Word: palestinian
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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References to protesting civilians as "rock-throwing delinquents" and to the Palestinian civilian police as "vigilante commandos" portray the author's desperate attempt to convince the reader that his personal judgement is the truth. The claim that Palestinian police officers fired "automatic weapons upon the Israelis who armed them" overlooks the fact that these arms were purchased under the Oslo agreement, and with Palestinian money. The images purveyed by such propaganda upholds the political axiom around which Israeli hawks, and their more poorly informed counterparts in the U.S., mobilize: We have tried peace but we can not/will not trust those...
This altered facet of reality can be quite convincing for those unaware of the circumstances of the region and the bloody history it represents. But is it really conceivable that Palestinians chose to sacrifice over 70 of their own and jeopardize their hope to end years of illegal occupation and savage massacres because of an "innocuous, inconspicuous and wholly inoffensive tunnel?" Can anyone be truly convinced that Palestinian protest towards the irresponsible affairs of a more powerful state are only "hysterically paranoid comments?" Former prime minister Shimon Peres expressed his disappointment by saying that no Israeli mother he knows...
This new uprising, and indeed Palestinian disillusionment with the Oslo peace process, has little to do with religious extremism. Rather, the expression of Palestinian discontent derives from Israel's unremitting violations of Palestinian economic, social, and political autonomy...
These violations include the symbolic attempt to undermine the sanctity of the al-Aqsa Mosque and the denial of Palestinian access to Arab East Jerusalem, a city central to Palestinian life. These are aggravated by the systematic de-Arabization of the city, and the destruction of any demographic obstacles that halt the complete annexation of the illegally-occupied city. Essentially, Palestinians have been reduced to foreigners in their own city. The violated peace process, as it stands, has done little to stop Israeli abuse, and this is what the Palestinians protest...
...should be clear by now that this confrontation is not about "stone throwing delinquents" protesting the tunnel, but, rather, Palestinian students and other civilians protesting the worsening of the Palestinian condition. As for accusations of violence, stones were forced to reckon with unadulterated warfare. Palestinian police tried in fact to protect their people but that does not take away from the fact that the sovereignty of all three Palestinian autonomous zones was violated when Israeli tanks and helicopters invaded, thereby underscoring the inutility of the Oslo accords...