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‘Too little, but hopefully not too late’

Jun 14,2016 - Last updated at Jun 14,2016

The attack by two Palestinians on a Tell Aviv café last week, which left four Israelis dead and many others injured has, as usual, been met with condemnations from various sources.

But what else would anyone expect other than outright condemnation when two “terrorists” posing as well-dressed young men move into a crowded café, right in the centre of a busy city, sit down, order food, eat and suddenly pull their guns and start shooting indiscriminately at other dining customers, turning an otherwise tranquil eating place into a blood bath?
Besides, it is the Palestinian violence, nothing else that sits constantly under the limelight; the young Palestinian girls and boys who attack Israeli soldiers and other Israelis with knives, the other Palestinians who bomb commuter buses and of course those who launch rockets from Gaza to terrorise peaceful Israeli towns in that area.

When it comes to “crimes” perpetrated by an Arab, a Muslim, Palestinians included, the act of condemnation becomes just another platitude to whitewash the real cause of the violence.

It offers the impression of good will, even if insincere, it exonerates those who wish to appease Israel and the occupation, and it may also provide some consolation to the victims’ families.

Nevertheless, the standard act of condemnation has been so much abused, far too selective and routinely one sided that it has lost most of its value and credibility.

I have no problem condemning attacks on civilians. But for any condemnation to be meaningful and credible, it should fairly apply to all similar cases and situations, it should be genuine, it should objectively address the root causes of all acts of aggression and violation of others’ rights and, most importantly, it should value the lives of all people equally.

What we have been witnessing for several decades is that Israel’s aggressions, no matter how harsh and clearly unprovoked, are hardly ever criticised, let alone condemned, and if so, only very mildly and apologetically.

Israel has been fighting the Palestinians for no less than seven decades.

Following the eviction of most of them from their land, the Palestinians have been bombed in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and anywhere they escaped to.

Their leaders were chased all over the world to be assassinated in cold blood by Israeli death squads.

Although Israel’s aggression is meant to protect the occupation and colonise the rest of Palestine, it is often viewed as self defence, exactly as Israel wants it to be seen.

The Palestinian violence, on the other hand, even when exercised within the right of an oppressed people seeking liberation from occupation, is always labelled and condemned as senseless terrorism.

Israeli government officials have recently been interpreting and attributing the spontaneous and desperate Palestinian attacks on occupation symbols, the settlers and the soldiers, to fanaticism of Muslim extremist, anti-Semitic zealots against innocent Jews, only because they are Jews and not because they are oppressors and occupiers, not because Israel’s violence against the Palestinians has never abated, not because Israel has been placing 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza under siege for almost 10 years reducing their lives to conditions worse than in mediaeval times.

The true cause of the violence is blatantly denied.

Surprisingly, though, there seems to be a shift this time, not, however, coming from the hypocritical international community or from the UN, or even from some Arab states.

Signs of change are coming straight from the heart of Israel.

While the current Israeli leaders resorted to vengeful collective punishment of all Palestinians in response to the Tel Aviv attack, by imposing strangling closures and withdrawing tens of thousands of Palestinian workers’ work permits, the mayor of Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai, has been courageously blaming Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories for the attack on the café.

“We might be the only country in the world where another nation is under occupation without civil rights,” Huldai told his own government through Israeli Army Radio.

He added: “You cannot hold people in a situation of occupation and hope they will reach the conclusion everything is alright. There has been an occupation for 49 years which I was part of and I know the reality and I know leaders need courage to not just talk. We have to show our neighbours that we have true intentions to return to a reality of smaller Jewish state with a clear Jewish majority” Huldai elaborated.

He clearly warned that no one has the courage to find peace with the Palestinians.

The distance between Israel and the reality surrounding it is increasing. Israel’s political blindness has largely been enhanced by the hypocrisy of its friends, not its foes.

They all deceive to appease and to win undue favours.

Apparently Israel prefers deceptive pandering and insincere appeasement to honest advice such as the one coming from the Tel Aviv mayor. Or from a father of one of the Tel Aviv café victims who also came forward to blame his country’s occupation for his son’s murder.

At the funeral of his son, Ido Ben Ari’s father called for a strategic solution, not tactical ones “that draw more Palestinians into cycle of terror”.

He added: “The leaders we elected under democratic elections are supposed to find a strategic solution which demands far-reaching vision, concessions, a creative solution and not mantras and laundered words.”

These signs, however few and far between, are extremely significant, coming from Israel where debate has always been more forthcoming than in the US or in Europe.

Of course, those Israelis who were killed in last week’s attack are innocent victims of their leaders’ viciousness and political greed.

But so are the Palestinian attackers — one is a college student who is about to graduate — who opted to kill and die to express mounting frustration with injustice, humiliation and suffering at the hand of the Israeli occupiers.

The real killers are the ones who have been blocking every road to a reasonable peaceful end to the conflict.

There were similar signs of awakening before, but blinkered Israel never tolerated patient debate.

More Israeli people, nevertheless, are awakening to the reality that they cannot enjoy any kind of safe and peaceful life while others suffer.

That peace for Israel cannot come at the price of the oppression of others.

 

Too little, but hopefully not too late.

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