The situation in Palestine that has taken place over the past four weeks has brought us to speak out against the unjust collective punishment being levied on the Palestinians by the state of Israel.
The justification for the bombing of Gaza and the raids in Hebron and other sites in the West Bank this time is the kidnapping and now death of three teenage Israeli settlers. Any loss of life should be mourned, and while our hearts break for the families of the three teenagers, they also break for the 1,384 Palestinian children killed by the Israeli military since 2000, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
That’s one child killed every three to four days for the past 14 years. Major media outlets like CNN, NPR and others have failed to report on the Palestinian loss of life, painting a slanted narrative that values Jewish Israeli lives over Palestinians.
Since the boys went missing on June 12, 10 Palestinians have died either by the hands of the Israel Defense Forces or right-wing extremist settlers. The most recent was Mohammed Abu Khdeir, who was found burned alive. Also troubling are the 34 missiles that fell on Gaza in one night, which should be condemned, as it is a use of collective punishment with no concrete proof on who conducted the killings.
The violence being inflicted by the Israeli government is not an isolated or rare occurrence, but rather an intensification of the daily enforcement of the Israeli occupation, which is maintained by oppressive means. Israeli leaders’ calls for revenge have escalated racist attacks on Palestinians. In the last few days alone, hundreds of right-wing Jews rioted in the streets of Jerusalem, chanting “Death to the Arabs” and “We want war.”
Groups searched for random Palestinians on the street, even forcing their way into a McDonalds in an attempt to assault Palestinian workers. Others burst into commuter trains while, according to the Israeli paper Ha’aretz, “Light rail security guards stood next to Palestinian passengers to protect them from the mob.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s repeated calls for vengeance in the form of collective punishment of Palestinian civilians, including mass arrests, killings and even missile drops on Gaza, should trouble any person who believes in due process of law. Terrorizing an innocent population will neither bring justice nor make either Israeli or Palestinian children safe.
We must recognize the fact that Palestinians are facing a constant occupation, which in itself is violent, and facing the worst effects of settler colonialism. Do not forget that the two “sides” are asymmetrical. Collective punishment is never justified and hopefully some day we come to recognize that Palestinian lives do matter.
[Eric Brown and Rami Okasha are UF students and organizers for UF Students for Justice in Palestine. A version of this guest column ran on page 7 on 7/15/2014 under the headline "Speaking out against Isreali attacks"]
