Another ‘international’ wounded in action:
Some 2,000 Palestinians and left-wing activists gathered in the West Bank village of Bil’in on Friday to commemorate three years of their struggle against the security barrier in the area.
According to the organizers of the demonstration, 10 people were wounded in clashes with security forces, including a US peace activist who was hit in the head by a rubber bullet and evacuated in moderate condition to a hospital in Ramallah…
Since 2002, 11 people have been killed and thousands wounded in the weekly demonstrations. — Jerusalem Post
It would be cruel, but correct, to say that the organizers of the demonstration intend for such things to happen. That’s what makes them effective, and that’s why they do their best to provoke reactions from the soldiers and police who are trying to protect the fence (otherwise the ‘demonstrators’ would tear it down).
In my local newspaper today, there was a letter that pretty much encapsulates the point of view of the people who would risk injury or death to help the Palestinians.
The writer mentions “41 years of military occupation”, and talks about limitations on the freedom of Palestinians, such as Gaza residents who are allegedly (but in fact not) suffering from electricity reductions, etc. “Wouldn’t you fight back?” he asks.
He is unable or unwilling to see that the situation of the Palestinians today is a result of not 41 but close to a hundred years of war waged on the Jewish population of the region by the Arab world, especially including the Palestinians. He is unable to understand that the Palestinians have consistently rejected attempts to partition the already-partitioned Jewish portion of the Palestine mandate in such a way as to create an independent state of Palestine, choosing to hold out for the replacement of the Jewish state with an Arab one.
Even a Zionist like myself will admit that the Palestinians are having a rough time. The thing is, we are simply not prepared to give up the Jewish state. The Palestinian position that it all belongs to them is not justified historically, and certainly their murderous behavior and serial failures of leadership — the Mufti, Arafat, Hamas, etc. — place the majority of the blame for their problems squarely on them.
But the poor ‘international’ who was injured and my local letter-writer have room in their brains only for a list of Palestinian grievances — they did this to us, they did that to us. They don’t notice or don’t believe that the security fence has anything to do with terrorism. They don’t see that the minimal (in truth, laughable) reductions of fuel and electricity to Gaza are direct results of Hamas rockets hitting Israeli cities. And they are unaware of the long history of Arab terrorism against Israel (and against Jews in Palestine, before there was an Israel).
At some point, very soon I’m afraid, a rocket will hit a school and kill a bunch of children. Then Israel will invade Gaza, having exhausted every other means of stopping the rocket fire, and the internationals and letter-writers will go into high gear, exaggerating Palestinian suffering, inventing massacres, etc.
As I have pointed out, Hamas knows this and are continuing to shoot. This means that they welcome a confrontation. They expect that they will be able to cause significant Israeli casualties, which they think will weaken Israel’s resolve (to exist?) But also, they know that there is great value for them in Palestinian casualties, real or made up. They expect that the US, UN, etc. will intervene, protect Hamas from Israel, and force concessions.
Like the Bil’in demonstrators, the more bad things that happen to them, the better they like it.