False Equivalence: The Israeli Military Calls for Action against the Left to Project Balance to the Right

On 8 November, Jewish settlers from the Kiryat Arba settlement, beat up and threw stones at six-year-old Palestinian boy, Bilal Daana, near the West Bank city of Hebron. The boy was taken to hospital suffering from moderate head wounds.

“The IDF has requested the Israeli Security Services to provide information on activists from the Left”, noted Haaretz on 7 November. According to journalist Uri Blau, “the aim is to issue restriction orders on the liberty of movement of Israeli and foreign activists who conduct violent acts [sic]” in the various demonstrations against the Wall.”

How typical! Right-wing activists in Israel are openly advocating violence against political leaders, using death threats against peace activists, attacking Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, and organizing into armed military commando units—all features that do no exist whatsoever even in the most radical wing of the anti-occupation movement, yet the army is looking for alleged violence in this group!

This behavior is a reaction to opinions expressed in the long interview given last month by the Israeli military commander of the West Bank, Brigadier General Gadi Shamni, in which he complained about his own inability to deal with the settler violence. Now it is clear: violence exists on both sides and, in order to take some limited measures against the most brutal settlers, the police will also have to take measures against peace activists.

In order to clarify this situation, one must plainly state the facts. Unlike right-wing activists, no one in the peace camp carries weapons; unlike daily practices by settlers, no one in the peace camp has ever hit a Palestinian; all political assassinations (the assassination of Rabin, the massacre in Hebron, the killing of seven Palestinian workers in the suburb of Tel Aviv in the 1970’s, the assassination of Emil Greenzweig, etc.) were committed by right-wing Israeli activists and not by peace activists; and there never has been an armed, left wing underground in Israel.

Enough of this fake symmetry concerning “violence on both sides”! In Israel, the Right and only the Right uses violence, first against the Palestinians and, later, inside the Israeli political scene.

These targeted Israeli anti-occupation activists include “Anarchists Against the Wall.” One of them told Haaretz that he was recently interrogated by the Shabak (Israel Security Agency): “they claimed that they were fed up with my activities and if I continue, they will take administrative or legal measures […] I answered that all my activities are in the open […] Never was a Left-activist suspected of violence, certainly not at the level of right-wing violence.”