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Israelis Can't Recognize Terrorism Staring Back at Them From the Mirror

While experts are again explaining why the ‘calm’ has ended, what really needs explanation is the Palestinian restraint in light of Israel’s violence.
The rampage of stabbing attacks is back? The terror wave is in full swing again? You’re wrong, ladies and gentlemen. The wave is an ocean, terror has never ceased and its impudence is only increasing. It’s not called by its right name – it’s labeled “security,” and its perpetrators are walking around freely, obeying the command to intimidate four million human beings.

Do you need this translated? Our imposed military rule, now in place for decades, is terror as far as the Palestinians are concerned.

I, too, believe it is terror because people are intimidated to the point where their lives are taken and their health, wellbeing and property are damaged, for the benefit of our masters’ rights, for the sake of achieving political, economic and territorial gains such as Sussia or Kfar Adumim, the irrigation of lucrative seasoning herbs in the Jordan Valley or exporting arms. Terrorizing is the meaning of the tens of thousands of armed men scattered across Judea and Samaria, as well as in united Jerusalem. They are frightening because they were sent there in order to preserve an evil order of dispossession.

A person armed with a rifle looks into a mirror and is frightened by an image of someone pointing a gun at him. This is not an optical illusion but a cognitive one. It appears that we cannot see ourselves as the cause, as the aggressors and, yes, as terrorists in the eyes of those who since birth have lived under military decrees, with our guns, tanks, planes, helicopters and drones hurling deadly fire at them.

We cannot see it ourselves? Correction. We refuse to see ourselves as the cause. In a well-worn and tiresome Pavlovian reflex, our media calls the stabbings a “wave,” and with learned analyses repeatedly explaining why the “calm” has come to an end. It can be pathetic, too: “A 13-year-old female terrorist tried to carry out a stabbing at the Eliyahu checkpoint. She was shot and lightly wounded,” reported Channel 7, the channel for the thinking settler. The report remained unchanged even after it turned out that the “suspicious” bag that the girl carried contained nothing that could endanger our soldiers (i.e. a knife, screwdriver, sharpened pencil). An Israel Radio newscaster also continued to define her movements at the checkpoint as an attempted attack. Editors and commentators come and go, but the headline remains: “The Palestinians have returned to attacking us, the poor nebechs from the ghetto.”

The headline “concerns over outbreak of [security] incidents” is displayed at the head of the Haaretz website’s home page. It isn’t there in order to collect reports about the incapacitating of dozens of young Palestinians by shooting IDF Ruger bullets at their knees. There is no similar headline for the rampage of travel denials from the Gaza Strip, or for yet another wave of soldiers killing Palestinians who posed no danger to their lives: in al-Fawar (Mohammed Hashash), Silwad (Iyad Hamed), Shoafat (Mustafa Nimer). You will not find there a summarizing headline for the daily bacchanalia of military raids (at least 116 between September 9 and 21). For example, in Bil’in last Wednesday morning: The nebechs from the ghetto burst into the houses of activists from the Popular Resistance Committees, scaring children and confiscating (i.e. stealing) computers and cellular phones. There were no reports of casualties among our forces. Only reality is an unreported casualty.
The rampage of stabbing attacks is back? The terror wave is in full swing again? You’re wrong, ladies and gentlemen. The wave is an ocean, terror has never ceased and its impudence is only increasing. It’s not called by its right name – it’s labeled “security,” and its perpetrators are walking around freely, obeying the command to intimidate four million human beings.

Do you need this translated? Our imposed military rule, now in place for decades, is terror as far as the Palestinians are concerned.

I, too, believe it is terror because people are intimidated to the point where their lives are taken and their health, wellbeing and property are damaged, for the benefit of our masters’ rights, for the sake of achieving political, economic and territorial gains such as Sussia or Kfar Adumim, the irrigation of lucrative seasoning herbs in the Jordan Valley or exporting arms. Terrorizing is the meaning of the tens of thousands of armed men scattered across Judea and Samaria, as well as in united Jerusalem. They are frightening because they were sent there in order to preserve an evil order of dispossession.

A person armed with a rifle looks into a mirror and is frightened by an image of someone pointing a gun at him. This is not an optical illusion but a cognitive one. It appears that we cannot see ourselves as the cause, as the aggressors and, yes, as terrorists in the eyes of those who since birth have lived under military decrees, with our guns, tanks, planes, helicopters and drones hurling deadly fire at them.

We cannot see it ourselves? Correction. We refuse to see ourselves as the cause. In a well-worn and tiresome Pavlovian reflex, our media calls the stabbings a “wave,” and with learned analyses repeatedly explaining why the “calm” has come to an end. It can be pathetic, too: “A 13-year-old female terrorist tried to carry out a stabbing at the Eliyahu checkpoint. She was shot and lightly wounded,” reported Channel 7, the channel for the thinking settler. The report remained unchanged even after it turned out that the “suspicious” bag that the girl carried contained nothing that could endanger our soldiers (i.e. a knife, screwdriver, sharpened pencil). An Israel Radio newscaster also continued to define her movements at the checkpoint as an attempted attack. Editors and commentators come and go, but the headline remains: “The Palestinians have returned to attacking us, the poor nebechs from the ghetto.”

The headline “concerns over outbreak of [security] incidents” is displayed at the head of the Haaretz website’s home page. It isn’t there in order to collect reports about the incapacitating of dozens of young Palestinians by shooting IDF Ruger bullets at their knees. There is no similar headline for the rampage of travel denials from the Gaza Strip, or for yet another wave of soldiers killing Palestinians who posed no danger to their lives: in al-Fawar (Mohammed Hashash), Silwad (Iyad Hamed), Shoafat (Mustafa Nimer). You will not find there a summarizing headline for the daily bacchanalia of military raids (at least 116 between September 9 and 21). For example, in Bil’in last Wednesday morning: The nebechs from the ghetto burst into the houses of activists from the Popular Resistance Committees, scaring children and confiscating (i.e. stealing) computers and cellular phones. There were no reports of casualties among our forces. Only reality is an unreported casualty.
The reporting of a renewed wave of terror occurs when Jews, soldiers and Border Policemen are hurt or feel threatened. Tens of thousands of stories and reports, mainly in Haaretz, dealing with ongoing military and bureaucratic Israeli violence dissipate as if they were random accidents. The intolerable and continuous stream of deliberate harassment of Palestinians, which derives from our being a foreign military occupier, is not perceived by journalistic sensors as a continuum.

Journalism likes dramas and tragedies. When the disaster is permanent, it’s no longer an item, especially when the cause of this disaster is us. The routine of calamities we bring upon Palestinians does not exist in Israel’s reality. This is why it does not receive regular headlines, and the absence of such headlines, in turn, shapes in our minds a reality in which all is well. And then comes a different reality, with people asking “what is it with these Palestinians who are attacking us again?”

One Jordanian citizen and six Palestinians, including four minors, were killed by Israeli gunfire in less than a week, during attempted attacks or suspected attempts. On September 9, an Israel Defense Forces flare bomb killed 16-year-old Abdel Rahman al-Dabbagh while he was demonstrating against the siege of Gaza, near the fence. The question whether there was no other way but than to kill all these people will probably be answered with the claim that the shooting followed the rules of engagement.

The cognitive denial prevents Israelis from realizing how restrained the Palestinians really are. Among four million victims of constant terror, only a handful express their despair by actions which almost certainly lead to their deaths. It is this collective restraint, not the small number of stabbing or car-ramming attempts, which deserves an explanation. There is wisdom in this restraint, since this is not the time for a struggle of the masses. This restraint expresses despair because those who listen around the world aren’t the deciders and those who decide aren’t listening.

There is also hope in Palestinian restraint: Justice and the future are on their side, since they are fighting for their liberty.

Amira Hass

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