This weeks bomb in Jerusalem (wihich killed one and injured 30) is on my mind and my heart as I post this, as are the deaths of around 14 in Gaza, in the last 10 days (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/27/c_13800589.htm) and all those deaths happening around the middle east at this time that are not considered "hot topics" by news editors both here and at home.
Horrific Murders Leads to Misery for Palestinians (15/03/11)
The world views Israel and Palestine through thick and foggy lenses. Horrific and terrifying events close to Nablus in the Northern West Bank brought this to light this week. The stories behind the often bloody events in this most media exposed corners of the earth get condensed and packaged into bite size pieces for easy consumption. Both spin doctors and news editors play on this; a careless-or clever- word here and there changes the complexion of the story and distorts the picture. They rely on others’ natural biases or limited knowledge of context to frame an event in a way that suits purpose. Often, vested interests on both sides use tragedy to give weight to political and social agendas in what can seem like naked opportunism out of step with human grief and suffering.
In the early hours of Saturday the 12th of March 5 members of the Fogel family from the illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar were murdered in their beds. An attacker entered their home at night and stabbed to death a mother, a father and three children including a 3 month old baby. The result was shock and outrage throughout Israeli society. Israel's most popular daily paper, Yedioth Ahronoth, ran a front page story calling the killers "Human beasts" in the sub-heading that ran beneath the victims' photographs.
While Mahmood Abbas, the Palestinian Authority President, described the attacks as inhuman, the main Palestinian news site Maan News, chose to question why the settlers were in the West Bank in the first place; they also asked “where (were) the almost 200,000 Israeli police and soldiers charged with enforcing the occupation were when the attack happened.”? The remark echoed the Palestinian and International consensus and indeed International Law regarding the destructiveness and danger of the settlement project, never the less it seemed callous in the wake of such an atrocity.
This is a place where tribal lenses blind the human dimension to a story time and time again. “United in Grief” is not a viable headline here. Throughout Saturday, in press pages across the world, the Itamar murders made headlines alongside the devastation in Japan. On the BBC News and other pages the attackers were branded “Palestinians”. This was despite the fact that the act was that of an unknown murderer. There were suggestions that it was the work of a Palestinian militant group called Imad Mughniyya Group but a statement from them claiming responsibility did not match incident reports and was followed by a denial. Questioned remained as to how any attacker would have got into the heavily fortified settlement without detection. While the remaining members of the Fogel family grieved, on the streets of Nablus and the Palestinian villages surrounding the city the primary reaction was one of fear and incredulity. In the hours that followed their fears were realised.
During Saturday, all roads in the vicinity were blocked crippling the movement of Palestinians. Between 20-50 Palestinian men were arrested and detained in the villages surrounding Itamar, many houses were ransacked and possessions destroyed. Curfews were imposed on whole villages, with residents not permitted to leave their homes from Saturday on into Monday morning. One of the men arrested was the 16 year old son of Mohammed Kamel Kawareek; the main reason for suspicion was that his brother had been one of two Palestinians killed by either the Israeli Army or settlers in mysterious events which followed his arrest a few months before. No investigation or arrests were made after those killings, with the army and settlers giving conflicting reports as to why the teenagers had been shot multiple times in the head and back.
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| Mohammed Kamel Kawareek and his wife in the Wake of their son's arrest, behind them a picture of their murdered son. Photo Petter Lynden |
Days before these events on Monday 7th March, 4 Palestinian villagers close to Itamar were seriously injured from gunfire from both settlers and the Israeli Defence Forces following a settler invasion of Palestinian land. A 15 year old was rushed to hospital with a bullet hole through his kidney and a further 3 had surgery after sustaining bullet wounds. After trouble started the soldiers who were called in the wake of the settler attack and fired live rounds into a group of Palestinians coming to assist those driven from their land and injured by settler violence. Soldiers then stood with settlers as ambulances were called to assist the injured Palestinians.
According to the Israeli Human Rights organisation, B’Tselem; “when Israeli civilians attack Palestinians, the Israeli authorities employ an undeclared policy of leniency and compromise toward the perpetrators.” Leniency and compromise were not employed in the weekend response to the Itamar murders; dozens of Palestinian men were in prison, and life in many villages was paralysed. Israel has used collective punishment regularly in the past; but in this case, what had any Palestinians done to deserve punishment?
A little reported fact in the world’s press is that since the last fatal attack on settlers in the West Bank in September 2010, at least 41 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Army in the area, while a further 85 Palestinians have been injured and 4 killed by settlers. On Sunday, a day after the murders, the Israeli government announced that as a direct result of the murders 500 new homes are to be built in illegal settlements in the West Bank. Yesha, a settler group called the move a step in the right direction but added “It is deeply troubling that it requires the murder of children in the arms of their parents to achieve such an aim.”
By Sunday evening, many more Palestinians had been detained including all the male inhabitants of an entire village. Settler violence all over the West Bank was on the increase. The Israeli press quoted their prime minister as urging settlers, despite their pain, not to take the law into their own hands. However, reports suggested that in some areas the laws was with them, with the military joining settlers in attacking Palestinian villages under the pretext of intervention in the violence.
On Monday evening, Palestinian news sources reported authorities in Itamar had started rounding up Thai immigrant workers in relation to the case. A Thai worker who was owed 10000 Shekels by the murdered father Udi Fogel had threatened to kill the family if he wasn’t paid. The development went unreported in the Israeli press, and indeed the world press, with millions of people still under the impression that the murder was carried out “Palestinian militants”. Should the murderer turn out not to be Palestinian, will the pain of the remaining members of the Fogel family become less relevant to the Israeli government? Will the government retract its plans for more illegal homes to be built in the West Bank? Will the media (Israeli and worldwide) apologise for jumping to the wrong conclusion? Will the army compensate those Palestinian families whose lives have been turned upside down? It seems unlikely in a place where grief is a politician’s asset. It fell to Motti Fogel, brother of the murdered father Udi Fogel to say by his graveside that his death should not be used “as a symbol or a national event”, but no one was listening anymore. In a propaganda war, it seems that those who stoop lowest get the spoils.
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