Showing posts with label Jonathan Cook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jonathan Cook. Show all posts

Every Israeli missile strike is a war crime…

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…that is the experts’ verdict

By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth
Today’s Guardian newspaper includes an article that appears to be excusing Israel of responsibility for the massive death tolll it has inflicted on Palestinian civilians. But, more significantly, it includes a lot of useful – and damning – information about just how “indiscriminate” Israel’s weapons really are.
This interests me a great deal because I have been warning about problems with the interpretation of international law used by leading human rights groups on this very point since the 2006 Lebanon War.
At that time I got into a dispute with Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) Middle East policy director, Sarah Leah Whitson. Her organization argued that Hizbullah was committing war crimes by definition whenever it fired rockets at Israel, even if it hit military targets, because those rockets were primitive and inherently inaccurate.
By contrast, HRW claimed, Israel’s missiles were precise and therefore their use was not inherently inadmissible. Its view was that Israel did not commit war crimes by firing its missiles; the obligation was on observers to show that they had not been used within the rules of war – which is a much harder standard of proof. For more on this debate, see my articles here and here.

Only the rich “have a right to defend themselves against high-tech aerial assaults”

In practice, HRW’s argument was nonsense, as was clear even in 2006. During that war Israel dropped millions of cluster munitions – little bomblets that serve effectively as land mines – all over southern Lebanon, endangering the whole civilian population of the area.
But Norman Finkelstein recently pointed out the more general problem with HRW’s argument:
By this standard, only rich countries, or countries rich enough to purchase high-tech weapons, have a right to defend themselves against high-tech aerial assaults. It is a curious law that would negate the raison d’être of law: the substitution of might by right.
It may not be entirely surprising that HRW and others interpret international law in a way that serves rich and powerful Western states, however many civilians they kill, and criminalises developing states, however few civilians they kill.
The current fighting in Gaza illustrates this point in dramatic fashion. Some 95 per cent of the 64 Israelis who have been killed during the current fighting are soldiers; some 75 per cent of the nearly 1,500 Palestinians who have been killed are civilian.
Some 95 per cent of the 64 Israelis who have been killed during the current fighting are soldiers; some 75 per cent of the nearly 1,500 Palestinians who have been killed are civilian.
But comments from experts in the Guardianarticle add another layer of insight into HRW’s dubious distinctions.
One should ignore the irritating framing used in the article, which seems to suggest that the high Palestinian death toll may be down to human or systems errors. Experts discount this theory in the article and also point out that Israel is often not checking whether its shooting is accurate. In other words, it gives every indication of not taking any precautions to ensure it is hitting only military targets (or rather targets it claims are military in nature). That recklessness makes it fully culpable.
But we also have experts cited here who make the point that much of Israel’s precise weaponry is not accurate at all.
Andrew Exum, a former US army officer and defence department special adviser on the Middle East, who has studied Israel’s military operations, says this:
There are good strategic reasons to avoid using air power and artillery in these conflicts: they tend to be pretty indiscriminate in their effects and make it difficult for the population under fire to figure out what they’re supposed to do to be safe.

Air-to-surface war crimes

“Pretty indiscriminate”! So doesn’t that mean Israel was committing war crimes by definition every time it made one of those thousands of air strikes that marked the start of Operation Protective Edge, and that continue to this day?
But it is not just strikes from the air that are the problem. There is more:
However, military analysts and human rights observers say the IDF [“Israel Defence Forces” – the Wehrmach] is still using unguided, indirect fire with high-explosive shells, which they argue is inappropriate for a densely populated area like Gaza …
[Israel's 155m howitzer] shells have a lethal radius of 50 to 150 metres and causes injury up to 300 metres from its point of impact. Furthermore, such indirect-fire artillery (meaning it is fired out of direct sight of the target) has a margin of error of 200 to 300 metres.

Surface-to-surface war crimes

Read that again: a margin of error of up to 300 metres, plus a lethal radius of up to 150 metres and an injury radius of 300 metres. So that’s a killing and injury zone of close to half a kilometre from the intended “precise” site of impact – in a territory that is only a few kilometres wide and long. In short, one of the main shells Israel is using in Gaza is completely imprecise.
Set aside what Israel is trying to do in Gaza. Let us assume it is actually trying to hit military targets rather than being either reckless about hitting civilian targets or deliberately trying to hit civilians, as much of the evidence might suggest.
Even if we assume total good faith on Israel’s part that it is trying to hit only Hamas and other military sites, it is clear it cannot do so even with the advanced weaponry it has. The inherent imprecision of its arsenal is compounded many fold by the fact that it is using these weapons in densely built-up areas.
So when are going to hear HRW or the United Nation’s Navi Pillay stop talking about proportionality or Israel’s potential war crimes, and admit Israel is committing war crimes by definition – right now, as you read this.
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U.S plays decisive role in Israel’s attack on Gaza

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By Jonathan Cook
Two reporters for major US TV channels were summarily “removed” last week from covering Israel’s attack on Gaza, moments before Israel launched a ground invasion.
NBC pulled out Ayman Mohyeldin, who has been widely praised for the even-handedness of his reporting from Gaza, just as he landed a harrowing scoop. He had kicked a football with four boys who were killed moments later by an Israeli missile.
Mohyeldin managed a few tweets before being removed, allegedly on “security” grounds. But why then did NBC immediately send in a replacement? After a public outcry, Mohyeldin was reinstated, but no proper explanation of the decision has been provided.
Shortly afterwards, CNN “reassigned” its reporter in Israel, Diana Magnay, after a tweet in which she labelled as “scum” an Israeli mob that threatened her with violence as she filmed them celebrating missile explosions in Gaza. The tweet was deleted within minutes, followed by her rapid departure.
The obvious shortcomings in US coverage of a story in which Washington itself is a key player deprive us of a vital piece of the puzzle about what is going on in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The impression left by these incidents and the generally deferential tone towards Israel in US coverage is that, faced with huge pressure from the Israel lobby, media executives are frantically policing their correspondents’ output, including on social media.
That view was confirmed to Max Blumenthal by an NBC producer after the channel axed Rula Jebreal, a Palestinian contributor, following her on-air complaints about the massive over-representation of Israeli officials in US coverage. The producer said there was a “witch-hunt” being conducted by NBC executives, led by the media corporation’s president, Phil Griffin.
The obvious shortcomings in US coverage of a story in which Washington itself is a key player deprive us of a vital piece of the puzzle about what is going on in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the region on 21 June to intensify ceasefire efforts, the day after a studio microphone captured his sarcastic comment that it was “a hell of a pin-point operation” by Israel. He had just been informed of a horrifying assault on the Shujaiiya neighbourhood, which left dozens of dead, taking Palestinian casualties so far to more than 650 killed and thousands wounded. [Editor’s note: at the time of editing, 2040 UK time on 23 July, the casualty figure had risen to 680 Palestinians and 34 Israelis dead.]
Washington’s good faith as honest broker goes largely unquestioned in the US, even though the country annually provides Israel with billions of dollars in aid and military support of the kind that enables these repeated attacks on Gaza.
… whatever its public statements, the US is assisting Israel not only in what President Barack Obama called its right to “self-defence” but in actively damaging Palestinian interests.
The claim is only tenable because Washington’s actual behaviour is rarely scrutinized in detail.
Two recent investigations by the Israeli media illustrate the profoundly unhelpful role played by the US. They suggest that, whatever its public statements, the US is assisting Israel not only in what President Barack Obama called its right to “self-defence” but in actively damaging Palestinian interests.
And it seems not to matter whether the Palestinians in question are Hamas or the preferred negotiating partner, Mahmoud Abbas.
The first disclosure concerns the offer of an Egyptian ceasefire last week. This was presented as a crucial chance to end the bloodshed, one generously seized by Israel and shunned by Hamas. Only footnoted in some reports were Hamas “claims” that it had not been consulted.
Israel’s liberal daily Haaretz soon confirmed Hamas’s account with Israeli officials and Western diplomats.
The reality, according to Haaretz, is that Kerry secretly dispatched to Cairo peace envoy Tony Blair, who in turn lobbied the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to coordinate the ceasefire’s terms with Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.
Sisi is currently waging an all-out war against Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’s ideological ally. He has harshly punished Hamas too by tightening the siege on the shared border with Gaza. Like Israel, Sisi’s Egypt is a major beneficiary of US aid.
In short, Sisi and Netanyahu share a keen interest to weaken and humiliate Hamas. And yet, the US encouraged them to negotiate a ceasefire over Hamas’ head. Since then, Washington has rebuffed an alternative proposal from Qatar and Turkey, who are more sympathetic to Hamas.
The ceasefire proposal was nothing more than a trap – one whose purpose was to elicit a Hamas rejection and thereby provide Israel with a pretext to launch its ground invasion.
It was a foregone conclusion that Hamas would reject the Egyptian offer. It failed to address key concerns, not least that the suffocating siege be ended and that Israel honour earlier agreements, particularly on prisoners.
The ceasefire proposal was nothing more than a trap – one whose purpose was to elicit a Hamas rejection and thereby provide Israel with a pretext to launch its ground invasion.
Netanyahu, backed by the US, is using the current attack to terrorize Gaza’s civilian population, deplete Hamas’ rocket stockpile, and then force it to accept terms of surrender.
The second investigation comes from journalist Raviv Drucker, this time concerning the peace talks that collapsed in April. Washington officials have told him that US negotiators spent the talks’ key phase coordinating positions exclusively with Netanyahu. Abbas was then presented with a fait accompli of hardline Israeli demands.
Despite its public pronouncements, Washington was also secretly conspiring with Israel on a huge expansion of settlement projects. These were announced – to loud condemnation by Kerry – each time a batch of Palestinian prisoners was released, a condition Abbas had set for his participation.
But US opposition was feigned, writes Drucker. In reality, Washington was “informed of the [settlement] tenders in advance”.
It is no surprise that Netanyahu has been acting in bad faith, and that his military campaigns in the West Bank and Gaza are designed to disrupt the recent reconciliation between Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah.
As Israeli analyst Noam Sheizaf points out, Netanyahu is opposed to a peace deal of any kind. For him, “Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas are pretty much the same. Any gain by either one of them is a loss to Israel.”
But of far greater concern should be the Obama administration’s decision to back Israel to the hilt and the US media’s silence on the matter. There can be no hope of a peaceful solution ever gaining traction – or these bouts of blood-letting in Gaza coming to end – unless Washington is finally unmasked as Israel’s abettor-in-chief.
A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi. The version here is published by permission of Jonathan Cook.
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Media follow Israeli line on captured soldier

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The Israeli media have finally been allowed to partially confirm Hamas’ claim from Sunday that it has captured an Israeli soldier. They are reporting he is missing, presumed dead.
Here are three comments on the coverage.
First, Oron Shaul’s capture was treated as a non-story by the western media as long as it was only Hamas saying it. Now Israel agrees he is missing, his disappearance will be much commented on. When will we see our media treating Hamas claims with the same seriousness – let alone, credulousness – we do Israeli claims?
Second, the western media are echoing the Israeli media line – meaning the Israeli government line – that Shaul is “missing”. What can that possibly mean in Gaza at the moment apart from that he or his body is in Hamas’ possession? Given that Hamas had already both announced his capture and named him, the western media ought to stop slavishly following Israeli propaganda.
Third, if it becomes clear Shaul is alive, see how many western media outlets refuse to adopt Israel’s view that he has been “kidnapped”.


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Calls for genocide enter Israeli mainstream

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I wonder what would the reaction be in the 'civilized' world if one utters similar calls against the Zionists? 
By the way the 'civilized' world not only turns a blind eye to Israel's crime in Palestine, but is shamelessly complicit by expression of understanding and even justifications!!!
Sami 


As we watch the horrifying slaughter unfold in Gaza, bear in mind the Israeli psychosis that fuels and justifies it. Here are comments from three rightwing Israelis – two leading politicians and a professor – who very much reflect a strain of mainstream thinking in Israel, one that the international media largely avoids noting.
Each, in their different ways, is advocating a genocide of the Palestinians.
Ayelet Shaked, of economics minister Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party, calls on her Facebook page for murdering the mothers of what she terms Palestinian “terrorists” (a very broad concept indeed in current Israeli thinking) so that they cannot give birth to more “little snakes”:
They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists. They are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands. This also applies to the mothers of the dead terrorists. …
[The terrorists] are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.
Mordechai Kedar, a lecturer on Arabic literature at Bar Ilan University, believes the sisters and mothers of Palestinian “terrorists” should be raped:
A terrorist, like those who kidnapped the boys [in the West Bank on June 12] and killed them, the only thing that will deter them, is if they know that either their sister or mother will be raped if they are caught. What can we do? This is the culture that we live in.
Note that his university did not reprimand him. They defended his comments:
The purpose was to define the culture of death of the terrorist organizations. Dr Kedar illustrated in his words the bitter reality of the Middle East and the inability of a modern and law-abiding country to fight the terror of suicide bombers.
And finally we have Moshe Feiglin, a deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, urging the Israeli army to kill Palestinians in Gaza indiscriminately and use every means possible to get them to leave:
[Netanyahu] announces that Israel is about to attack military targets in their area and urges those who are not involved and do not wish to be harmed to leave immediately. Sinai is not far from Gaza and they can leave. This will be the limit of Israel’s humanitarian efforts. … All the military and infrastructural targets will be attacked with no consideration for ‘human shields’ or ‘environmental damage’. …
The IDF will conquer the entire Gaza, using all the means necessary to minimize any harm to our soldiers, with no other considerations. … The enemy population that is innocent of wrong-doing and separated itself from the armed terrorists will be treated in accordance with international law and will be allowed to leave. Israel will generously aid those who wish to leave.
This psychosis is not going to get better on its own. In fact, it’s going to get much worse. How much worse will depend entirely on the continuing inaction of western leaders.





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Israel: "Palestinians who kill Israelis are terrorists, and Israelis who kill Palestinians are heroes"

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Keep in mind the suspect at a earlier time tried to kidnap a 8 year old Palestinian child from his mother so they could kill him.


Abu Khdeir suspects to plead insanity
JONATHAN COOK
Three Israeli suspects who have confessed to the gruesome killing of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, who was abducted in East Jerusalem and later burnt to death, are going to plead “temporary insanity”, according to Haaretz. Mohammed’s father guessed as much last week, when asked whether he trusted Israel’s judicial system: “I think they will say that [the murderers] were insane and give them a year or two and that’s all.”
That’s not because Hussein Abu Khdeir has incredible prescience; it’s because this is how it works in Israel. Palestinians who kill Israelis are terrorists, and Israelis who kill Palestinians are either heroes, if they are doing it in an official capacity, or deeply damaged individuals on the “fringes of society”, if they act on their own. Either way, they are not meaningfully held to account.
As Hussein also implies, the three, if convicted, will probably get a lenient sentence and then pardoned when the fuss dies down in a year or two.
Notice also that the three other suspects arrested last week have been released, even though the police say they were part of the cell believed to have organised the kidnapping. So why not charge them with conspiracy to murder, or membership of a terrorist organisation, or one of the other charges that would be used if the suspects were Palestinian, including Palestinian citizens of Israel?
And here’s another question: how can we take seriously a claim of “temporary insanity” among an organised group (“a cell”) that has a wider membership and whose creation presumably predated the general mood of revenge that permeated Israeli society following news that three Israeli teens had been abducted on June 12? What was this cell organised to do if not to harm Palestinians? And if this is the case, how can “insanity” apply to the group collectively and how can it be termed “temporary”?
I expect none of these questions to be addressed, let alone answered, in the trial – assuming, of course, we get one and this is not hushed up in a closed hearing at which they are committed to psychiatric care.
Instead, Israeli officials will doubtless assent to the deranged notion of “insanity” propagated by the far-right legal group, Honenu, defending the three suspects. It says:
Given the crazy, abnormal situation in the country, it’s natural that among the many people who approach us, some have been emotionally scarred by the security situation or by difficult personal circumstances and responded accordingly.
Remember, “accordingly” here refers to a decision to abduct a child, force-feed him a flammable liquid and then set him on fire. Maybe “insanity” in this case has a much wider application than just to three individuals.
Below is the full story in Haaretz.

In Israeli court, suspects in Mohammed Abu Khdeir killing to plead insanity

The two minors who have confessed to involvement in the killing ‘aren’t functioning individuals,’ a source says.
By Nir Hasson | Jul. 14, 2014 | 2:15 AM
The three main suspects in the kidnapping and murder of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir two weeks ago will probably claim temporary insanity, associates of the three said Sunday.
The three males, who have already confessed, are a 30-year-old man from a community near Jerusalem and two minors, one from Jerusalem and one from nearby Beit Shemesh. They are to be brought before the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court Monday morning to have their detention extended.
“They live at the fringe of society and aren’t functioning individuals,” said a source close to both minors.
Also on Monday, the police are expected to declare their intent to prosecute the three and ask that their detention be extended until Friday to allow for preparation of an indictment. On Friday, the police are expected to request that the three be held in custody until the end of legal proceedings.
Police believe the kidnapping and murder of Abu Khdeir was committed to avenge the kidnapping-murder of three Jewish teens whose bodies had been buried only hours earlier.
Asked last week whether he had faith in Israel’s judicial system, Mohammed’s father Hussein Abu Khdeir told Haaretz: “I don’t trust them. Not in the least. I am afraid. I am really afraid. I think they will say that [the murderers] were insane and give them a year or two and that’s all.”
The three suspects have reenacted the kidnapping and murder; they were in the car when Abu Khdeir was snatched, assaulted, taken to the Jerusalem Forest and burned. An autopsy showed that although Abu Khdeir had been struck on the head, he was still alive when set on fire.
Three other suspects were released last week after it was determined that they were not involved in the killing, although they were allegedly part of the cell that was responsible for it. Their attorneys from the group Honenu said there was no evidence linking them to the murder and complained that they had been held for days without being allowed to see a lawyer.
According to its website, Honenu defends civilians and soldiers “who find themselves in legal entanglements due to defending themselves against Arab aggression, or due to their love for Israel.” The group said that defending these suspects was in keeping with its mission.
“Given the crazy, abnormal situation in the country, it’s natural that among the many people who approach us, some have been emotionally scarred by the security situation or by difficult personal circumstances and responded accordingly,” Honenu chief Shmuel Medad told the newspaper Besheva. “Apparently this is such a case.”
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem light rail ran its full route Sunday for the first time since rioters in Jerusalem’s Shoafat neighborhood destroyed stations and equipment after Abu Khdeir’s body had been found. As a result, the company CityPass, which operates the system, stopped service through Shoafat, leaving the large Jewish neighborhood Pisgat Ze’ev at the end of the route cut off.
On Sunday, police and security guards rode on light-rail trains as they passed through Arab neighborhoods.

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Israelis have the upper hand when it comes to vengeance

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Shock and anger have engulfed Israeli and Palestinian societies since they learnt last week of the barbarous murder of children from their communities. Hours after three Israeli teenagers’ bodies were located, long after their abduction, a Palestinian youth, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, was kidnapped, beaten and burnt to death, apparently as revenge.
These horrifying events should serve as a lesson in the obscene futility of vengeance. As a relative of one of the murdered children observed: “There is no difference between blood and blood.”
Sadly, that was not the message implicit in much of last week’s coverage. On social media, a juxtaposition of pictures from the same day’s New York Times showed how easy it is to forget not only that our blood is the same but that grief is too.
A headline about Israelis’ “heartbreak” was illustrated movingly by the families of the three Israeli teenagers huddled together, overwhelmed by their loss. A report on the killing of 16-year-old Abu Khdeir, on the other hand, was accompanied by an image of masked youths throwing stones.
These contrasting depictions of mourning were entirely misleading. True, Palestinian youngsters have been violently protesting in Jerusalem and communities in Israel since Abu Khdeir was buried. But so have groups of Israeli Jews. They have rampaged through Jerusalem and parts of Israel, calling out “Death to the Arabs” and attacking anyone who looks Palestinian.
Nonetheless, Abraham Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, a US Jewish organisation that claims to fight bigotry, was peddling an equally divisive message. In the Huffington Post he wrote of a Palestinian “culture of hatred”.
According to Mr Foxman, Palestinian and Israeli societies are fundamentally different. Palestinian discontent is “fanned and incited into hatred by a widespread, unfettered support for violence against Jews and Israel”.
He was echoing a sentiment common in Israel, and famously voiced in the late 1960s by the then prime minister, Golda Meir. She suggested that even harder than forgiving the Arab enemy for killing Israel’s sons would be “to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons”.
In a bout of similar self-righteousness, many Israelis berate Palestinian parents for putting their children in danger’s way by allowing them to throw stones at Israeli security forces. The implication is that Palestinians – as a result of either culture or religion – value life less than Israelis.
Strangely, Israelis rarely question the implication of the decision taken by one in 10 of their number to live in illegal colonies on stolen Palestinian land. The settlers choose to put themselves and their children on the front lines too, even though they have far more choices than Palestinians about where to live.
In fact, neither Israelis nor Palestinians can claim to be above a culture of hate. As long as Israel’s belligerent occupation continues, their lives together in one small patch of the Middle East will continue to be predicated on bouts of violent confrontation.
But that does not mean Israeli and Palestinian culpability is equal. The reality is that Israelis, unlike Palestinians, have a sovereign state that represents them and protects them with a strong army.
Last week, the Israeli army announced that it had arrested several soldiers who posted online photographs of themselves vowing revenge against “Arabs” – part of a flood of calls for vengeance on ­Hebrew social media. The arrests played well with Israel’s image as a country that enforces the rule of law, but concealed deeper truths.
The first is that the Israelis thirsting for reprisals are simply echoing their politicians and religious leaders whose statements for vengeance surpassed even the ugly grandstanding of Hamas, which had praised the Israeli teenagers’ abduction.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu led the way, citing a famous line of Hebrew poetry: “The devil himself has not yet created vengeance for the blood of a small child.” His economics minister, Naftali Bennett, urged Israel to “go mad”, while a former legislator vowed that Israel would turn Ramadan into a “month of darkness”. An influential and supposedly moderate rabbi hoped for “an army of avengers”.
Last week, left-wing Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv to castigate the Netanyahu government for “incitement to violence”. But even this underestimated the problem.
Israeli leaders’ threats are not simply stoking an ugly mood on the street. The huge muscle of the Israeli security apparatus is flexing at their behest too. That was given graphic illustration in video footage of armed police in Jerusalem relentlessly kicking and punching a child – a 15-year-old American relative of Abu Khdeir – as he lay cuffed and helpless on the ground.
The cabinet is plotting a more subtle revenge. It plans to build new settlements – violence against Palestinian life on the little slivers of territory left to them – specifically to honour the three teenagers. Guarded by the army, settlers have already set up a new encampment in the West Bank.
The army, meanwhile, launched a series of strikes on Gaza, culminating in a new large-scale attack dubbed Operation Protective Edge. It has also revived a policy of demolishing the homes of relatives of Palestinian terror suspects. Backed by the courts, soldiers blew up the family homes of two men it accused of being behind the teenagers’ abduction.
As Human Rights Watch warned, Israel’s recent actions – mass arrests; armed raids; the killing of Palestinians, including minors; lockdowns of cities, house demolitions; and air strikes – amounted to “collective punishment”, international law’s euphemism for revenge, against Palestinians.
In the face of the enduring violence of Israel’s occupation, and the licence it provides soldiers to humiliate and oppress, ordinary Palestinians have a stark choice: to submit or resist. Ordinary Israelis, on the other hand, do not need to seek revenge on their own account. The Israeli state, military and courts are there every day doing it for them.

The National – 8 July 2014
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Cultures of Hate: Israelis, Not Palestinians, Excel at Vengeance

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By Jonathan Cook - Nazareth

Shock and anger have engulfed Israeli and Palestinian societies since they learnt last week of the barbarous murder of children from their communities. Hours after three Israeli teenagers' bodies were located, long after their abduction, a Palestinian youth, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, was kidnapped, beaten and burnt to death, apparently as revenge.

These horrifying events should serve as a lesson in the obscene futility of vengeance. As a relative of one of the murdered children observed: "There is no difference between blood and blood."

Sadly, that was not the message implicit in much of last week's coverage. On social media, a juxtaposition of pictures from the same day's New York Times showed how easy it is to forget not only that our blood is the same but that grief is too.

A headline about Israelis' "heartbreak" was illustrated movingly by the families of the three Israeli teenagers huddled together, overwhelmed by their loss. A report on the killing of 16-year-old Abu Khdeir, on the other hand, was accompanied by an image of masked youths throwing stones.

These contrasting depictions of mourning were entirely misleading. True, Palestinian youngsters have been violently protesting in Jerusalem and communities in Israel since Abu Khdeir was buried. But so have groups of Israeli Jews. They have rampaged through Jerusalem and parts of Israel, calling out "Death to the Arabs" and attacking anyone who looks Palestinian.

Nonetheless, Abraham Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, a US Jewish organization that claims to fight bigotry, was peddling an equally divisive message. In the Huffington Post he wrote of a Palestinian "culture of hatred".

According to Foxman, Palestinian and Israeli societies are fundamentally different. Palestinian discontent is "fanned and incited into hatred by a widespread, unfettered support for violence against Jews and Israel".

He was echoing a sentiment common in Israel, and famously voiced in the late 1960s by the then prime minister, Golda Meir. She suggested that even harder than forgiving the Arab enemy for killing Israel's sons would be "to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons".
In a bout of similar self-righteousness, many Israelis berate Palestinian parents for putting their children in danger's way by allowing them to throw stones at Israeli security forces. The implication is that Palestinians - as a result of either culture or religion - value life less than Israelis.

Strangely, Israelis rarely question the implication of the decision taken by one in 10 of their number to live in illegal colonies on stolen Palestinian land. The settlers choose to put themselves and their children on the front lines too, even though they have far more choices than Palestinians about where to live.

In fact, neither Israelis nor Palestinians can claim to be above a culture of hate. As long as Israel's belligerent occupation continues, their lives together in one small patch of the Middle East will continue to be predicated on bouts of violent confrontation.

But that does not mean Israeli and Palestinian culpability is equal. The reality is that Israelis, unlike Palestinians, have a sovereign state that represents them and protects them with a strong army.

Last week, the Israeli army announced that it had arrested several soldiers who posted online photographs of themselves vowing revenge against "Arabs" - part of a flood of calls for vengeance on ¬Hebrew social media. The arrests played well with Israel's image as a country that enforces the rule of law, but they concealed deeper truths.

The first is that the Israelis thirsting for reprisals are simply echoing their politicians and religious leaders whose statements for vengeance surpassed even the ugly grandstanding of Hamas, which had praised the Israeli teenagers' abduction.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led the way, citing a famous line of Hebrew poetry: "The devil himself has not yet created vengeance for the blood of a small child." His economics minister, Naftali Bennett, urged Israel to "go mad", while a former legislator vowed that Israel would turn Ramadan into a "month of darkness". An influential and supposedly moderate rabbi hoped for "an army of avengers".

Last week, left wing Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv to castigate the Netanyahu government for "incitement to violence". But even this underestimated the problem.

Israeli leaders' threats are not simply stoking an ugly mood on the street. The huge muscle of the Israeli security apparatus is flexing at their behest too. That was given graphic illustration in video footage of armed police in Jerusalem relentlessly kicking and punching a child - a 15-year-old American relative of Abu Khdeir - as he lay cuffed and helpless on the ground.

The cabinet is plotting a more subtle revenge. It plans to build new settlements - violence against Palestinian life on the little slivers of territory left to them - specifically to honor the three teenagers. Guarded by the army, settlers have already set up a new encampment in the West Bank.

The army, meanwhile, launched a series of strikes on Gaza, culminating in a new large-scale attack dubbed Operation Protective Edge. It has also revived a policy of demolishing the homes of relatives of Palestinian terror suspects. Backed by the courts, soldiers blew up the family homes of two men it accused of being behind the teenagers' abduction.

As Human Rights Watch warned, Israel's recent actions - mass arrests; armed raids; the killing of Palestinians, including minors; lockdowns of cities, house demolitions; and air strikes - amounted to "collective punishment", international law's euphemism for revenge, against Palestinians.

In the face of the enduring violence of Israel's occupation, and the licence it provides soldiers to humiliate and oppress, ordinary Palestinians have a stark choice: to submit or resist. Ordinary Israelis, on the other hand, do not need to seek revenge on their own account. The Israeli state, military and courts are there every day doing it for them.

- Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books). He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Visit: www.jonathan-cook.net. (A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.)
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