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<div id="reader-header" class="header" style="display: block;"> <font
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href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/israels-ever-more-sadistic-reprisals-help-shore-up-a-sense-of-victimhood/5598834">http://www.globalresearch.ca/israels-ever-more-sadistic-reprisals-help-shore-up-a-sense-of-victimhood/5598834</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Israel’s Ever-more Sadistic Reprisals Help
Shore Up a Sense of Victimhood<br>
</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">By Jonathan Cook - July
12, 2017<br>
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<div id="yiv3084245817yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499777956756_16949"
class="yiv3084245817">
<p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499822481024_2994"
class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499822481024_2993"
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">The panic and
cruelty plumbed new depths last week, when Israeli
officials launched a $2.3 million lawsuit against the
family of <strong>Fadi Qanbar</strong>, who crashed a
truck into soldiers in Jerusalem in January, killing
four. He was shot dead at the scene.</span><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p id="yiv3084245817yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499777956756_16956"
class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499822481024_3004"
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">The suit demands
that his widow, Tahani, reimburse the state for the
compensation it awarded the soldiers’ families. If she
cannot raise the astronomic sum, the debt will pass to
her four children, the oldest of whom is currently
only seven.</span><span class="yiv3084245817"
lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">Israel is reported
to be preparing many similar cases.</span><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">Like other families
of Palestinians who commit attacks, the Qanbars are
homeless, after Israel sealed their East Jerusalem
home with cement. Twelve relatives were also stripped
of their residency papers as a prelude to expelling
them to the West Bank.</span></p>
<p id="yiv3084245817yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499777956756_16963"
class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
id="yiv3084245817yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499777956756_16965"
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">None has done
anything wrong – their crime is simply to be related
to someone Israel defines as a “terrorist”.</span><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p id="yiv3084245817yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499777956756_16959"
class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
id="yiv3084245817yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499777956756_16958"
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">This trend is
intensifying. Israel has demanded that the Palestinian
Authority stop paying a small monthly stipend to
families like the Qanbars, whose breadwinner was
killed or jailed. Conviction rates among Palestinians
in Israel’s military legal system stand at more than
99 per cent, and hundreds of prisoners are
incarcerated without charge.</span><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">Israeli legislation
is set to seize $280 million – a sum equivalent to the
total stipends – from taxes Israel collects on behalf
of the Palestinian Authority, potentially bankrupting
it.</span><span class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">On Wednesday Israel
loyalists will introduce in the US Senate a bill to
similarly deny the PA aid unless it stops “funding
terror”. <strong>Issa Karaka</strong>, a Palestinian
official, said it would be impossible for the PA to
comply:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> “Almost every
other household … is the family of a prisoner or
martyr.”</span><span class="yiv3084245817"
lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
</blockquote>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">Israel has taken
collective punishment – a serious violation of
international law – to new extremes, stretching the
notion to realms once imaginable only in a dystopian
fable like <strong>George Orwell</strong>’s 1984.</span><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">Israel argues that
a potential attacker can only be dissuaded by knowing
his loved ones will suffer harsh retribution. Or put
another way, Israel is prepared to use any means to
crush the motivation of Palestinians to resist its
brutal, five-decade occupation.</span><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">All evidence,
however, indicates that when people reach
breaking-point, and are willing to die in the fight
against their oppressors, they give little thought to
the consequences for their families. That was the
conclusion of an investigation by the Israeli army
more than a decade ago.</span></p>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">In truth, Israel
knows its policy is futile. It is not deterring
attacks, but instead engaging in complex displacement
activity. Ever-more sadistic forms of revenge shore up
a collective and historic sense of Jewish victimhood
while deflecting Israelis’ attention from the reality
that their country is a brutal colonial settler state.</span><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499822481024_3087"
class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499822481024_3086"
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">If that verdict
seems harsh, consider a newly published study into the
effects on operators of using drones to carry out
extrajudicial executions, in which civilians are often
killed as “collateral damage”.</span><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">A US survey found
pilots who remotely fly drones soon develop symptoms
of post-traumatic stress from inflicting so much death
and destruction. The Israeli army replicated the study
after its pilots operated drones over Gaza during
Israel’s 2014 attack – the ultimate act of collective
punishment. Some 500 Palestinian children were killed
as the tiny enclave was bombarded for nearly two
months.</span><span class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">Doctors were
surprised, however, that the pilots showed no signs of
depression or anxiety. The researchers speculate that
Israeli pilots may feel more justified in their
actions, because they are closer to Gaza than US
pilots are to Afghanistan, Iraq or Yemen. They are
more confident that they are the ones under threat,
even as they rain down death unseen on Palestinians.</span><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">The determination
to maintain this exclusive self-image as the victim
leads to outrageous double standards.</span><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">Last week the
Israeli supreme court backed the refusal by officials
to seal up the homes of three Jews who kidnapped <strong>Mohammed
Abu Khdeir</strong>, a 16-year-old from Jerusalem,
in 2014 and burnt him alive.</span><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">In May the Israeli
government revealed that it had denied compensation to
six-year-old <strong>Ahmed Dawabsheh</strong>, the
badly scarred, sole survivor of an arson attack by
Jewish extremists that killed his entire family two
years ago.</span><span class="yiv3084245817"
lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">Human rights group
B’Tselem recently warned that Israel has given itself
immunity from paying compensation to all Palestinians
under occupation killed or disabled by the Israeli
army – even in cases of criminal wrongdoing.</span><span
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499822481024_3093"
class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><span
id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499822481024_3092"
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">This endless
heaping of insult upon injury for Palestinians is
possible only because the west has indulged Israel’s
wallowing in victimhood so long. It is time to prick
this bubble of self-delusion and remind Israel that
it, not the Palestinians, is the oppressor.</span></p>
<p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499822481024_3090"
class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><i
id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499822481024_3089"
class="yiv3084245817"><span
id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499822481024_3088"
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US">A version of this
article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.</span></i></p>
<p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499822481024_3098"
class="yiv3084245817MsoNormal"><i
id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499822481024_3097"
class="yiv3084245817"><span
id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1499822481024_3096"
class="yiv3084245817" lang="EN-US"><strong>Jonathan
Cook</strong> won the Martha Gellhorn Special
Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel
and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the
Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and
“Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in
Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is <a
class="yiv3084245817"
href="http://www.jonathan-cook.net/"
target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.jonathan-cook.net</a>.</span></i></p>
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