[Peace-discuss] How many kids did you kill today?

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The New York Times had a dramatic, almost Delacroix-like
picture on its front page today -- mounted Israeli police in a
confrontation with West Bank settlers.  But it's one of those
pictures that requires at least a thousand words to explain. 
Here's an attempt by the excellent blog left i on the news. --CGE]


In the occupied West Bank (known in the American media simply
as the "West Bank") yesterday, Israeli security forces
demolished nine houses in an illegal (yes, that's redundant)
Israeli settlement. During the course of the melee which
accompanied the demolition, 86 of the officers were injured.
One was knocked unconscious by a hurled concrete block, which
is, needless to say, a far more lethal weapon than a stone.
Another officer was stabbed in the stomach. And what was the
response of the Israeli security forces to this ferocious
assault on them? 140 of the protesters were injured. None was
killed.

And to what can we contrast this result? A nine-year old
Palestinian girl, Aya al-Astal, wandered "too close" to the
fence separating Gaza from Israel last week; she was shot and
killed by the ID[sic]F. Also last week, 13-year-old Munadel
Abu Aaalia was shot in the back by the ID[sic]F and killed as
he walked along a road reserved for Jewish settlers with two
friends. He wasn't even throwing stones, but the IDF,
mind-readers that they are, determined that the boys planned
to throw rocks at Israeli cars, and sentenced Munadel to death
without a trial for that supposed future crime.

Neither Munadel nor Aya's name, nor, as far as I can tell, the
incidents themselves, have even warranted mention by American
media, or indeed any Western media outside of the Guardian
article cited.

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