Proportionate Israeli Revenge - par Amira Hass - Nov 18, 2015 4:42 AM
▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.686710
Revenge has many fathers, and even mothers. Some are known by name: their honors Justices Miriam Naor, Hanan Melcer and Noam Sohlberg; head of the army’s Central Command Roni Numa; commander of the Binyamin Brigade Yisrael Shomer (the names change, but not their positions or their roles in the chain of vengeance).
The High Court of Justice ruling that authorized demolishing the houses of people suspected in the recent murders of Jews isn’t called revenge, but deterrence. Well, that is intriguing. After 50 years of Israeli rule that was forced on the Palestinians, and which has included every possible type of “deterrent” action, how is it that those dimwits still haven’t learned that they’re supposed to be deterred? So let’s dispense with the wrapping paper and call things by their proper name.
Most of the fathers of revenge aren’t known by name: for example, the numerous soldiers serving in the Binyamin Brigade, the Duvdevan undercover unit, the Shaked Battalion and the engineering corps who invaded the Qalandiyah refugee camp sometime after midnight on Monday. Their assignment was to demolish an apartment in the Al-Jabal neighborhood, the home of Mohammed Abu Shahin, who is accused of murdering Danny Gonen at a spring in the West Bank village of Deir Ibzi’a.
Accused, mind you; his guilt hasn’t yet been proven. And we, poor fools, learned back in elementary school that he is innocent until proven guilty. What’s surprising here is that when the suspect is a Palestinian, the High Court justices don’t even tried to conceal the gross violation of this basic legal presumption.
The honored justices and the officers are acting on the government’s orders to take revenge, and they make haste to do its will. A lynching has many faces. The lucky ones, and those with refined tastes, don’t have to soil their hands with blows and blood. They need only sign orders and cite previous, nicely wrapped verdicts.
Revenge is not sufficiently sweet without knowing the graphic details: the tear gas and the sounds of the explosions that once again invaded dreams and rooms, the helplessness of the parents, the fear of the children who live in Al-Jabal, who were awakened by blows on their doors and calls over the loudspeaker to leave their homes and gather on the soccer field (41 percent of the camp’s approximately 13,000 residents are up to 14 years old.)
“I believe there’s no reason to conclude that the planned demolition is disproportionate,” wrote Naor, and her learned colleagues concurred.
True, it’s crowded in the camp (343 dunams housing refugees who originated from Lod and 51 destroyed villages). Houses touch each other; upper-story apartments are just an arm’s length from their neighbors; alleys are only 1.5 meters wide. Naor, the author of the High Court’s decision, believed the state’s assertion that “the demolition will be carried out under the supervision of an engineer, who will ensure that all necessary steps are taken to prevent collateral damage.” Fifty years of rule, and the state and the honored justice and the engineer truly don’t know that it’s impossible to blow up a flat in a refugee camp without causing collateral damage?
And now for the collateral damage: At least nine other apartments were damaged in the explosion. Here the damage totaled tens of thousands of shekels, there it was merely thousands. Cracked supporting walls are in danger of collapsing.
These people worked in Israel, built for Israelis, removed Israelis’ trash and saved for years to build a multistory home in which the overcrowding could be forgotten — one with an air conditioner and pictures of Disney characters in the children’s rooms. The lynchers can rub their hands with glee: It’s not just the family of the accused that is paying for the murder, but also 50 or 60 of its neighbors.
Revenge in the guise of deterrence may work in the short term. For a month. For half a year. But in the long term, it creates new generations of Palestinians who will conclude they have no future with Israel and the Israelis.