Since the beginning of October, 44 Palestinians have been killed in shootings and clashes with Israeli forces in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, while eight Israelis have been killed in knife and gun attacks.One Eritrean asylum seeker was killed after he was mistaken for a Palestinian attacker during a raid in southern Israel. Rights group have warned that Israel is using excessive force against Palestinians and that some of the incidents amounted to extrajudicial killings.The violence has been triggered in part by recent visits by Jewish groups to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, coupled with Israeli restrictions on Palestinian access to the mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites.Frustration is also mounting as Israel continues to build Jewish-only settlements throughout the West Bank, taking over Palestinian lands, in defiance of international law. An unceasing cycle is witnessed where Palestinians are oppressed and their reactions invite even more furious oppression. Now the Israeli security forces constantly patrol Palestinian neighbourhoods, roadblocks are set up on roads, movement and prayers of Palestinian men are restricted, and anyone can be stopped and frisked on the street. The mass hysteria about “security concerns” to which the Israeli government and a significant portion of its population cling as justification has now moved on to suppressing Arabs in economic and social domains as well. Four cities of Israel, including Tel Aviv, have issued edicts that prohibit Arab Muslims from working as labourers or janitors at schools in the municipalities — two jobs that have been the almost exclusive preserve of the ‘minorities’ in Israel. Naked, brutal and direct repression is married with legal and institutional discrimination against the Palestinians and Arabs in Israel and the political and living conditions for them are worse than they were for the non-white population of South Africa during the much condemned Apartheid regime. Israel however faces no such censure as it continues to enjoy the backing of the US and other major powers, while the Palestinian people are left to their own devices to suffer alone. The peace process is dead in the water and there is no credible political way for Palestinians to assert their rights and have their voices heard. This depressing and hopeless situation results in the youth, who have been raised on images of violence and are afforded an avenue of information sharing and resistance by the social media and internet, to act out in desperation. It is thought these disparate incidents of violence will not translate into a sustained third intifada due to a lack of leadership, but if the powder keg-like situation is allowed to continue, the evolution of resistance cannot be ruled out.
pk.shafaqna.com
