The Israeli parliament has approved a law that imposes up to 20 years in prison on people convicted of throwing rocks at moving vehicles, drawing condemnation from Palestinian activists and officials. This law is not about stone-throwing. It is about repressing any form of Palestinian resistance or protest to Israeli colonisation and occupation,” Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the Electronic Intifada website that runs articles and resources on Palestinian struggle, said in an interview on Tuesday.Late on Monday, Israeli lawmakers voted 69 to 17 to increase the punishments, approving legislation proposed after a wave of Palestinian protests last year in East Jerusalem.Confrontations between Palestinian youths and Israeli police routinely degenerate into violent clashes, and stone-throwing has been a symbol of Palestinian resistance since the first Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, against Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s.Since 2011 three Israelis, including a baby and a girl, have been killed in the occupied West Bank after rocks were thrown at vehicles they were in. While this loss of life is regrettable, these developments need to be put in perspective. After all, Israel may well want to prosecute stone-throwing Palestinians and hand them stiff jail terms. The most recent of these bloody forays was in 2014, when Tel Aviv unleashed death and destruction upon the hapless inhabitants of Gaza. Over 2,200 Palestinians were killed — hundreds of them civilians — in that episode, while Israel had no qualms about targeting densely populated neighbourhoods and homes.In fact, a UN inquiry report released recently mostly castigates Israel (as well as Hamas) for committing suspected war crimes during the 2014 Gaza war. Israel, in line with its usual arrogance and contempt for international law, did not cooperate with the probe. The report also observes that Gaza’s civilian population faced “massive firepower” from Israel.The excessively harsh punishment that will be meted out to Palestinian stone-throwers is reflective of the mindset of an oppressive occupying state that treats Arabs worse than chattel. In fact, the Israeli establishment rarely loses an opportunity to humiliate and brutalise the Palestinian sons of the soil, who have become prisoners on their own land.
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Israel to prosecute stone-throwing Palestinians: Is there any law to stop Israel fire power?
