What is the deal with the violence in West Bank ?

[notsoready4school]

why does a mentally disabled child throwing stones deserve to be shot from 150 metres away ? The stones couldn’t have even reached them? They can’t possibly be fearing him, he is by himself, they are tons of them and they have cars and guns. How is this justifiable to all these people going on and on supporting a country where these things go on. How is this a country the west considers a democratic ally? How do these values reflect the values of the west?

I understand the outrage of parents wanting the hostages back but Fouads parents will never ever have him back.

The link is to Channel4 reporting Matt Frei

https://x.com/Channel4News/status/1722715554274783247?s=20

Is Ben Gurion considered to have been an extremist?
From a modern day point of view and compared to some of his contemporaries and some modern day politicians who advocate for victory by any means, in my opinion no Ben Gurion was not an extremist. He actually condemned a lot of the violence committed by the Jewish Militias.

A lot of what he wrote wasn't made public until the late 1970s, early 1980s when the Israeli Government opened its archives to historians.
"After the war, Jewish violence against the British escalated. While Ben Gurion supported the principle of armed struggle, he condemned right-wing extremist groups that carried out acts of terrorism.

After independence had been achieved, Ben Gurion insisted that all armed groups be dissolved and become part of the Israel Defence Force."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/israelat50/profiles/81279.stm

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionistpoliticalviolence

On the poll it was done by this Israeli company, the site is in Hebrew so I can't confirm the sampling pool, the author of the article is a Jewish born Israeli.
October 7th definitely radicalised a part of the Israeli population to the point that they are openly supporting abhorrent behaviour as it may be a "terrorist".
https://www.inss.org.il/he/publication/august-2024/

@ScrollingLeaves I'm well aware that people have mixed ethnicities - for instance I have genetically mixed Jewish ethnicities. Sorry, I should have been more specific. I want to know what you mean by "illusionary" ethnicities, and the scope of Jews you've decided to apply that to. At what point, does Jewish ethnicity or ethnicities become "illusionary" to you? Are our ethnicities real until we move to Israel? If you believe that there should be no 'right of return' policy then fine, that is your right to believe that. But I find your wording grossly offensive.

The woman speaking in that clip was saying that another ethnicity was not real, that it does not exist. She is dismissing the validity of someone else's ethnicity - when that ethnicity is just as real and valid as her own.

In the clip I saw she said there is no such thing as Palestinians it is an ideology

My thoughts on the lady from that clip are that she has clearly been radicalised. Where did this happen? Did it happen in the US before she moved or in Israel? Are Western governments doing enough to tackle this radicalisation or do we ignore it when they are radicalised on our soil because the radicalisation isn't a threat to us, because it 'foreigners' on 'foreign' soil who will suffer as a result?

This lady isn't unique, there are many documentaries showing extremist settlers who are clearly immigrants to Israel, if this extremism being grown in the West then we have a lot to answer for.

I agree this woman’s views are shocking, ignorant and callous. She represents an extremist far right element of Israeli society just as Hamas represents an extreme, hate filled element in Palestinian society.

@79Helene
I had originally said
“As for illusionary ethnicity, her own will be as mixed and as much based on an ideology as any Palestinian’s, if not more so.”

You would like to know,
“what [I] mean by "illusionary" ethnicities, and the scope of Jews [I’ve] decided to apply that to.”

Short answer:
I do not think Jews have an illusionary ethnicity anymore than I think Palestinians do.

But if the woman in the interview thinks she, as a Jew from Texas hoping to immigrate to Gaza, gets to have an ethnicity but Palestinian’s do not, she is mistaken in my opinion. If they do not, then neither does she ( nor any of us other Heinz 57 varieties - I am one too).

Long answer
The woman in the interview implied that the sense of being Palestinian a Palestian may have about themselves is not based on ethnicity but on ideology.

To me that sounds as though she thinks Palestinians are imagining their identity. I however believe Palestinians themselves think their identity has ethnic roots, and I believe this about them too.

I definitely believe Jews do too!

But the woman in the interview, by saying what she does about Palestinians, seems to be suggesting the Palestinians are under an illusion if they think they exist as an ethnic group.

Why does she say this? I could only guess that it was because since ancient times Palestinians have mixed with other various peoples, so someone might say they aren’t really who they say they are. If those are her grounds for thinking the Palestinians are under an illusion about themselves, then so is she.

But as I hope I have now made clear, in saying that, if she is right in saying Palestinians are deluded then so are Jews like her, I am also saying Palestinians do have an ethnicity just as Jews do.

For reference here is the Channel4 interview where she was speaking to Sec Kermani together with a transcription of what she said. (I missed his first question but the context is clear from her answer. It is in the clip though.)

The most relevant section is the last part.

https://x.com/SecKermani/status/1828511394704027757

Woman:
It’s not really colonisation, it’s a return. My grandparents were kicked out of Israel by Arabs who were trying to establish a Palestinian state. They had to leave for their survival and I’m coming back and fulfilling their dream. That would be the first thing.

The second thing is that I think that ..I know this is a minority view, I think colonialism gets a bad rap. Like genocide is bad, but colonising places that are genocidal and they have bad ideology, it’s good to come in and correct their views.

SK:
What do you think should happen to the people already in Gaza?

Woman:
So I think there’s a couple of possibilities. The one that I think is the most realistic - we’ve got to ask other countries to help. I think that Spain has said they were willing to take a couple of million and I know Russia said they’d take a couple of thousand.

SK:
To a lot of people that would sound like you are advocating for ethnic cleansing.

Woman:
I don’t think so because Palestinian isn’t an ethnicity it’s an ideology
and it’s an ideology that they want Jews dead and so we want them as far away from Jews as possible.

From doctors without borders

Israeli forces keep obstructing access to health facilities blocking and even targeting ambulances, delaying people’s access to care.

https://x.com/MSF/status/1829953746127745142

It Is very worrying that disproportionate and destructive actions are being carried out by the IDF in the West Bank now too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c207j6wy332o

I know @Scirocco has posted it in another thread but I thought I’d leave it here as well.

why Is Israel still allowing this and why is the rest of the world doing nothing against it

Jenin remains effectively under siege.

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2024-09-01/ty-article/.premium/jenin-residents-say-theyve-been-under-siege-for-days-infrastructure-has-been-destroyed/00000191-aa36-d2ec-a1f7-ef76a4be0000

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/1/lack-of-food-and-water-ambulances-blocked-as-israel-lays-siege-to-jenin

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/31/trauma-in-the-west-bank-after-israeli-raids-palestinian-territory

What brave men, to hide behind a ten year old girl.

They like to use dogs to terrify people. Imagine doing it to a child.

The IDF rejected the allegations of the Shihab family.
“Such events are inconsistent with the IDF’s code of conduct, and according to a preliminary inquiry this story is fabricated and did not occur,” a spokesperson said.

I am really getting the impression that lying is endemic.

Retired top US official Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson who worked extensively with the Israeli government during George Bush seniors tenure:
"I never, never, ever believe Israeli figures. I’ve been in the government for too long to know the Israelis are patent liars, in their intelligence community, in their propaganda community certainly, and in their leadership. They are inveterate liars.’
https://x.com/DickMackintosh/status/1821915825411887188

From Haaretz

• A Palestinian woman has testified that an Israeli soldier sexually harassed her at a checkpoint in Hebron two weeks ago, sparking a wave of testimonies from local womenabout the humiliating treatment they have received from soldiers at checkpoints since the beginning of the war, especially in the last few weeks.

• The IDF Spokesperson's Office said that the army opened a review into the incident, but has not yet decided whether to open a Military Police investigation. A local resident, who asked the IDF about the young woman's complaint, claimed that a day later, an officer from the Israeli Civil Administration - Israel's governing body in the West Bank - arrived and threatened him, claiming the woman's testimony was fabricated.

Haaretz
Brief
'He Took Off His Pants and Said "Come Look"': Palestinian Women in Hebron Report Harassment by Israeli Soldiers

A woman from the West Bank city of Hebron recently reported harassment by an Israeli soldier. Other women say this is not an isolated incident, and recount verbal abuse and unauthorized searches of their phones

A Palestinian woman has testified that an Israeli soldier sexually harassed her at a checkpoint in Hebron two weeks ago, when he pulled down his pants and exposed himself to her as she passed through the checkpoint alone.

I was looking for more details about this story and found more reports of sexual harassment of Palestinian women at Hebron going back in time. It is apparently not new.

Similar and worst things have been happening since the Nakba. A Lebanese guy I know told us that his Grandfather witnessed Israeli soldiers assault a woman so horrifically when younger, that he would shake with fear and break down well into his 90s.
This article is 20 years old and details one of the worst war crimes during the Nakba.
trigger warning - the reporting details assault
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/nov/04/israel1

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpdl3veg1l4o
Seriously BBC??? “Killed”??

Lujain Musleh’s father said she was shot in the head as she looked out of a window of her home in Kafr Dan, just outside Jenin, after soldiers surrounded a neighbouring house on Tuesday.

Love the inverted commas. Maybe they think she might just be having a nap.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.

I agree it is distasteful but is it because it hasn't yet been investigated as to why she died? It is obvious to the dogs on the street what happened but I guess the BBC are towing a fine line and don't want to assume anything until verified

Quite possibly. The headline is terrible though. They could have gone for "girl dies", "girl reported killed", etc.

The headline is terrible though, It is but I think maybe they felt killed in inverted commas was kinda saying what they believed without explicitly saying it but it hasn't worked has come across as inappropriate

Reading the article, the circumstances need to be thoroughly investigated, as they should be when any child is killed or dies during a military operation. It may have been a legitimate shot to take in that situation, or it may not have been - we don't know, and given the lack of trust and independent investigation, we may never know. What we do know is that another child has died in this conflict, when the people in power who are driving the conflict are choosing more aggression rather than working towards peace.

The guardian

Associated Press reports that one of the men killed by an Israeli strike on a vehicle in Tubas in the occupied West Bank has been named by the Palestinian health ministry as Mohammed Zubeidi.
His father, Zakaria Zubeidi, was a militant commander during the early 2000s and escaped Israeli jail in 2021, before being arrested and returned to prison days later.

Trigger: mention of horrifying sexual abuse.

It is s repulsive that they, those Israeli soldiers who were the filth of the earth in their behaviour, made that poor girl have a shower before gang raping her as though she were the dirty one.

It is reassuring to a small degree that the perpetrators were brought to at least some sort of trial and some sort of vague, if inadequate, punishment. And that it was recognised by the army people who kept the related documents secret all that time, that the Israeli people would find it horrifying if they found out what their soldiers had done.

"The Palestinian health ministry says 30 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched what it called an operation to dismantle "terrorist cells".

Most of the dead have been claimed by armed groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as members, but several children are also among them, according to the ministry."

In the West Bank, I'm surprised that hamas and the Jihad group admitted many of the dead were their fighters! Again, innocent people in the middle and no end in sight. Two states with clear borders are so needed urgently. Enough of the death of innocent from The West Bank, Gaza and Israel.