Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Moronic Thugs

Every society has them, imbeciles who believe that their right to exist and do as they wish trumps the rights and existence of anyone else. They dress their language in the virtue of religion or ideology as proof of their rights, denying justice to any others. They use the violence of charged rhetoric and exercise the very real violence of marauding thugs, leaving havoc in their wake, disentitlement of others their goal.

They can be governments seeking to overturn the legitimate claims of other nations, and they can be individuals who insist their rights have been trampled on, trampling on the human rights of those whom they target. In Israel they take the form of ultra-religious fanatics who are inspired by a literal reading of sacred writings, investing them with the god-given right to ownership of land their ancestors had claim to.

The West Bank geography that has been set aside for a future state for Palestinians is seen as ancestral land - Judea and Samaria - that cannot be forsaken for any reason, certainly not to settle people for whom more latterly it has been their traditional homeland. They are amply complemented by a Palestinian Authority acting for the Palestinian people who see all of Israel as incorporated into a future Palestinian State.

Palestinian terrorists target Jewish settlements and towns and farmlands in their need to murder as many civilians as is feasible with each attack. The Israeli army and police, dispatched to disassemble unauthorized Jewish settlements springing up in the West Bank, see the fervent believers in orthodoxy and possession of the land, re-building within the space of mere days. As the ordered demolition of outposts proceeds, Jewish youth rebel.

They feel justified in their religious ardour, their fiery anger at expulsion, in attacking Arabs in response. Victimizing Palestinians, throwing rocks at drivers, injuring civilians, doing to the Palestinians precisely what Israelis report has long been done to them. Teen-age Israelis from orthodox communities resisting expulsion from unauthorized settlements, setting tires on fire, blocking highways, creating havoc.

Palestinian youth are inspired to throw rocks at Israeli motorists and find themselves under arrest. Masked Israeli settlers on a rampage attack Palestinian labourers in a protest against the government's authorization of police dismantling their settlements. Settlers raging, stoning Palestinian vehicles, setting fire to Palestinian farmland. Setting the stage for further and ongoing occupations, protests and disruptions.

Thugs, misfits, religious maniacs on either side, matching and out-matching one another in their spirals of hatred, denunciations, violence.

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