Security for Everyone, Not Just Settlers and Occupiers

[P F Tinmore]

"Security for Everyone, Not Just Settlers and Occupiers" - Ali Abunimah on Opening of US-Brokered Mideast Peace Talks

 

[P F Tinmore]

ALI ABUNIMAH: Yes. Good morning.

Well, the attack on the settlers yesterday in the West Bank was, I think, a gruesome reminder that when there is no serious and credible political process to end Israel’s occupation and apartheid, violence of this kind will fill the void. And we should recall that since the beginning of 2008, a total of sixty Israelis, many of them soldiers, have been killed in conflict-related violence. In the same period, more than 2,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them civilians, have been killed by the Israeli army and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And every one of these deaths, Palestinian or Israeli, is one too many.

You know, when Secretary of State Clinton speaks about savage brutality, I think she should include the recent steep escalation in other forms of violence, including daily attacks by settlers on Palestinians, a sharp increase in home demolitions by Israel, especially in Jerusalem. And, you know, in July alone, according to Human Rights Watch, 146 Palestinian homes and businesses in the West Bank were destroyed by Israel, the highest level since 2005, as well as the entire Bedouin village of El-Araqib in the Negev, which is actually in Israel. So what you see is that Israel’s violence targets Palestinians everywhere, not just in the Occupied Territories.

So this reality of systematic violence, I think, can only breed more of the same, until there is an end to Israeli occupation and the human and political rights of all the people in the country are respected. So, when we talk about security and saving lives, we have to talk about security for everyone, not just for the settlers and occupiers. And we have to have a real political process aimed at ending Israel’s occupation and colonization, not simply creating a fictional Palestinian state in order to disguise them, as the current US-sponsored peace process seems designed to do.

"Security for Everyone, Not Just Settlers and Occupiers" - Ali Abunimah on Opening of US-Brokered Mideast Peace Talks