Long live the Intifada

Oct. 19 — In every single part of Palestine — from the West Bank and Jerusalem to Occupied Palestine since 1948 — the most recent phase of the resistance to occupation and racism has impacted the Zionist settler population with fear and apprehension.

Self-sacrificing Palestinian youths armed only with knives and determination have let the settler population know that they can no longer hide in their shopping malls, trendy downtowns with al-fresco dining and 24-hour cable-TV mindsets.

Palestinian protesters take position during clashes with Israeli troops, Oct. 17.

The Israeli settler population now finds itself in the same psychological place as the plantation class in Southampton County, Va., in 1831 when Nat Turner led a slave rebellion.

Despite an estimated total of over $137 billion in direct U.S. aid in the form of military and economic grants since 1949, and with at least $3.74 billion paid out in 2015 (Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October 2015), the so-called “State of Israel” still has no answer to Palestinian resistance and steadfastness.

The Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon does not work in Jerusalem alleyways. The Merkava Mark IV battle tank, with its German MTU Friedrichshafen-designed diesel engine, doesn’t operate inside a Beersheva bus station. And cruise-missile-carrying, Dolphin-class submarines built in Germany offer no protection to Israeli settlers swimming and sunning on the beaches of Tel Aviv.

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has just issued a report titled “Israel’s Arbitrary Killings and Its System of Structural Violence.” It documents how Israel routinely violates the Geneva Convention and is guilty of war crimes. For example: “On July 23, Israeli forces killed Falah Hamdi Zamel Abumaria, 53, from the village of Beit Amr in Hebron. Soldiers stormed his house to detain his son, Muhammed; when they shot the younger man, Abumaria panicked and threw a pottery vase at the soldiers from his balcony. The soldiers responded by firing three live bullets at his chest.”

This is why 16-year-olds attack settlers with knives.