To Palestinians, Gaza is a symbol of resistance. To Israel, Gaza is a template to pummel and isolate that resistance.

On June 19, Israeli combat helicopters fired missiles into the camp, ostensibly as part of an arrest operation that ended up killing five Palestinians, including a 15-year-old girl named Sadeel Naghniyeh.

Then in early July, in the worst attack on the West Bank since 2002, the Israeli armed forces terrorised the inhabitants of Jenin for two days and killed at least 12 people, including children. The massive aerial and ground assault involved helicopter gunships, missiles, drones, armoured vehicles, bulldozers and more than 1,000 Israeli soldiers.

That is what happens, it seems, when Palestinians keep rebuilding – and keep existing. Indeed, Al Jazeera quoted 56-year-old camp resident Ahmed Abu Hweileh on the takeaway from the bloody escapade: “The message to the world and the occupation is that this camp will keep on going. They tried to destroy it and it came back up.”

Israel’s recent comportment in Jenin – and particularly the sudden use of air strikes in the West Bank for the first time in years – has invited comparisons to the Israeli modus operandi in the Gaza Strip, another location that has come to symbolise Palestinian resistance.

  • @[email protected]
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    71 year ago

    Anyone with a heart and half a brain should be openly hostile to Israel as it currently operates.

    I get what you’re saying and I think we should be mindful where we get our news from, but then being against Israel isn’t enough to discredit their coverage, especially since they’re on the right side on history of this one - meaning they don’t need to make anything up to make Israel look bad. They would be downright stupid to lie, even if they were nothing but Qatari state propagandists.

    • @[email protected]
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      -61 year ago

      You know what, idgaf if they’re right or wrong about Israel.

      I do care that they actively support terrorism, and provide shelter for the leaders of a globally recognized terror organization. Anyone with a heart and half a brain should be openly hostile to Qatar, and see that the news network it operates will clearly be biased about the topic.

      If I said a US news network was biased for some reason, I don’t think people would have argued with me nearly as hard. Why do you defend supporters of terrorism?

      • @[email protected]
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        61 year ago

        …every country actively supports terrorism when it’s on their self interest. The self-proclaimed free world has organised coups in democratic countries, propped up terrorist groups when they didn’t like the current leadership of countries, invaded sovereign states on false premises and assassinated democratically elected leaders.

        Terrorism is a form of violence to achieve a goal. If you’re in favour of it you call them freedom fighters, mujahideen, guerrilla warriors or whatever else. If you want to vilify them you call them terrorists. Truth is, both are spins of a given situation, in line with the interests and/or biases of whatever person or entity is informing you.

        The western world agrees that ideologically motivated violence is okay (see: our foreign policy record), but tries to act shocked when it’s ideologically motivated violence they disagree with. It’s ridiculous.

        Also: Israel terrorises Palestinians. If you want to be offended at terrorism, you should be against Israel.

    • @[email protected]
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      -61 year ago

      And anyone with a full rain can recognize that Palestine is 100% in the wrong for repeatedly starting wars and refusing every peaceful solution simply because they hate jews.