked is the context for Palestinian acts of violence, such as the abductions: Israel\u2019s nearly half-century of belligerent occupation. That is a continuous and inciting act of violence against the Palestinian people, to which they sometimes react with their own, more limited acts of violence.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of facing this fact, Israel has responded by putting its military boot even more firmly on Palestinians\u2019 throats. It is now exploiting outrage at the abductions to justify <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F.premium-1.600039\" >eradicating<\/a> Hamas\u2019 political presence in the West Bank, even though so far there is no evidence linking the kidnappings to Hamas. (With the assistance of the Palestinian Authority\u2019s security services, Israel arrested most of Hamas\u2019 military leaders in the West Bank following the capture of Shalit in 2006.)<\/p>\n<h4>Weakening Hamas<\/h4>\n<p>Israel has not even tried to hide its intentions. One senior commander, Nitzan Alon, <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ynetnews.com%2Farticles%2F0%2C7340%2CL-4531570%2C00.html\" >said<\/a> this week: \u201cHamas will come out of this confrontation weakened both strategically and operationally. We\u2019ll continue weakening them for as long as it takes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Israel\u2019s economy minister, Naftali Bennett, was more <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.middleeasteye.net%2Fnews%2Fisrael-aims-break-hamas-hunt-youths-intensifies%2F441169653\" >forthright<\/a>: \u201cWe will turn membership in Hamas into an entry ticket to hell.\u201d While Alex Fishman, an analyst with close ties to the security services, <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.timesofisrael.com%2Fisrael-aims-to-break-hamas-as-hunt-for-youths-intensifies%2F\" >said<\/a> Israel was treating this as a \u201cone-time operational opportunity\u201d to \u201ccastrate\u201d Hamas in the West Bank.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Israeli media, Israel\u2019s intention is not only to arrest the Hamas leadership in the West Bank, including its political leaders, and break up its charitable networks, but also to <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F1.599022\" >exile<\/a> the West Bank leadership to Gaza. In short, Israel intends to interfere directly in Palestinian politics, guaranteeing a one-party statelet \u2014 under the Fatah party of Abbas \u2014 in the West Bank and restricting Hamas to the tight confinement of Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>Given that the Palestinian factions recently agreed to a unity government, and are preparing for elections in the coming months, Netanyahu is actually intending to prise apart the Palestinian reconciliation and strip Palestinians of the chance to elect their leadership. Or as Israeli military analyst Amos Harel <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F.premium-1.600039\" >wondered<\/a> of the current operations\u2019 goals: \u201cWill the campaign go on until Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas publically renounces the agreement with Hamas?\u201d<\/p>\n<h4>\u2018Gates of hell\u2019<\/h4>\n<p>Netanyahu is again having his cake \u2014 refusing to engage in real negotiations on Palestinian statehood \u2014 and eating it: upending Palestinian efforts to seek other diplomatic options to end the occupation. It is confirmation that Netanyahu is the one, far more so than the abductors, who is threatening any chance of peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis.<\/p>\n<p>Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.timesofisrael.com%2Fpa-accuses-israel-of-collective-punishment-in-west-bank%2F\" >said<\/a> that expulsions from the West Bank to Gaza would \u201copen the gates of hell\u201d. Another Hamas official has warned more realistically that another intifada \u2014 or uprising \u2014 is coming, and will be ignited \u201cwhen enough pressure is exerted on the Palestinian people\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>But the trickier question for Palestinians is what strategies of resistance do they really have? And herein lies the paradox.<\/p>\n<p>Because, as Israel has confined them to ever smaller spaces inside the occupied territories, Palestinians have found the tools available to them to resist more and more restricted too. This is particularly apparent in Gaza, where militants have adopted a strategy of rocket fire into Israel \u2014 to much condemnation around the world \u2014 largely because there is no enemy to confront directly. A war against the drones hovering out of sight above, watching, is not yet feasible.<\/p>\n<p>As Haneen Zoabi suggested in her interview, abductions of Israelis are a weapon of the weak, a way Palestinians can strike back against those stealing their lands without risking the suicidal course of taking on the might of the Israeli army.<\/p>\n<h4>Hi-tech surveillance<\/h4>\n<p>But Israeli intentions to weaken the formal political-military structures in Palestinian society represented by Fatah and Hamas will not make acts of opportunistic violence like the abductions of the Israeli teenagers less likely. In fact, it can be expected to make such incidents more common.<\/p>\n<p>Bureaucracy-heavy groups like Fatah and Hamas, dependent on centralised planning, have found it increasingly difficult to act against Israel in an era of hi-tech surveillance. The preparations for resistance operations have invariably left a footprint visible to Israeli intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, there are indications that much smaller cells, largely independent of these traditional structures, are starting to emerge, possibly based around families, where the bonds of loyalty are tighter and less likely to be penetrated by Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Israel\u2019s difficulties solving the current abductions suggest that just such a cell may be behind this operation. Breaking apart Hamas and Fatah, and thereby weakening them, could simply accelerate this process.<\/p>\n<p>Such developments promise a treacherous future for Palestinians even more than Israelis. Samir Awad, a politics professor at Birzeit University, near Ramallah, has observed that the collapse of political factions could lead to what he calls the \u201cAghanistanisation\u201d of the occupied territories, with tribal warlords taking over small enclaves that become their personal fiefdom.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, analyst Chemi Shalev <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fblogs%2Fwest-of-eden%2F.premium-1.599724\" >warned<\/a> recently that the abductions were pushing Israelis to the edge of a collective \u201cinsanity\u201d, overwhelmed by self-righteousness and intolerance, \u201ca society losing its grip\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The public hounding of Zoabi for speaking a few simple truths is a further sign that most Israelis would rather continue living in dangerous denial than confront the destructive reality of the occupation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"post_tags\">Tagged as: <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jonathan-cook.net%2Ftag%2Fanti-democratic%2F\" rel=\"tag\">anti-democratic<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jonathan-cook.net%2Ftag%2Foccupation%2F\" rel=\"tag\">occupation<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&#038;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jonathan-cook.net%2Ftag%2Fprisoners%2F\" rel=\"tag\">prisoners<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/pixel.quantserve.com\/pixel\/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif\" border=\"0\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Middle East Eye &ndash; 20 June 2014<\/p>\n<p>The apparent abduction of three teenagers &ndash; blamed by Israel on the Palestinian Islamic group Hamas &ndash; has provoked a wave of revulsion in Israel but almost no readiness to examine the causes of the incident or the appropriateness of Israel&rsquo;s response.<\/p>\n<p>The youths, one aged 19 and the two others 16, have been missing since they were seen hitchhiking in a settler area of the West Bank late on 12 June. A huge Israeli military operation, which has involved mass arrests of Palestinians, a lockdown of the city of Hebron and raids on hundreds of homes, has so far failed to locate them.<\/p>\n<p>There are indications that tensions are rising rapidly. On Friday morning, a 16-year-old Palestinian was <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F.premium-1.600059\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a> to have been shot dead by Israeli soldiers during a raid on the West Bank village of Dura, and another seriously injured during confrontations in Qalandia. Israeli airstrikes on Gaza have left six people, including four children, wounded.<\/p>\n<p>But with most Israeli Jews welcoming Israel&rsquo;s harsh response, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, Haneen Zoabi, discovered the cost of not joining the chorus of outrage. She was assigned a bodyguard this week after <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jpost.com%2FOperation-Brothers-Keeper%2FKnesset-gives-Zoabi-bodyguard-after-threats-to-her-life-359766\" target=\"_blank\">receiving<\/a> a flood of death threats, but is also being investigated by state prosecutors for incitement.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview, she <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2F972mag.com%2Fthe-israeli-medias-hit-job-on-mk-haneen-zoabi%2F92230%2F\" target=\"_blank\">refused<\/a> to dismiss those who carried out the abductions as simple &ldquo;terrorists&rdquo;, describing them instead as people driven to desperate acts by living under occupation.<\/p>\n<p>Foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.israelnationalnews.com%2FNews%2FNews.aspx%2F181824%23.U6McfBY8r4U\" target=\"_blank\">responded<\/a> by calling Zoabi a terrorist, adding: &ldquo;The fate of the kidnappers and the fate of Zoabi, an inciter, should be the same.&rdquo; A popular Israeli <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F1.599180\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook page<\/a>, meanwhile, urged the army to &ldquo;Shoot a terrorist every hour &ndash; until the boys are returned&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<h4>Kidnapped Palestinians<\/h4>\n<p>Reflecting on the furore, Zoabi said she was &ldquo;surprised&rdquo; by the controversy &ldquo;since the injustice inflicted on the other side is so much greater. There are thousands of abducted Palestinians in Israeli prisons.&rdquo; She <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F.premium-1.599654\" target=\"_blank\">concluded<\/a>: &ldquo;Just as I want the kidnapped Palestinian prisoners to be freed, I want the [Israeli] boys to be freed.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>That kind of moral equivalence &ndash; however justified &ndash; is one very few Israeli Jews, or many in the international community, are willing to countenance. But if they hope to avoid a future of ever-escalating violence that sucks in both Israelis and Palestinians, they need to listen to Palestinians like Zoabi.<\/p>\n<p>As Zoabi noted, Palestinian attempts to abduct Israelis are intimately tied to the issue of the 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, especially the nearly 200 of them held without charge in administrative detention. More than half of the latter group are nearly two months into a hunger strike to <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.middleeasteye.net%2Fnews%2Fpalestinian-prisoners-refuse-settlement-hunger-strike-sets-record%2F855621504\" target=\"_blank\">protest<\/a> their continuing incarceration.<\/p>\n<p>Palestinian groups have long seen abductions of Israelis as leverage to free prisoners, as occurred in dramatic fashion in 2011 with the release of more than 1,000 prisoners in return for an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, captured by Hamas five years earlier.<\/p>\n<p>Gaining bargaining chips has become an even more valued goal since Israel&rsquo;s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reneged in April on a promise to release a final batch of long-term prisoners. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, had engaged in months of fruitless peace talks in return for an agreement to free more than 120 prisoners.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Netanyahu has responded to the abductions not with a new wariness on the issue of prisoners&rsquo; rights but by massively adding to Palestinian grievances about the prisoners.<\/p>\n<h4>Mass arrests<\/h4>\n<p>The Israeli army is making mass arrests across the West Bank of politicians and anyone with the loosest connection to Hamas. It is also re-imprisoning many of the Palestinians who had been released in return for Shalit. The chances that any of the more than 350 people arrested so far have information on the abductions is highly unlikely, as even Israeli military analysts <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F.premium-1.599735\" target=\"_blank\">have conceded<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, the government is racing through legislation to <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fnational%2F.premium-1.599503\" target=\"_blank\">force-feed<\/a> the hunger-striking prisoners, and has okayed the effective <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jerusalemonline.com%2Fnews%2Fpolitics-and-military%2Fmilitary%2Fhamas-investigation-ticking-bomb-6001\" target=\"_blank\">reintroduction<\/a> of torture as standard procedure against the people it is arresting. This reverses a ruling 15 years ago by Israel&rsquo;s supreme court that for the first time severely limited the use of torture.<\/p>\n<p>Even more emotive in this case than the general issue of the prisoners is the matter of Israel&rsquo;s treatment of Palestinian children. Up to 700 pass through Israeli prisons each year, most held for throwing stones on evidence their lawyers have not seen, often based on forced confessions from the child himself or other children in detention. The <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.vice.com%2Farticle%2Fisrael-is-holding-even-more-palestinian-children-in-solitary-for-throwing-rocks\" target=\"_blank\">conviction rate<\/a> of minors stands at over 99 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>Human rights groups note that Israel is the only country that systematically <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Fmiddle-east%2Fisrael-government-tortures-children-by-keeping-them-in-cages-human-rights-group-says-9032826.html\" target=\"_blank\">prosecutes<\/a> children in a military court system.<\/p>\n<p>The Israeli army&rsquo;s night-time raids on Palestinian homes, in which children as young as 10 or 11 can be seized from their beds at gunpoint, and then transferred into prisons in Israel in violation of Israeli law, look every bit like abductions to most Palestinians.<\/p>\n<p>Israelis and international observers might arrive at the same conclusion were they to watch the horrifying footage contained in a recent documentary on Australian television, <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.net.au%2F4corners%2Fstories%2F2014%2F02%2F10%2F3939266.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Stone Cold Justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h4>Nakba Day executions<\/h4>\n<p>So the slogan visible on T-shirts across Israel &ndash; &ldquo;Bring back our boys&rdquo; &ndash; could just as easily be worn by Palestinians in the streets of Ramallah or Nablus.<\/p>\n<p>Israelis&rsquo; current expectations of Palestinian remorse for the abductions are also unlikely to stir much soul-searching among Palestinians. They wonder instead why there was so much less interest from either Israelis or the international community when Israeli soldiers executed, rather than abducted, two Palestinian children near Ramallah last month during Nakba Day protests.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than evoking the outcry being heard now, most Israelis rejected the evidence clearly visible in video footage of the killings of Nadim Nuwara, 17, and Mohammed Abu al-Thahir, 16. Both were unarmed when they were shot. A recent autopsy <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fnational%2F.premium-1.598304\" target=\"_blank\">confirmed<\/a> what was already obvious: they were killed with live ammunition by Israeli sharpshooters.<\/p>\n<p>Israel&rsquo;s dangerous self-absorption &ndash; and its refusal to consider the wider political and military framework within which the abductions occurred &ndash; is only reinforced by the international response. World leaders who <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jpost.com%2FPillar-of-Defense%2FKerry-calls-kidnapping-of-Israelis-despicable-terrorist-act-359404\" target=\"_blank\">leapt<\/a> to issue condemnations of the abductions have failed to offer similar denunciations of even graver Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, such as the Nakba Day killings.<\/p>\n<h4>Red Cross intervenes<\/h4>\n<p>Human rights organisations have performed no better. The International Committee of the Red Cross, the official arbiter of the Geneva Conventions, the bedrock of international humanitarian law, issued a <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.icrc.org%2Filot%2F2014%2F06%2F15%2Ficrc-calls-for-the-immediate-and-unconditional-release-of-the-three-israeli-teenagers%2F\" target=\"_blank\">statement<\/a> urging the three Israeli teenagers&rsquo; immediate release.<\/p>\n<p>But the Red Cross carefully avoids making critical statements about Israel&rsquo;s many war crimes in enforcing the occupation. As was expected, the Red Cross <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Felectronicintifada.net%2Fblogs%2Fali-abunimah%2Fred-cross-refuses-call-israel-release-palestinian-children-held-army\" target=\"_blank\">refused<\/a> requests to issue a similar call for Israel to release the Palestinian children it is holding.<\/p>\n<p>What the international responses have overlooked is the context for Palestinian acts of violence, such as the abductions: Israel&rsquo;s nearly half-century of belligerent occupation. That is a continuous and inciting act of violence against the Palestinian people, to which they sometimes react with their own, more limited acts of violence.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of facing this fact, Israel has responded by putting its military boot even more firmly on Palestinians&rsquo; throats. It is now exploiting outrage at the abductions to justify <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F.premium-1.600039\" target=\"_blank\">eradicating<\/a> Hamas&rsquo; political presence in the West Bank, even though so far there is no evidence linking the kidnappings to Hamas. (With the assistance of the Palestinian Authority&rsquo;s security services, Israel arrested most of Hamas&rsquo; military leaders in the West Bank following the capture of Shalit in 2006.)<\/p>\n<h4>Weakening Hamas<\/h4>\n<p>Israel has not even tried to hide its intentions. One senior commander, Nitzan Alon, <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ynetnews.com%2Farticles%2F0%2C7340%2CL-4531570%2C00.html\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> this week: &ldquo;Hamas will come out of this confrontation weakened both strategically and operationally. We&rsquo;ll continue weakening them for as long as it takes.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Israel&rsquo;s economy minister, Naftali Bennett, was more <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.middleeasteye.net%2Fnews%2Fisrael-aims-break-hamas-hunt-youths-intensifies%2F441169653\" target=\"_blank\">forthright<\/a>: &ldquo;We will turn membership in Hamas into an entry ticket to hell.&rdquo; While Alex Fishman, an analyst with close ties to the security services, <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.timesofisrael.com%2Fisrael-aims-to-break-hamas-as-hunt-for-youths-intensifies%2F\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> Israel was treating this as a &ldquo;one-time operational opportunity&rdquo; to &ldquo;castrate&rdquo; Hamas in the West Bank.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Israeli media, Israel&rsquo;s intention is not only to arrest the Hamas leadership in the West Bank, including its political leaders, and break up its charitable networks, but also to <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F1.599022\" target=\"_blank\">exile<\/a> the West Bank leadership to Gaza. In short, Israel intends to interfere directly in Palestinian politics, guaranteeing a one-party statelet &ndash; under the Fatah party of Abbas &ndash; in the West Bank and restricting Hamas to the tight confinement of Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>Given that the Palestinian factions recently agreed to a unity government, and are preparing for elections in the coming months, Netanyahu is actually intending to prise apart the Palestinian reconciliation and strip Palestinians of the chance to elect their leadership. Or as Israeli military analyst Amos Harel <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Fdiplomacy-defense%2F.premium-1.600039\" target=\"_blank\">wondered<\/a> of the current operations&rsquo; goals: &ldquo;Will the campaign go on until Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas publically renounces the agreement with Hamas?&rdquo;<\/p>\n<h4>&lsquo;Gates of hell&rsquo;<\/h4>\n<p>Netanyahu is again having his cake &ndash; refusing to engage in real negotiations on Palestinian statehood &ndash; and eating it: upending Palestinian efforts to seek other diplomatic options to end the occupation. It is confirmation that Netanyahu is the one, far more so than the abductors, who is threatening any chance of peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis.<\/p>\n<p>Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.timesofisrael.com%2Fpa-accuses-israel-of-collective-punishment-in-west-bank%2F\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> that expulsions from the West Bank to Gaza would &ldquo;open the gates of hell&rdquo;. Another Hamas official has warned more realistically that another intifada &ndash; or uprising &ndash; is coming, and will be ignited &ldquo;when enough pressure is exerted on the Palestinian people&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>But the trickier question for Palestinians is what strategies of resistance do they really have? And herein lies the paradox.<\/p>\n<p>Because, as Israel has confined them to ever smaller spaces inside the occupied territories, Palestinians have found the tools available to them to resist more and more restricted too. This is particularly apparent in Gaza, where militants have adopted a strategy of rocket fire into Israel &ndash; to much condemnation around the world &ndash; largely because there is no enemy to confront directly. A war against the drones hovering out of sight above, watching, is not yet feasible.<\/p>\n<p>As Haneen Zoabi suggested in her interview, abductions of Israelis are a weapon of the weak, a way Palestinians can strike back against those stealing their lands without risking the suicidal course of taking on the might of the Israeli army.<\/p>\n<h4>Hi-tech surveillance<\/h4>\n<p>But Israeli intentions to weaken the formal political-military structures in Palestinian society represented by Fatah and Hamas will not make acts of opportunistic violence like the abductions of the Israeli teenagers less likely. In fact, it can be expected to make such incidents more common.<\/p>\n<p>Bureaucracy-heavy groups like Fatah and Hamas, dependent on centralised planning, have found it increasingly difficult to act against Israel in an era of hi-tech surveillance. The preparations for resistance operations have invariably left a footprint visible to Israeli intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, there are indications that much smaller cells, largely independent of these traditional structures, are starting to emerge, possibly based around families, where the bonds of loyalty are tighter and less likely to be penetrated by Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Israel&rsquo;s difficulties solving the current abductions suggest that just such a cell may be behind this operation. Breaking apart Hamas and Fatah, and thereby weakening them, could simply accelerate this process.<\/p>\n<p>Such developments promise a treacherous future for Palestinians even more than Israelis. Samir Awad, a politics professor at Birzeit University, near Ramallah, has observed that the collapse of political factions could lead to what he calls the &ldquo;Aghanistanisation&rdquo; of the occupied territories, with tribal warlords taking over small enclaves that become their personal fiefdom.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, analyst Chemi Shalev <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fblogs%2Fwest-of-eden%2F.premium-1.599724\" target=\"_blank\">warned<\/a> recently that the abductions were pushing Israelis to the edge of a collective &ldquo;insanity&rdquo;, overwhelmed by self-righteousness and intolerance, &ldquo;a society losing its grip&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>The public hounding of Zoabi for speaking a few simple truths is a further sign that most Israelis would rather continue living in dangerous denial than confront the destructive reality of the occupation.<\/p>\n<p>Tagged as: <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jonathan-cook.net%2Ftag%2Fanti-democratic%2F\" rel=\"tag\">anti-democratic<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jonathan-cook.net%2Ftag%2Foccupation%2F\" rel=\"tag\">occupation<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/redirect.viglink.com\/?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jonathan-cook.net%2Ftag%2Fprisoners%2F\" rel=\"tag\">prisoners<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/pixel.quantserve.com\/pixel\/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif\" border=\"0\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1219,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-127816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1219"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}