by Stephen Lendman

Deplorable Western and Israeli media reports one-sidedly portray Palestinians as the knife wielding terrorists. The Times of Israel disgracefully highlighted a „stabbing intifada.“

US media feature alleged stabbing incidents without evidence. Sources are always Israeli officials. Palestinian voices are largely shut out.

Nothing is said about decades of suffocating occupation, endless Israeli high crimes against peace, Zionist zealots and fascists running things – the most ruthless coalition regime in its history.

Daily bloodshed in Palestine continues, flagrant violations against defenseless civilians. Palestinians are being lethally shot and injured, bludgeoned, mass arrested, imprisoned and tortured for wanting to live free. 

Children are targeted as ruthlessly as adults. Video evidence shows cold-blooded Israeli murder. Dania Jehad Ersheid, aged 17, was lethally shot when she stopped to have her school bag searched.

She had no knife or other weapon, threatened no one, complied fully with soldiers‘ orders, raised her arms above her head to show she was harmless. She’s dead, her corpse removed to an unknown location.

Human rights groups accuse Israel of continuing to commit daily high crimes against humanity. Palestinian homes are being bulldozed punitively – 450 in 2015 alone, displacing hundreds of families.

Thousands of East Jerusalem Palestinian parents of students got letters, telling them to keep their children from obtaining knives. Shin Bet accused PA officials of inciting violence, fanning a „current terror wave.“

Hamas is being blamed. Will more war on the beleaguered Strip follow? Will remaining structures be turned to rubble? Will thousands more be slaughtered?

Last week, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon met with his counterpart, Ashton Carter, in Washington. A relationship „of stability and endurance“ was highlighted by both parties.

Carter praised the important „two-way relationship.“ One rogue state supports the other, partnering in each other’s wars and other high crimes.

Obama and Netanyahu are scheduled to meet on November 9 in Washington, the first time since last year. US affirmation of ongoing Israeli rampaging is sure to be discussed.

Palestinians are being summarily assassinated. Amnesty International commented on Israeli soldiers murdering Hadeel al-Hashlamoun. She threatened no one, AI saying:

„Even if (she) ha(d) a knife, Israeli soldiers, who are protected with body armour and heavily equipped with advanced weapons, could have controlled the situation and arrested her without threatening her life.“

„Open fire regulations of the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank allow soldiers to open fire only when their lives are in imminent danger, and Amnesty International concludes that this was not the case in the shooting of al-Hashlamoun, as she was standing still and separated from the soldiers by a metal barrier.“

„There was no attempt to arrest (her), according to eyewitnesses, or to use non-lethal alternatives.

To then shoot (her) again multiple times as she lay wounded on the ground indicates that her killing was an extrajudicial execution.“

„Unlawful and deliberate killings carried out by order of government or military officials, or with their complicity or acquiescence, amount to extrajudicial executions, which are prohibited at all times and constitute crimes under international law.“

„An extrajudicial execution would also constitute a willful killing, which is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which applies to Israel’s long-standing military occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and a war crime.“

Al-Hashlamoun is one of many  victims since October 1, extrajudicial assassinations of defenseless Palestinians, numerous others gunned down during decades of occupation harshness, always unaccountably.

Israeli soldiers, police, and other security forces are licensed to kill with impunity. So are extremist settlers, reflecting the utter disregard for Palestinian lives and welfare – why youths and children now resist.

Israel is willfully stoking tension throughout the Territories. Palestinian homes are being stormed pre-dawn. Multiple violent confrontations occur daily.

Communities are being isolated. Toxic tear gas fumes waft almost everywhere. Victims in harm’s way are being suffocated and poisoned.

The root problem ignored by Western and Israeli media is obvious – decades of occupation harshness, Palestinians resisting for long-denied freedom.

Physician, political activist, human rights champion Mustafa Barghouti asked „(w)hy is this happening? After (decades of futile) negotiations, Palestinians realize that the road to peace is completely blocked by Israel, and that Israeli governments are using peace negotiations as a cover for the expansion of settlements.“

Daily settler violence is another reason – supported by Israeli soldiers and police. No one is safe. Desecrating Al Aqsa was the „straw that broke the camel’s back,“ Barghouti explained, along with restricting access to Islam’s third holiest site.

„This uprising is the result of an accumulation of factors, all of which have roots in one place: the Israeli occupation of PalestineŠWe have been promised a solution that has not been realized,“ he said.

Youths have no futures. Unemployment exceeds 60%. „The main difference (between now and earlier is) this generation knows exactly what they are missing,“ Barghouti explained.

„Mainly through social media, young Palestinians know how people are living in other parts of the world; they know what it means to be free.“

„They know what it means to have the opportunity for economic prosperity. They know what they are missing, and they are asking for the freedom they do not have.“

The only solution is ending the occupation, Palestinians finally able to live free. Nothing less can work.

First published here.