The State of Revenge

It has been more than two decades since the Oslo Accords were signed between the PLO and Israel; they stipulate a permanent settlement to be reached within five years. Since then, Israel has been ducking and evading its obligations.
 
Commitments were always made by the weaker part of the equation, the Palestinians, whose wishes were and still are to get rid of the occupation.
 
During that era, Israel headed to the right; extreme rightists dominated the political scene. Their atrocities were not only against Palestinians but also against Israeli society. The assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was one example.
 
Fanatical politicians succeeded in dragging Israel to their point of view. Israel became a hostage to people like Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister, Naftali Bennett, and others. Israeli intransigence reached a high degree of control over everything, until the state itself became party to the crime and raised the bar for revenge and vengeance.
 
The mentality which governs the Israeli leaders is the mentality of revenge, a mentality of a colonialist oppressor who seeks only the surrender of the victim and will not understand or accept any kind of resistance, regardless of how legal or even how weak this resistance is.
 
A few weeks ago, three teenaged -- among them one settler -- disappeared; Israel said they were kidnapped but no one claimed responsibility for the act. Israel didn’t provide any evidence that the teens were kidnapped by a Palestinian faction. Despite that, Israel launched a campaign throughout the West Bank; hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were victims of that campaign and calls for revenge came first from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, followed by the rest of his government.
 
Among the measures taken against the Palestinians in the occupied territories was the closure of Hebron, where almost one million people live, several hundred Palestinians were arrested, and previously freed prisoners were rearrested.
 
After the teens' bodies were discovered by Israeli volunteers, calls for revenge came louder from the same leaders of the state. Such calls for revenge reveal how this state is a state of crime, led by a group of fanatics who pay no attention to international law or human values, a state which has nothing to do with democratic values or human rights.
 
The Israeli media, backed with biased international media, focused on the three teens’ disappearance, ignoring the reality that during the campaign 10 Palestinians were killed, dozens were injured, and hundreds were arrested.
 
It could be understandable when individuals retaliate or act in the midst of a culture of hatred, but when a state bears the slogan of revenge, this is not more than an invitation to mass killings, making the State of Israel the center of the crime.
 
The campaign of hatred and revenge launched by Netanyahu and his government led to the burning alive of a Palestinian teen in Jerusalem and the torturing of his cousin.
 
This campaign did not stop at just killing the child but now extends to the killing of an entire people in one of the most densely populated spots on earth, while the whole world is watching and doing nothing to stop the massacre.
 
As for the teens on both sides, the size of international hypocrisy was very clear despite the condemnations we heard about what happened to the Palestinian kid.
 
With regard to the aggression on Gaza, it is obvious that things are completely different, especially when we hear condemnations, only against Palestinians, whom according to international law, have the right to defend themselves and to resist the occupiers.
 
If Israel seeks peace as it claims, the road to peace is clear: Give the Palestinians their rights, stop the aggression against the Palestinians, and end the occupation. It is as simple as that.