An analyst says Israel’s use of deadly violence against Palestinians is nothing new but the fact that even an Israeli rights group condemns Tel Aviv’s brutal killings comes as a surprise and a good omen.
The comment comes as an Israeli rights group has criticized Israel for the excessive use of force against unarmed Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank.
The Human rights organization, B’Tselem, reiterated that at least 56 people have been killed in clashes between Israeli soldiers and rock-throwing Palestinians since 2005.
“The Israeli military’s standing orders explicitly state that live ammunition may not be fired at stone-throwers,” it said, adding, however, that the Israeli military “extensively and systematically violated” rules.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Hisham Jaber, director of Center for Middle East Studies to further discuss the issue. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Sir thanks a lot for joining us. Now should we be surprised that Israel is attacking breaking its own rules by attacking Palestinians?
Jaber: First of all I am not surprised to know that Israel is using violence and killing Palestinian civilians but I have to admit that I was surprised that this report came from a right-wing organization in Israel, you know, B’Tselem that is right wing calling for human rights when the human rights watch organization remains silent and any other human rights organization and the international community did not criticize Israel.
Now this report came from Israel, from inside Israel like we said in Arabic we have a witness from the family “Shaheda shahedon min a’li” [a witness from my family has given testimony].
But personally I think Israel will continue to use violence against Palestinians because the right wing government after the election will use this as you said that Israel fears another intifada among the Palestinian people.
Also I have to comment about the number of victims they said they were talking about 56 victims. They did not talk about hundreds of Palestinians injured; for example many Palestinians have lost their eyes when they used rubber-coated metal bullets and how many Palestinians also became handicapped? Many Palestinians also were killed by Gaza using gas against them.
So all this behavior has always been usual by the Israeli authority. It will continue but to have a criticism from a right-wing Israeli organization it’s in my opinion a good sign. It may encourage the other organization for human rights in the world to move also because they had always been afraid when they criticized Israel of being accused of being anti-Semite for example.
Now it’s a good sign in my opinion and we have to continue toward this kind of criticism and it’s normal that the Israeli government will deny all those crimes against Palestinian civilians.
