Israeli violence, Palestinian resistance and Abbas’s pleas for foreign interference

Israeli settlers and soldiers have increased their use of violence in recent days following the murder of 19 year old student Hadil Hashlamoun last month. The latest extrajudicial killing by Israel, of Palestinian teenager Fadi Alloun, has once again demonstrated that, despite general outrage and notorious publicity, the world’s attention is constantly diverted in a manner that provides the Israeli aggressors with impunity.

The rampant Israeli violence of these past few days, which has also included brutal beatings of Palestinian citizens and raids on houses in the West Bank, has shown clearly that Israel does not need a reason to commit atrocities; it is simply demonstrating and enforcing its perverse presence in occupied Palestinian territory.

Hashlamoun and Alloun will both retain an element of symbolism as regards the manner of their extrajudicial murders. However, it must be remembered that both cases garnered publicity due to the availability of the details disseminated through the media. Regular Israeli incursions and other forms of violence — such as Jewish settler attacks, for example — are usually reported as a statistical detail; they should not be neglected, lest indignation at injustice be shackled to atrocities which, due to their narrative and visual material available, manage to garner further attention than the grinding daily routine of political violence practiced and perfected by Israel.

Predictably, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged “all leaders to condemn violence and incitement, maintain calm and to do everything they can to avoid further escalation.” However, the statement was issued following an attack in which two Israeli settlers were killed by a Palestinian. The statement not only served as yet another assertion of Israel’s alleged right of “self-defence” despite its illegal existence, but also provided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with additional backing for his “security meeting” last Sunday. This resulted in further oppressive policies such as increasing the use of administrative detention against Palestinian civilians, deploying more security forces in the West Bank and utilising the “terror” pretext to demolish Palestinian homes and thus pave the way for further colonial expansion.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas has reinforced Israel’s use of violence against Palestinian civilians by once again reducing himself to the status of a beggar within the international community. Instead of endorsing the Palestinian right to resist against Israeli aggression, Abbas has called upon the UN Secretary-General to send international protection forces to the Occupied Palestinian Territories; it is a move that would further restrict Palestinian resistance. In a way, this recent call is similar to the hypothesis put forth by Abbas in early 2014, when he suggested NATO troops as a possible border control option in the unlikely event that Israel withdraws from the West Bank. In addition, his Palestinian Authority security agencies (he has an incredible 70,000 officers at his disposal) have been cracking down on Palestinians protesting against Jewish settler incursions and violence at Al-Aqsa Mosque, thus justifying Israel’s increasing efforts to annihilate the Palestinian population.

As befits his usual, belligerent rhetoric, Netanyahu has vowed to “fight to the death” with reference to Israel’s state violence against Palestinian resistance to the military occupation of their land. Apart from running a government that has clearly expressed itself in favour of genocide to exterminate the Palestinian population, it is clear that Netanyahu will not be lacking in collaborators. Abbas is top of the list with his grovelling to both Israel and the UN for further imperialist interference and invasion of the shattered remnants of Palestinian territory in which he is supposed to establish an “independent and viable” state.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.