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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://qudsnen.co/spreading-the-virus-of-occupation-spitting-as-a-weapon-in-the-hand-of-colonial-israel/">https://qudsnen.co/spreading-the-virus-of-occupation-spitting-as-a-weapon-in-the-hand-of-colonial-israel/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Spreading the virus of occupation:
Spitting as a weapon in the hand of colonial Israel</h1>
<em>By Ramzy Baroud - April 14, 2020<br>
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<p>Spitting at someone is a universal insult. In Israel,
however, spitting at Palestinians is an entirely
different story.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>In all fairness, Israelis have been spitting at
Palestinians well before the World Health Organization
(WHO) <a
href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public">lectured</a>
us on the elusive nature of the COVID-19 disease and on
the critical need to apply ‘social distancing’.</p>
<p>Indeed, if you Google the phrase ‘Israeli spitting’,
you will be inundated with many interesting search
results, the like of “<a
href="https://forward.com/schmooze/145816/jerusalem-judge-to-jews-dont-spit-on-christians/">Jerusalem
Judge to Jews: Don’t Spit On Christians</a>“, “<a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/1.4715226">Christians in
Jerusalem want Jews to Stop Spitting on Them</a>“, and
the more recent, “<a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200406-israel-settlers-spitting-on-palestinian-cars-raises-concern-over-attempt-to-spread-coronavirus/">Israel
Settlers Spitting on Palestinian Cars Raises Concern
over Attempt to Spread Coronavirus</a>”.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Two particular elements in this story require a pause:</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Second, the degree of ignorance and buffoonery that
accompany these racist and degrading acts.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>When Israeli soldiers arrest or beat up Palestinian
activists, they are as likely to contract the
coronavirus as they are to transmit it.</p>
<p>But, of course, Israel is doing much more to
complicate, if not entirely hinder, Palestinian efforts
aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus.</p>
<p>On March 23, a Palestinian worker, Malek Jayousi, was <a
href="https://qudsnen.co/israel-throws-away-three-palestinian-workers-at-palestinian-side-of-military-checkpoint/">tossed</a>
out by Israeli authorities at the Beit Sira military
checkpoint, near Ramallah, after he was suspected of
having the coronavirus.</p>
<p>A video footage of the poor worker huddling near the
checkpoint, after he was “dumped like trash”, has gone
viral on social media.</p>
<p>As shocking as that image was, it was <a
href="https://www.972mag.com/checkpoint-palestinian-laborers-coronavirus/">repeated</a>
in other parts of the West Bank.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Two weeks later, the Palestinian Governor of the
occupied city of Qalqiliya, Rafi’ Rawajbeh, <a
href="http://english.wafa.ps/page.aspx?id=2Qp0WXa115723647270a2Qp0WX">told
reporters</a> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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, <a
href="https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/3459/Israeli-forces--incursions-and-soldiers--behavior-jeopardize-measures-to-prevent-outbreak-of-COVID19">called</a>
on the international community to investigate the
‘suspicious behavior’ of Israeli soldiers and Jewish
settlers.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>However, Article 56, as was recently <a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200321-un-israel-is-legally-responsible-for-safety-of-palestinians/">emphasized</a>
by UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human
rights in the Palestinian Territory, Michael Lynk, <a
href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Article.xsp?action=openDocument&documentId=AD2F7F5D8CF955AFC12563CD0051BE51">does
require</a> 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.’”</p>
<p>Israel, however, is failing its legal mandate, and
horribly so.</p>
<p>Even the Israeli mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Leon, has
himself <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-75-of-jerusalem-coronavirus-cases-are-haredi-arab-hospitals-on-verge-of-collapse-1.8748309">stressed</a>
the inequality in the official Israeli response to the
spread of the coronavirus.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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 <a
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-palestinians-gaza/gaza-runs-out-of-coronavirus-tests-palestinian-health-officials-say-idUSKCN21Q2Q3">has
declared</a> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200401-israel-links-coronavirus-aid-for-gaza-to-recovering-soldiers/">barter</a>
potential humanitarian aid with political concessions.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Source: <a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200414-spreading-the-virus-of-occupation-spitting-as-a-weapon-in-the-hand-of-colonial-israel/?fbclid=IwAR0Q1UU20xpMilzAWdrqVlOUE1GT_eA7TS6VJVJc6Y434ZuKfGxtV5XbGfQ">Middle
East Monitor</a></p>
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