two in a row covering the apartheid regime controlling palestine and their crimes;

On our last day at Al-Haq’s International Law Programme, my group of human rights lawyers and academics visited the village of Turmus Ayya, attacked by settlers only days before. At Turmus Ayya, the smell of burned earth was still vividly present in the hot June air. Besides the physical damages, the village was mourning the loss of Omar Qattain, a young man of 27 years. He was killed while defending his village northeast of Ramallah. This pogrom is one of a series of attacks since Huwwara in February, in which hundreds of settlers set the Palestinian town on fire. But why pogroms? Why now? And why did top officials in the Israeli army and security apparatus respond by labeling the pogroms unexpectedly as “terrorist attacks,” despite the symbiotic bond of settlements, violence, and the Israeli state and security apparatus? 

The “terrorist” label has a strategic purpose. For one, some events are so gruesome that they attract international media attention and condemnation. Huwwara was one such event. The center of international media attention, Israel is forced to react, through official channels, in one way or the other, while its human rights abuses and the brute violence of its citizens flicker on international iPhone screens and are printed in international newspapers. An attack that is so blatantly violent and conducted against an unarmed civilian population is very difficult to justify, even for the otherwise creative Israeli government, the Israeli military, the judiciary, and the security forces. 

Beyond the international attention, pogroms such as those that took place in Turmus Ayya force Jewish-Israeli society to squarely address an uncomfortable reality that is otherwise hidden from view through Apartheid walls and segregated roads. ..........more..........