A mass wave of Israeli army refusal could be a transformative moment 

Palestine Update 632
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Will Israeli civil society rise in a mass movement against apartheid?

If the struggle on the part of Israeli civil society is against apartheid, that will, perhaps, be the difference. The mass wave of Israeli army refusal threatens to be a defining moment. There have been committed refusals to serve in the army. It has not made a huge difference. Dissenters get away with prison terms that count for just a meager time inside compared with the years and years of detention innocent Palestinians serve.  This could blow into a crisis that launches an end to Israeli rule over the Palestinian people. As a researcher on civil resistance says, “the use of strikes, boycotts, mass protests, and other nonviolent actions to withdraw cooperation from oppressive regimes – in global justice campaigns, I can safely say that this level of involvement in civil resistance campaigns is unparalleled in Israeli history.”

On the flip side, settlers attack and wound Palestinian civilians while soldiers watch muted and inert.  Earlier, when Israeli settlers launched a pogrom on the West Bank town of Huwara, a Palestinian man, Sameh Aqtesh, was fatally shot during a simultaneous settler attack in the nearby village Za’atara. Israeli security forces were not only present in the area at least 15 minutes prior to the shooting, but they did nothing to prevent the settler attack, nor to identify or catch the perpetrator who killed Aqtesh.” “Fighters like Abu Dhraa are not tied to a party or a political ideology. But they have easy access to guns and are committed to the fight. In their youth and independence, they represent a new kind of threat — not only to Israel but to an ever-weaker Palestinian Authority, run by unelected men in their 70s and 80s. In earlier generations, Palestinian political factions ran the brigades during street fighting against Israel. Now, cells of teenagers and young men in their early 20s from the neighborhood are calling the shots…

On behalf of MLN Palestine Updates

Ranjan Solomon

A mass wave of Israeli army refusal could be a transformative moment 
Civil resistance against the government has put the Israeli military in an unparalleled crisis, presenting an opportunity for those fighting apartheid

“Or Heler, a military correspondent for Channel 13 news who has been closely covering the current developments, warned that this historic revolt risks putting the Israeli army in an “unprecedented crisis.” He is right. And for the movement struggling to end Israeli rule over the Palestinian people, this crisis presents a moment of unprecedented opportunity…As a researcher on civil resistance — the use of strikes, boycotts, mass protests, and other nonviolent actions to withdraw cooperation from oppressive regimes – in global justice campaigns, I can safely say that this level of involvement in civil resistance campaigns is unparalleled in Israeli history.”
Read more n 972 Mag.com

Israeli attack and wounds Palestinians as settlers and soldiers dance
“Israeli soldiers have been filmed dancing with Jewish settlers on the streets of a Palestinian village where settlers attacked five members of the same family. The five Palestinians were hospitalised after the attack on Monday night in Huwara, in the northern occupied West Bank, only a week after a settler rampage through the village that has been described as a “pogrom”…The Idris family were in their parked car outside a supermarket when at least three settlers ambushed them in an incident caught on surveillance camera footage. “The settler broke the car window and beat me with a hatchet. They sprayed tear gas on us all, we couldn’t open our eyes,” Omar Idris told local media. “When I got out of the car, I saw bullet holes on the car but I was too frazzled to notice in the moment,” he said. Omar said that settlers beat Idris’s father with a rock, cutting his head open. The Israeli human rights group Yesh Din said that Israeli soldiers were present at the incident, but did not stop the attack.”
Read more in Al Jazeera

In Hawara, the Palestinian Authority Was Nowhere to Be Seen

“The five hours during which hundreds of Jews rampaged unhindered through Hawara, attacking people and property and setting fires, encapsulated decades of encouragement of settler violence and the calculated disregard and leniency on the part of the Israeli military, police, state prosecutors, courts and successive governments. But those five hours also proved yet again how compliant the Palestinian Authority is with the artificial division of the West Bank into categories A, B and C, set by the Oslo Accords – a division that was supposed to be temporary and expire by 1999. This is one more reason that the Palestinian public despises and detests the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. While its security forces, who underwent training in Arab and Western countries, have not found a way to protect their compatriots against settler attacks, they are always there in order to suppress them.”
Read more in Haaretz

‘I couldn’t see if my brother’s murderer was a soldier or settler’
Footage obtained by +972 shows Sameh Aqtesh was shot dead during a settler attack accompanied by the Israeli army on the night of the Huwara pogrom.

“Last Sunday night, when Israeli settlers launched a pogrom on the West Bank town of Huwara, a Palestinian man, Sameh Aqtesh, was fatally shot during a simultaneous settler attack in the nearby village Za’atara. And according to an analysis of 14 videos by Palestinian residents obtained by +972 and Local Call, Israeli soldiers — as in Huwara — were escorting the settlers during the shooting of Aqtesh. The videos do not show the shots being fired, making it difficult to determine whether the shooting came from the soldiers or the settlers — or from a third party that does not appear in the videos. However, the documentation clearly shows that Israeli security forces were not only present in the area at least 15 minutes prior to the shooting, but they did nothing to prevent the settler attack, nor to identify or catch the perpetrator who killed Aqtesh.”
Read more in 972 Mag.com

In Hawara We Saw Our True Face
“Ben-Gvir and Smotrich would not wield the power they do if not for the generous indulgence people here have toward Jewish terror, and if Jewish supremacy was not the water we swim in – clear, natural, taken for granted…I have no great expectations from the opposition leaders in the Knesset, but the hundreds of thousands who take to the streets every week are definitely a cause for hope. If thousands of protesters work up the courage to break through more circles and see through the smokescreen that the goal of the coup is first and foremost to hurt the Arabs and their political representatives, if every protester would dare to set the value of equality against the regime of supremacy, that will be a dramatic step forward for all of us. This is the only way to victory.”
Read more in Haaretz

‘They ransack our village for sport’: one Palestinian farmer’s story of Israeli settler violence

“Doha Asous is an olive farmer from a village near Nablus in the occupied West Bank. She is in Britain for Fairtrade Fortnight to talk about agriculture in Palestine and to promote local produce – olives and their oil, as well as other typical foods, such as dates. Here she describes life in her village during the recent violence between Palestinian locals and Jewish settlers.”
Read more from The Guardian

New generation of Palestinian fighters rises in the West Bank

“Fighters like Abu Dhraa are not tied to a party or a political ideology. But they have easy access to guns and are committed to the fight. In their youth and independence, they represent a new kind of threat — not only to Israel but to an ever-weaker Palestinian Authority, run by unelected men in their 70s and 80s. In earlier generations, Palestinian political factions ran the brigades during street fighting against Israel. Now, cells of teenagers and young men in their early 20s from the neighborhood are calling the shots…Over the past year, the Israeli military has carried out increasingly lethal near-daily raids across the occupied West Bank, targeting Palestinian militants it says are responsible for, or planning, attacks against Israelis. Under the most far-right government in Israel’s history, sworn in late last year, the raids have escalated, taking a heavy toll on civilians. The cycle of gun battles and funerals in Nablus, Jenin and elsewhere have inspired revenge attacks, and appear to be fueling the growing militancy rather than containing it. Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed more than 60 Palestinians so far in 2023, the highest rate in years; Palestinian attacks have killed at least 14 Israelis, seven of them in a shooting outside a synagogue in East Jerusalem in January.”
Read more from Washington Post