Israel’s government is engaging in a cover-up to conceal their atrocities, expelling human rights activists and human rights monitors. The public must speak out!
By Bettejo Indelicato
My worst nightmare for the Palestinians of the West Bank has become their reality. Crazed illegal settlers and zealous Israeli Occupation Soldiers commit unconscionable crimes against women, children, and the elderly.
The innocents, mostly young Palestinians, are gunned down in cold blood and left to bleed to death while settlers cheer on. These unspeakable crimes go largely unreported. As Israel evicts human rights monitors from their West Bank positions the voices of the besieged Palestinians will become even more stifled.
We can’t let this happen.
My human rights activism in the West Bank led me to return over a span of four years. Each time I returned I was taken aback by the geographical changes brought about the settlement building.
Palestinian villages were becoming more and isolated in enclaves surrounded by armed racist settlers, whose presence is illegal under international law. Law not withstanding, they took ownership of the Palestinian land by force.
Armed, they stormed into Palestinian villages, sometimes escorted by Israeli soldiers, destroying property, burning mosques, and terrorizing and harming innocent Palestinian civilians. Armed, they took the land.
Armed, they took the resources. Armed, they took the olive groves. Armed, they took the homes. It seemed apparent that Israel was creating a de-facto army of extremist Zionist settlers who would not hesitate to massacre all “Arabs” at any perceived provocation. This nightmare scenario grew in me like the tentacles of illegal and dangerous settlements grew across the West Bank.
Now, this de-facto army of Netanyahu’s terrorist regime has been put on active duty and there is nothing to stop them save international intervention. Ironically, save non violent, unarmed international activists, the only protection Palestinians have from crazed settlers is the army that is brutally occupying them. International law mandates that an occupying power is responsible for the safety of the people occupied. Yet, all too often the soldiers do little or nothing to stop settler violence against Palestinians. The reasons for their inaction are chilling.
First of all, the soldiers are young Zionists who for the most part believe that 1) all of Palestine belongs to “Israel” and 2) Palestinians are less than human. Secondly, the settlers are often older than the soldiers and led by an “elder religious” figure. Cultural norms mandate the younger Israeli soldiers defer to their elders, especially if they be religious leaders, regardless of the illegality and immorality of the situation. Finally, and most frightening, the Israeli Occupation Forces are often afraid of the settlers. They know that they cannot control them. Their rules of engagement prohibit them from harming an Israeli citizen.
Palestinian child accused of stabbing act is left on ground to bleed, screamed at by Israeli soldiers and armed settlers. He survived but most others do not.
These are not excuses for the soldiers, no more than “I was just taking orders” is an excuse for the Holocaust. What they do is point to the premeditated plan of the Zionist regime to attempt to drive out the remaining indigenous Palestinians of the West Bank via the terrorism of Israeli settlers. Palestinians are courageous and steadfast, but they are also unarmed and isolated.
The need for international pressure, presence and protection is absolutely necessary immediately. Israel’s de-facto settler army will not be stopped by any facet of the occupying Zionist regime.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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