Can Palestinians be Killed? Can Israelis Kill them? Or do they only "Die"?
JUAN COLE
05/15/2018
Social media is being scathing about the diction chosen by the New York Times, CNN and even the Guardian to speak of the some 55 peacefully protesting Palestinians whom Israeli snipers cold-bloodedly shot dead on Monday and the some 2700 whom they wounded, half of those with live fire. The headlines or lead paragraphs spoke of Palestinians “dying,” as though they had mysteriously and unexpectedly contracted the unusual disease of bullet penetration. (The NYT cleaned up its act on Tuesday in the wake of the criticisms; people do what they think they can get away with; but this isn’t a new problem with its word manipulations when it comes to Israel).
I just heard CNN International, which is usually more adult than the American version, say that “clashes” resulted in “deaths,” “many of them” caused by Israeli fire. So there were no clashes. All the Palestinians died on their side of the Israeli prison fence. No Israelis were injured. And all of the injuries were caused by Israeli fire, whether live or rubber bullets (they can be lethal) or drones dropping teargas cannisters. “Many of them” were children or journalists.
Why is it so hard to admit that the Israeli army, and Israeli squatter settlers, routinely kill Palestinians? (If you follow daily news from the West Bank, there is a low intensity conflict there with serious incidents every day.) The current neofascist Israeli government even has adopted a doctrine that Palestinians may be killed at will even when they pose no danger to anyone, if they aren’t doing what Israelis tell them to do.
It is because the West categorizes Palestinians as dinosaurs, not mammals. They are the last colonial subjects, not citizens. They have no state. There is no contemporary category for them. They are unique. People compare them to West Saharans or Kurds but they are not actually like them. Kurds and Saharans have passports and citizenship in a state. They are subnationalists who want a different citizenship and a different passport, one that does not yet exist. That aspiration is different entirely from being stateless. Palestinians cannot easily travel. They only have a laissez-passer and receiving governments are afraid they will stay. They are all inmates. They often cannot own property, as in Lebanon, or their property is insecure, under constant threat of Israeli expropriation or destruction.
Their lives are made of silly putty.
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..........70% of the Palestinian families in Gaza are refugees from what is now southern Israel, trapped in the Gaza Strip and denuded of property, dignity and prospects.
That is why Palestinians in Gaza are rallying at the fence and insisting that the world will not be allowed to forget two million stateless persons trapped and under blockade in an Israeli concentration camp.
And that is why the neo-imperial powers, who find this clamor of colonial subjects distasteful, erase them from the story, having them “die” or “be killed” in the passive mood.
Whenever you read of someone killed in the passive mood, you may be assured that a cover-up is being conducted by the murderers and their accomplices.
The Rest:
https://www.juancole.com/2018/05/palestinians-killed-israelis.html
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