Publications like Haaretz are usually bandied about as proof of Israel’s fundamental dedication to press freedom and progressive ideals. I never got that part about press freedom; certainly there is more freedom than some of the tyrannical dictatorships of other countries in the Middle East, but everything published in an Israeli newspaper has to be run by the military censor first.

Anyway, Haaretz does publish articles by true progressive Israelis (notably Amira Haas and Gideon Levy) who do dare to take on their society vis a vis its dispossession and occupation of the Palestinian people. But this gem on the newspaper’s website today reveals just how much the official Israeli narrative is ingrained in Israeli discourse, even on the ‘left’. (I care not for leftist/rightest affiliations; being a liberal or conservative doesn’t guarantee that you believe in human rights).

But I digress. The report concerns an incident that occurred at the Huwara checkpoint, that illegal hulking terminal that controls the entry and exit of Palestinians and their goods from the West Bank’s largest city. A Palestinian woman threw acid at an Israeli solider manning the checkpoint. Within the context of a brutal foreign occupation, such an event would not merit much attention; throughout history occupied populations have always harassed and attacked their occupiers with whatever limited means they could. The Israeli soldier was stationed deep inside the West Bank, controlling and oppressing the people of a town far from Israel’s ‘border’. He and his comrades and the military-colonial machine that sent them to have absolutely no right to subjugate the people of the West Bank and of Nablus. What the woman did was natural and legitimate.

Oddly though, the report doesn’t seem too concerned with these pesky details. The question of why the soldier was there is never breached; indeed, there is no attempt to contemplate what could drive a woman under occupation to attack an occupying soldier. There is no mention of how drastically the checkpoint at Huwara affects the lives and livelihoods of those it is designed to contain. The incident is never contextualized within the framework of interactions between occupier and occupied, between oppressor and oppressed. Some may argue that the report simply covered the events and provided no analysis. Yet the writer had no qualms about labeling the woman a terrorist-no trial, no charges, but Haaretz provides a ready conviction.

This is the problem with many Zionists or supporters of Israel who consider themselves doves or liberals. Rather than stand up to the settlers and the expansionist policies of the state, they ignore the very present reality of the occupation and try to work around it in a stillborn attempt at ‘making peace’.

And just look at some of those comments.

Related posts:

1. The most moral army in the world
2. CNN will publish anything the Israelis feed them
3. The Occupation Strikes Again
4. Israeli soldiers gets frustrated, kills a Palestinian kid
5. Funniest comment today if it had been meant satirically