I was in a cafe in Bethlehem when it happened -- some people were down from Jerusalem and one of them got a phone call to give them a heads-up about the situation, in case the checkpoints were shut down or something. The first thing we heard was that it was a suicide bombing, but then someone else called and said it was a shooting, which isn't much better, but it is a different sort of deal.
The yeshiva where the shooting took place is famous as the "backbone of the settler movement", apparently, so it probably wasn't a random choice.
There's an article on the IHT here. Mark Regev, Olmert's spokesman, is quoted as saying, "tonight's massacre in Jerusalem is a defining moment... the same warped and extremist ideology behind tonight's massacre is also behind the daily rocket barrages in the south." Which is both worrying (defining moment?) and I think incorrect. The daily rocket barrages from Gaza are probably more because Gaza is the largest open-air prison in the world, where water is scarce or polluted, there is no fuel or electricity, and many live in abject misery because of the closure policies of the Israeli government toward them. Go figure, right? A gunman (not a suicide bomber) attacking a yeshiva that's the religious "backbone of the settler movement" would make more sense to come in response to the continuing house demolitions in the West Bank and the continuing expansion of West Bank settlements (the E1 plan, in particular, which is going to annex large parts of Arab East Jerusalem) even though they're unequivocally illegal under international law, and prime ministers since I don't know when have all said, "yeah, yeah, we'll totally stop building settlements...". The spark that set this guy off might have been the over 100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including a number of children, who were killed in Gaza by Israel since last week (it's set off a number of demonstrations, certainly), but to lump together all the things that people do for a variety of reasons under the blanket term of "terrorism" only serves to justify the blunt and collective punishment that Israel continues to perpetrate with complete impunity against the Palestinian population.
Then, in Bethlehem last night, the Israeli troops rolled in and destroyed a house in the neighbourhood between my house and where I work, which is only a 10-minute walk. Apparently they were looking for a wanted Islamic Jihadist, but he wasn't there, so they destroyed his house and took his nephew to an undisclosed location, where he may remain for months in "administrative detention", without anyone knowing where he is, and probably without being charged with anything. A co-worker who lives near to the house that was demolished says that the last Israeli troops left around 6:30 this morning.
So that's what's going on. I'm safe, and I don't know anyone who died, but things keep getting worse here.
2 comments:
The stuff that Mark Regev guy always comes out with is breathtaking. You have to wonder what planet he lives on.
Yes, things are getting more and more depressing. Yesterday evening, before I heard about the shooting, I read a new report about conditions in Gaza, from a colition of NGO's in the UK, incuding Amnesty. It was the most depressing thing I have read in a long time. The people there are being treated as sub-human by the Israeli policies.
Yeah, the word "incredible" is starting to lose meaning, from the number of times I have occasion to use it.
I got the report, as well. My question is, how do we combat Gaza-fatigue in those who are inclined to care about these things? Like, we all know things are really, really terrible, and the numbers in the report quantify how bad things are, but how do we keep Gaza from seeming like a lost cause?
One thing I wish the report would have done is compare how things are in Gaza to how things are in the WB, to how things are in Israel and maybe some other Western country. Indicators like average daily income, unemployment rates, costs of goods, fuel/water usage, $ of goods imported/exported... that would make it easier to see how totally, TOTALLY absurd conditions in Gaza are. Maybe there's a report like this already that I haven't seen yet?
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