The Living and the Dying That We Don't Hear About

I’m sure everyone has read about or seen the incident in Jerusalem this week in which a Palestinian used a bulldozer to kill three Israelis and injured dozens more. These deaths and injuries were horrible and should not have happened; rightly they have been condemned internationally. In contrast, I doubt that many people have heard about the deaths of four Palestinians this week at the hands of the Israeli military, there has certainly been no international condemnation. These deaths were equally horrible and should not have happened. One of the men killed was linked to a Palestinian militant group (if, for some, that justifies his assassination), one was a university student killed in his bedroom, the other two were seventeen year old boys.

All of these deaths were wrong and they should all have been reported. While I doubt the media coverage is any comfort to the families of the Israeli victims, imagine how silence would feel. Imagine a soldier shot and killed your son or brother when they had done nothing wrong, he then walked away and nothing was said, people did not even hear about it let alone condemn it or seek an explanation or punishment. Imagine your whole life was full of injustice and persecution that nobody ever heard about, let alone tried to stop. It is unbearable to imagine where the desperation and the frustration at this silence would lead you but the awful events in Jerusalem are one tragic possibility. As always the Israelis will not see this logic, instead it appears that they will respond by further imprisoning a population already on its knees, fuelling the fire of desperation.

(Since writing this it has become clear that the actions of the driver of the bulldozer were not in anyway politically motivated, although the Israelis are continuing to label the incident a terrorist attack)

News Links:
Two killed in Nablus: http://www.imemc.org/article/55617
A 17 year old boy killed in Beit Omer: http://www.imemc.org/article/55703
A 17 year old boy killed in Tubas: http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?r=ShowDetails&ID=30172
35 Palestinians killed in June: http://www.imemc.org/article/55730