To Palestinians, Gaza is a symbol of resistance. To Israel, Gaza is a template to pummel and isolate that resistance.
On June 19, Israeli combat helicopters fired missiles into the camp, ostensibly as part of an arrest operation that ended up killing five Palestinians, including a 15-year-old girl named Sadeel Naghniyeh.
Then in early July, in the worst attack on the West Bank since 2002, the Israeli armed forces terrorised the inhabitants of Jenin for two days and killed at least 12 people, including children. The massive aerial and ground assault involved helicopter gunships, missiles, drones, armoured vehicles, bulldozers and more than 1,000 Israeli soldiers.
That is what happens, it seems, when Palestinians keep rebuilding – and keep existing. Indeed, Al Jazeera quoted 56-year-old camp resident Ahmed Abu Hweileh on the takeaway from the bloody escapade: “The message to the world and the occupation is that this camp will keep on going. They tried to destroy it and it came back up.”
Israel’s recent comportment in Jenin – and particularly the sudden use of air strikes in the West Bank for the first time in years – has invited comparisons to the Israeli modus operandi in the Gaza Strip, another location that has come to symbolise Palestinian resistance.
…every country actively supports terrorism when it’s on their self interest. The self-proclaimed free world has organised coups in democratic countries, propped up terrorist groups when they didn’t like the current leadership of countries, invaded sovereign states on false premises and assassinated democratically elected leaders.
Terrorism is a form of violence to achieve a goal. If you’re in favour of it you call them freedom fighters, mujahideen, guerrilla warriors or whatever else. If you want to vilify them you call them terrorists. Truth is, both are spins of a given situation, in line with the interests and/or biases of whatever person or entity is informing you.
The western world agrees that ideologically motivated violence is okay (see: our foreign policy record), but tries to act shocked when it’s ideologically motivated violence they disagree with. It’s ridiculous.
Also: Israel terrorises Palestinians. If you want to be offended at terrorism, you should be against Israel.
