The graphic video seen above illustrates some of the devastation caused by Israel’s new bombing campaign in Gaza. At least 22 people have been killed and 90 injured. Meanwhile, militants in the strip are firing rockets with longer ranges than ever before, reaching Tel Aviv and beyond. Those that landed in and around the coastal city forced the evacuation of a peace conference organized by Ha’aretz. Max Fisher comments on the sad irony of that development:
Observers of the Israel-Palestine conflict often say that the violence committed by both sides is self-defeating, but rarely is this so demonstrably and immediately true as with today’s evacuation of the Ha’aretz peace conference. The conference itself is part of a larger effort by the Israeli political left to overcome Israeli apathy toward the conflict and build political momentum for peace; that movement is squeezed between Israel’s political right and militant Palestinian groups, both of which in action and rhetoric tend to polarize Israelis and Palestinians against one another and against even the idea of compromise. It’s often said that there is not enough “political space” for the Israeli pro-peace left, and while typically that is meant metaphorically today it was true physically as well.
While Hamas and other Palestinian groups have launched a number of rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel over the past week, they almost never reach all the way to Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest city and a cosmopolitan haven rarely touched by the conflict. The rocket siren sounded over the city for the first time since 2012, when Gaza groups fired hundreds of rockets into Israel as Israeli forces bombarded the Palestinian territory. The rockets appear to have landed harmlessly and the conference attendees eventually returned to the hall. The incident ended bloodlessly, but it was a perfect symbol of the conflict’s tragic absurdity and endless cycle of self-perpetuation.
Meanwhile, Goldblog weighs in on the killing of Muhammad Abu Khdeir and the brutal beating of his cousin Tariq:
I think that while the murder of 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir is a terrible crime, the non-fatal beating of his cousin, the Palestinian-American teenager Tariq Khdeir, by Israel’s Border Police, is, in one way, more consequential. Obviously, murder is the ultimate crime, but this murder was committed, we believe, by thugs operating independent of state authority. The beating of Tariq Khdeir was conducted by agents of the state. We judge countries not on the behavior of their criminal elements, but on 1) how they police their criminal elements; and 2) how they police their police. Those of you who have seen images of the beating of Tariq Khdeir know that this assault represents a state failure.
Unfortunately, this is not a one-off failure. On too many occasions, Israeli police officers and soldiers have meted out excessive punishment to Palestinians in custody. I’ve witnessed some of these incidents myself, both as a reporter and as a soldier. More than two decades ago, I served in the Israeli military police at the Ketziot prison camp, by Israel’s border with Egypt. This was during the first Palestinian uprising (which is remembered now, of course, as the “good” uprising, of stone-throwing and Molotov cocktails, rather than suicide bombers) and the prison held roughly 6,000 Palestinians, many of them street fighters, but many from the leadership of the uprising as well. It was at the prison that I witnessed—and broke up—one of the more vicious beatings I have ever seen. I wrote about this incident, and others, in my book about my time in Ketziot, Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror.
Fisher provides a depressing reminder that getting roughed up at the hands of Israeli police is an all too common experience for Palestinian boys:
According to a February 2013 report by UNICEF, the United Nation’s Children’s Fund, about 700 Palestinian minors are arrested, interrogated, and detained by Israeli security forces every year. That has been sustained for the last ten years, bringing the total to 7,000 under-age Palestinians detained by Israel, or about two per day, every day, for a decade. Almost all are boys, and according to the report many are released with substantial bruising and cuts.
According to the UNICEF report, “The common experience of many children is being aggressively awakened in the middle of the night by many armed soldiers and being forcibly brought to an interrogation centre tied and blindfolded, sleep deprived and in a state of extreme fear. Few children are informed of their right to legal counsel.” The most common charge is stone-throwing — as it was against Khdeir — and most detained children confess, almost always without a lawyer or parent present.
The Dish 