Israeli Collective Punishment May Push Palestinians Into More Terror

[Little Tich]

Source: Haaretz, written by Amos Harel

Benjamin Netanyahu has to deal with squads using improvised weapons, teens taking knives from their parents’ kitchens, and social media.

The escalation in Palestinian terror – the murder of 13-year-old Hallel Ariel, the murder of Michael Mark and the wounding of his wife and two of his children, the stabbing of two people in Netanya and the attempted stabbing at the Tomb of the Patriarchs – all within just over 24 hours has led to a harsher-than-usual response.

The army cordoned off Hebron and the surrounding villages and towns, imposed major restrictions on movement to and from the Hebron area, and announced a mass revocation of work permits for residents of Bani Na’im, where Ariel’s murderer lived.

The Israel Defense Forces stresses context – the manhunt for the perpetrators of the drive-by shooting of the Mark family. Roadblocks and the deployment of two regular army battalions to the Hebron area are meant to help find the killers and increase the settlers’ sense of security.

The success (terrible as it is, the murder of a teenage girl asleep in her bed is described as a success on the Palestinian side) feeds copycats. So troop deployments, arrests and roadblocks are like throwing a blanket over a fire. The question is whether the situation will continue after the drive-by shooters are apprehended.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.728541

Note: Haaretz premium article, Google title for access.

[Igel]

1. Yes, it might.

That's the price of cultural diversity.

If you need to fight to restore honor, suppressing this just increases the humiliation and makes the fight worse. You have a human right to having dead on the other side and not on your side, and the blame falls on the other side. Because you're protecting your honor, and a lot of lesser values (like truth and not killing) are secondary to that. Depends on the society's view of honor, but this is one in which killing a child can be required to maintain honor. (There are worse systems.) Honor is typically internal--somebody insults you, you have less honor. If they treat you worse, you have less honor. And honor must be regained.

All such societies have a point, however, at which humiliation can be borne, typically when there is no chance of regaining honor and the attempt will make life intolerable or when there is a common enemy or common disaster to be confronted. Then the commonalities overwhelm the need to restore honor. First, deal with the common enemy, then deal with the horrible wrongs inflicted by your temporary ally. You lie and say all kinds of only good things about your local enemy, but it's not really a lie because everybody knows the only reason you're saying it is to help justify the alliance--you expect nobody to believe it, but it needs to be said to save face and let the alliance proceed. The sense of humiliation can last for decades or more, bubbling and waiting until regaining honor is a viable option.


If you need to adhere to a set of moral precepts to preserve your sense of honor, then there are constraints over how far you can go in suppressing the struggle to regain honor. If you'll survive, it's advantageous to be reduced in circumstances and suffer wrongs than to exceed the moral boundaries required for maintaining honor. If your allies have the same sort of set of values, then even if you hold your breath and go far enough to suppress the struggle your allies are likely not to agree.


Neither Israeli nor Palestinian societies are 100% culturally homogeneous. Many are willing to act, though, with tacit approval. That can mean condemning non-violence or that can mean tacitly supporting bombings, either by Israeli jet or by self-propelled biology-based bombs. On both sides some advise non-violence and condemn bombing. What is true is there is a difference in frequency between these two views on honor and the response to attacks and it's best to recognize that there is this overall, holistic difference.

[Little Tich]

4. Apartheid isn't diversity.

If settlers and the native Palestinians were living under the same laws and were ruled fairly and equally, there would be no terrorism. Look at Israel - there are Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, and even though they don't have equal rights, they have enough rights to not want to take up arms for their rights. If Israel would've made similar provisions for the people living in the occupied territories there wouldn't have been any reasons for terrorism to occur.

Israeli oppression causes terrorism, equal rights removes the causes for terrorism...

[shira]

5. "Israeli oppression causes terrorism..." WRONG!

Want to tell that to the massacred in Hebron 1929?

It is insane - an act of deliberate blindness - to assume Jews and Palestinians will get along just fine together in 1-state.

You're advocating for a civil war.

[Little Tich]

6. Not all forms of Palestinian violence are caused by Israeli oppression.

However, this doesn't mean that Israeli oppression causes no violence at all. In fact, the link between oppression and violence is pretty strong. There are many historical instances where oppression causes violence - there were at least 22 instances of slave rebellions in the US alone. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_rebellion#North_American_slave_revolts) I think it's pretty safe to assume that the treatment of Palestinians is the main cause of Palestinian violence.

I can contrast the Palestinian violence in the occupied territories with the absence of Palestinian violence in Israel. The only difference between these groups is that one has rights, the other doesn't.

Besides, is there another alternative to the bi-national state?

[oberliner]

2. Palestinian Terrorism May Push Israelis Into More Collective Punishment

Would be another way to look at it.

[Little Tich]

3. That's correct description of the problem.

I wonder what a solution would look like...