Israel has been running a pre-emptive military action against militants in the occupied West Bank while opening another front for such action after close to 20 years. Such has been the force of the military operation involving 1,000 troops with air support using drones for pinpoint airstrikes that it has left a Palestinian refugee camp virtually uninhabitable and hundreds of Palestinian families on the road in Jenin.
The Israeli defence forces named it an “extensive counterterrorism effort in the city of Jenin and the Jenin Camp” to destroy what it called a “command and control” centre used by Palestinian militants. The response to the action, predictable though it is, is interesting in that the United States supported Israel’s right to defend its people against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups whereas Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas condemned it as a “war crime”.
The story has been the same for several decades, but the area is different in that the Israelis have mostly run operations against militants living in Gaza, carrying out retaliatory airstrikes for missiles and rockets launched at Israel. Given that the whole scenario is judged as emanating from the State of Israel’s existential problem due to it being surrounded by hostile nations, the response of the world is only muted.
The humanitarian tragedy is of the people of the lands around Israel as it flexes its military and intelligence muscles to combat what it sees as terrorism. The direct toll in the latest operation was 10 Palestinians, half of them teenagers, perhaps just beginning to train in the art of armed resistance.
What solution can the rest of the world have for such a situation when a perennial threat hangs over a nation? India talks at every international forum about the threat of terrorism and the safe havens it is offered by a few nations, and it applies equally to Israel.
What is taking place now in Jenin on the West Bank, a bastion of armed resistance, is only the tip of the iceberg considering that the rightist ever government is in office and has openly stated its desire to colonise and dominate more areas. Each passing year is proving more deadly, with the Palestinians losing about 140 people this year alone and Israel at least 30 in Arab attacks.
