[News] Spreading the virus of occupation: Spitting as a weapon in the hand of colonial Israel

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://qudsnen.co/spreading-the-virus-of-occupation-spitting-as-a-weapon-in-the-hand-of-colonial-israel/ 



  Spreading the virus of occupation: Spitting as a weapon in the hand of
  colonial Israel

/By Ramzy Baroud - April 14, 2020
/

Spitting at someone is a universal insult. In Israel, however, spitting 
at Palestinians is an entirely different story.

Now that we know that the deadly coronavirus can be transmitted through 
saliva droplets, Israeli soldiers and illegal Jewish settlers are 
working extra hard to spit at as many Palestinians, their cars, 
doorknobs, and so on, as possible.

If this sounds to you too surreal and repugnant, then you might not be 
as familiar with the particular breed of Israeli colonialism as you may 
think you are.

In all fairness, Israelis have been spitting at Palestinians well before 
the World Health Organization (WHO) lectured 
<https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public> 
us on the elusive nature of the COVID-19 disease and on the critical 
need to apply ‘social distancing’.

Indeed, if you Google the phrase ‘Israeli spitting’, you will be 
inundated with many interesting search results, the like of “Jerusalem 
Judge to Jews: Don’t Spit On Christians 
<https://forward.com/schmooze/145816/jerusalem-judge-to-jews-dont-spit-on-christians/>“, 
“Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to Stop Spitting on Them 
<https://www.haaretz.com/1.4715226>“, and the more recent, “Israel 
Settlers Spitting on Palestinian Cars Raises Concern over Attempt to 
Spread Coronavirus 
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200406-israel-settlers-spitting-on-palestinian-cars-raises-concern-over-attempt-to-spread-coronavirus/>”.

Interestingly, most of this coverage throughout the years has been 
carried out by Israel’s own media, while receiving little attention in 
Western mainstream media.

One could easily classify such degrading acts as yet another example of 
the Israelis’ false sense of superiority over Palestinians. But the 
deliberate attempt at infecting occupied Palestinians with the 
coronavirus is beneath contempt, even for a settler-colonial regime.

Two particular elements in this story require a pause:

First, that acts of spitting at Palestinians and their properties, by 
both occupation soldiers and settlers, have been widely reported in many 
parts of occupied Palestine.

This means that, within a matter of days, the Israeli army and settlers’ 
cultures so swiftly adapted their pre-existing racism to employ a deadly 
virus as the latest tool in subjugating and harming Palestinians, 
whether physically or symbolically.

Second, the degree of ignorance and buffoonery that accompany these 
racist and degrading acts.

The power paradigm that has governed the relationship between colonial 
Israel and colonized Palestinians has, thus far, followed a typical 
trajectory, where Israel’s bad deeds often go unpunished.

Those racist Israelis who are deliberately trying to infect Palestinians 
with the COVID-19 are not only criminal in their thinking and behavior, 
but utterly foolish as well.

When Israeli soldiers arrest or beat up Palestinian activists, they are 
as likely to contract the coronavirus as they are to transmit it.

But, of course, Israel is doing much more to complicate, if not entirely 
hinder, Palestinian efforts aimed at containing the spread of the 
coronavirus.

On March 23, a Palestinian worker, Malek Jayousi, was tossed 
<https://qudsnen.co/israel-throws-away-three-palestinian-workers-at-palestinian-side-of-military-checkpoint/> 
out by Israeli authorities at the Beit Sira military checkpoint, near 
Ramallah, after he was suspected of having the coronavirus.

A video footage of the poor worker huddling near the checkpoint, after 
he was “dumped like trash”, has gone viral on social media.

As shocking as that image was, it was repeated 
<https://www.972mag.com/checkpoint-palestinian-laborers-coronavirus/> in 
other parts of the West Bank.

Of course, the Palestinian workers were not tested for the virus, but 
had merely exhibited flu-like symptoms, enough to make Israel dispose of 
them as if their lives did not matter in the least.

Two weeks later, the Palestinian Governor of the occupied city of 
Qalqiliya, Rafi’ Rawajbeh, told reporters 
<http://english.wafa.ps/page.aspx?id=2Qp0WXa115723647270a2Qp0WX> that 
the Israeli army has opened several wastewater tunnels near the northern 
Palestinian city, with the aim of smuggling Palestinian workers back to 
the West Bank, without prior coordination with the Palestinian Authority.

Without testing hundreds of those smuggled workers, the PA, already 
operating with limited capacity to confront the disease, will find it 
impossible to contain the spread of the virus.

Palestinian claims of Israel’s deliberate attempt at worsening the 
spread of the coronavirus in Palestine were further confirmed by the 
Geneva-based Euro-med Monitor, which, on March 31, called 
<https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/3459/Israeli-forces--incursions-and-soldiers--behavior-jeopardize-measures-to-prevent-outbreak-of-COVID19> 
on the international community to investigate the ‘suspicious behavior’ 
of Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers.

During Israeli army raids on Palestinian homes, soldiers “spat at parked 
cars, ATMs and shop locks, which raises fears of deliberate attempts to 
spread the virus and cause panic in the Palestinian society,” Euro-Med 
stated.

Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention does not say anything about 
the need for members of the Occupying Power to stop spitting at occupied 
and subjugated communities; most likely, because it is a given that such 
sordid behavior is completely unacceptable and does not require a 
separate textual reference.

However, Article 56, as was recently emphasized 
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200321-un-israel-is-legally-responsible-for-safety-of-palestinians/> 
by UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the 
Palestinian Territory, Michael Lynk, does require 
<https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Article.xsp?action=openDocument&documentId=AD2F7F5D8CF955AFC12563CD0051BE51> 
Israel, the Occupying Power, to “ensure that all the necessary 
preventive means available to it are utilized to ‘combat the spread of 
contagious diseases and epidemics.’”

Israel, however, is failing its legal mandate, and horribly so.

Even the Israeli mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Leon, has himself stressed 
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-75-of-jerusalem-coronavirus-cases-are-haredi-arab-hospitals-on-verge-of-collapse-1.8748309> 
the inequality in the official Israeli response to the spread of the 
coronavirus.

In his letter of April 7 to the Israeli Health Ministry Director 
General, Moshe Bar Siman Tov, Leon warned against “the serious shortage 
of medical equipment at (Palestinian) hospitals in (occupied) East 
Jerusalem, particularly protective equipment and equipment to conduct 
coronavirus testing.”

Despite the severe shortages in East Jerusalem and West Bank hospitals, 
the situation in the besieged Gaza Strip is simply disastrous, as Gaza’s 
Health Ministry has declared 
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-palestinians-gaza/gaza-runs-out-of-coronavirus-tests-palestinian-health-officials-say-idUSKCN21Q2Q3> 
on April 9 that it has run out of its coronavirus test kits, which never 
amounted to more than few hundred, in the first place.

This means that the many Gazans who are already under quarantine will 
not be released any time soon, and that new cases will not be detected, 
let alone cured.

We have repeatedly warned in the last few weeks that this terrifying 
scenario was going to happen, especially as Israel is using the 
coronavirus as an opportunity to further isolate Palestinians and to 
barter 
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200401-israel-links-coronavirus-aid-for-gaza-to-recovering-soldiers/> 
potential humanitarian aid with political concessions.

Without immediate and sustainable intervention from the international 
community, occupied Palestine, and especially impoverished and besieged 
Gaza, could become a hotbed for COVID-19 for years to come.

Israel will never relent without international intervention. Without 
being held accountable, even a deadly virus will never alter the habits 
of a vile military occupation.

Source: Middle East Monitor 
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200414-spreading-the-virus-of-occupation-spitting-as-a-weapon-in-the-hand-of-colonial-israel/?fbclid=IwAR0Q1UU20xpMilzAWdrqVlOUE1GT_eA7TS6VJVJc6Y434ZuKfGxtV5XbGfQ>

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