When Israel claimed women were sexually assaulted on a mass scale on October 7, the world exploded. Almost the entirety of Israel’s genocidal war was based on these and other allegations, many unsubstantiated. We all remember the infamous’40 beheaded babies” story, do we not?

This article is not about Israeli allegations per se, neither will it only focus on violations against Palestinian women. This is about a world that is immediately up in arms when one side merely alleges atrocities while it turns a blind eye to actual documented violations against the “other”.

In Gaza, it is painfully clear that we indeed, are ‘the other’. How else can anyone explain the muted cries of women being stripped, raped, starved and murdered practically in real time, on our phone screens, documented in UN reports and described in horrific detail in eyewitness testimonies? There is no other explanation than that Palestinians are what Arundhati Roy calls “Children of a lesser God”. We are the victims of deep-rooted colonialism, one whose geographic demarcations may have vanished but whose insidious, dehumanizing mentality still prevails and manifests in the ugliest of manners.

For nearly six months, Palestinians have endured unspeakable atrocities at the hands of Israel’s occupying army. Today, the Gaza Strip has been reduced to an emaciated shell of what it once was. As Gaza is being systematically decimated and ethnically cleansed, the world, for the most part, looks on. Barring sympathetic supporters and a few well-intended but timid political actors, nothing has been done to stop the carnage. Palestinians once believed there was no way the world would allow Israel to erase Gaza off the map, no way it could see a live-streamed genocide and do nothing. But that is exactly what is happening.

Then, when we thought things could not get any worse, something unfathomable emerged from the deathtrap of Gaza. When this happened, we were certain it would be the turning point in this hellish nightmare. Well-documented reports, corroborated by the UN and eyewitnesses on the ground, told of harrowing stories of sexual assault against Palestinian women in Gaza.

We were paralysed with horror when we heard of women being raped by Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza, assaulted and stripped in front of their families. What’s worse, we all know that in times like these, the undocumented atrocities will far outnumber those documented. Who knows what horrors will unfold once the dust settles in Gaza; no doubt they will be so horrific, our entire nation will be traumatized for years to come.

The real question here is not how Israel’s soldiers perpetrated such gross violations. I think by now we can all agree that this depraved military establishment and its political echelon to boot, has dehumanized and vilified Palestinians so much and for so long, they will justify just about anything. No, the question is more about the moral compass of the rest of the world. While alliances and political interests are always part of the equation, even when the issue pertains to basic human rights, nothing can better explain the blatant hypocrisy, double standards and loss of collective humanity than the deafening silence today.

Our women have not only been killed, starved and displaced, they have been exposed to the very violations that sparked global outrage and a genocidal war against an entire population under occupation, unprecedented in modern history. This is not only unacceptable, it is an indelible stain on humanity. Sexual violence is a crime so heinous it is imperative to condemn and prevent, no matter the perpetrator or the victim. That must always be the baseline in any argument.

Palestinians will never get past this genocide; it is not something you can come back from. However, be assured, this is not only about the Palestinians. The world’s women, the majority of so-called feminists who have remained disgustingly silent, must know this: when you do not stand up for women, all women, no one will stand up for you in your time of need.

I once heard that anger is not a real emotion, but a cover for other feelings such as sadness, disappointment or fear. You need to peel back that outer layer to understand what is really going on inside.

Strange how this has lately resurfaced for me, but I think I know why. Lately, I and surely, millions of other Palestinians, have been filled with a blinding rage -- at Israel, at the United States, and at the world overall. This is a rage that is all-encompassing, the depth of which is palpable at the cellular level, permeating every molecule and every atom of our being. The genocide in the Gaza Strip has grated our emotions raw and we are left stinging and burning from our head to our toes.

Our anger is like a huge magnetosphere and we are all trapped inside, but its walls are translucent and we can see the source of our rage mocking us from beyond. We Palestinians are angry because we are so disappointed and we are angry because we are disillusioned and we are angry because we are drowning in sorrow.

Our disappointment lies in the fact that the world has failed us in the worst possible way and has allowed the unspeakable to be committed against us. Genocide is the ‘mother of all crimes’ and, contrary to the promises, the conventions and the historical lessons the world was supposed to learn, it has been committed over and over again. The Palestinian genocide, however, is unique in at least one way: it is live-streamed, which means no one can claim ignorance and everyone has a responsibility in stopping it. Hence, our disappointment is not limited to countries, Arab or otherwise, or to international and human rights organizations. It has spread to everyone in our orbit; acquaintances and people we thought were friends, but whose silence towards our slaughter is a deafening betrayal. Our sense of disappointment has discolored every relationship it touches because every relationship for us is a dichotomy: you are either with or against genocide and either support Palestine in word and deed, or not.

Our anger is a thin veil concealing our disillusion with the international community and its institutions, supposedly established to protect people in situations precisely like ours. We have confirmed what we knew all along, that these organizations were constructed for some and not all, for colonial powers and not those who suffer beneath them. Even when the highest court in the land rules in our favor, the Global North ensures that its ruling will not be implemented to save us, the oppressed, indigenous brown people whose lives apparently do not matter.

And finally, our anger is a survival mechanism to shield us from our own grief. Our sorrow over the murdered men, women and children, defenseless, homeless, starving and shivering in the cold, is so deep, so immense, we ourselves cannot fathom it. If we dare peek behind this anger and truly feel a fraction of the aching in our hearts, it will paralyze us for sure, because no people can endure the magnitude and scale of such suffering and not lose their minds.

We Palestinians know we cannot let go and that a new day is near. We know we must hold on just a little bit longer, because Palestine depends on it. We are no strangers to oppression, suffering and sacrifice and we know the price of our freedom has and continues to be painfully high. Still, we also know that a life without shackles and the yoke of oppression around our weary necks is the only life worth living.

This may be the hardest article I’ve written so far, for obvious reasons. As the genocide in Gaza grinds on into its fourth month, with winter in full force, the situation is so dire it has been described as hell on earth. To date, some 27,000 Palestinians have been murdered by Israel, nearly 70% of them women and children. Another 70,000 have been wounded and at least 1.9 million people have been displaced. With only 2.3 million in the Gaza Strip to start with, this computes to 1% of its population being exterminated, and in less than four months.

However, in the midst of these horrific times, let us allow ourselves a sliver of hope. The ICJ ruling, announced on January 26, prompted mixed feelings among Palestinians who naturally, wanted to hear a clear and firm demand on Israel to stop its onslaught. However, even without the express demand for a ceasefire, the ICJ offered something to the Palestinians for which they have been demanding for many years: their suffering, their plight and the brutal oppression they live under, was finally acknowledged by the highest court in the world. More importantly, Israel is being called out for its crimes, displayed in real time for all to see. For this, we will be eternally grateful to South Africa and its exceptional legal team for bringing this case of genocide to the ICJ and forcing the world to look straight down the barrel of Israel’s cruel intentions.

Of course, for the Palestinians, we did not need an international court to tell us that Israel is committing a genocide, but it was cathartic to hear this acknowledged on a global platform. While we are aware that the actual charge of genocide perhaps needs years to prove, it only takes hearing the ruling and the case argued by South Africa to surmise that Israel is as good as convicted.

This is not insignificant, and we will cling to any shred of hope we can find in this unjust world. Having said that, this is no time to rest. If anything, it is time to push even harder because now, we have ICJ rulings in our favor and legal backing to claims we already knew were legitimate.

However, while this may have offered us some ray of light in the darkness in which we are all engulfed, the fact of the matter is that things continue to worsen on the ground in Gaza. This genocide is so heinous, not only in the brutality of the Israeli bombs and denial of basic aid to the people of Gaza, but in the fact that its people are suffering from multiple and simultaneous injustices. That is, those who are being starved are the same people who have been displaced and the same people who have been injured and cannot receive medical attention. They are the same people who have lost their homes and family members and the same people who are under the rubble. One atrocity does not cancel out another in Gaza and that is what makes this genocide so unimaginable.

We have reached a point where it is unnecessary to describe the horrors of life in Gaza because frankly, in the past four months, everyone has seen them. It is not a matter of the world not knowing. This may have been the case in other genocides and atrocities, but not this one. It really boils down to two things: The dehumanization of the Palestinians and Israel’s impunity for its crimes, the latter being a direct result of the former.

Shame on the world for accepting Israel’s vile propaganda, hook, line and sinker. Shame on the “western world” in particular, who we will never forgive. Shame on them all for aiding and abetting the slaughter of our people, their displacement, starvation and annihilation. This will not go unnoticed in the annals of history, which will paint each and every accomplice in the criminal light it deserves.

But these despicable powers do not know the lion-hearts of the Palestinians and their fierce loyalty to Palestine. They will never be able to kill us all and my hope is that this thought haunts them day and night.

A sign held up in one of the many protests around the world reads: “Killing the flowers will not delay spring”. Our Spring is coming, without a doubt.

In the immediate aftermath of the 1967 War culminating in Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel unilaterally annexed 70.5km² of the occupied area into Israel proper, extending the boundaries of east Jerusalem. In contravention of United Nations Security Council Resolution 252 “reaffirming that acquisition of territory by military conquest is inadmissible,” Israel expropriated these lands into the Jerusalem municipality for the purpose of expanding the Jewish presence in the city.

Of the seized lands, 35% or 24.5km² has been earmarked for Israeli settlement development, also in breach of international humanitarian law, specifically Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War prohibiting Israel from transferring fragments of its civilian population into its occupied territories. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of the end of 2008, over 195,000 Israeli settlers inhabited settlements in east Jerusalem. Of further interest, 35% or 24.7% of the expropriated area retains master plans approved by the Jerusalem District Committee, whereas the lingering 30% or 21.3km² continues to remain unplanned since 1967. Yet, 63% or 15.5km² of the lands that are planned have been denoted as non-constructible or public-purpose-serving regions--“green areas.” The remaining 9.2 km²--13% of east Jerusalem’s totality--is all that is at Palestinians’ disposal for construction in east Jerusalem, and thus, triggering a housing crisis on lands which have already largely been built upon.

I. Following Palestinians’ Footsteps in Obtaining a Building Permit:

Construction is only permissible on lands that are not designated as green areas and reside within the 24.7km² retaining master plans.

Prior to commencing construction, a comprehensive plan of the area must be founded and approved.

A lack of sufficient public infrastructure--roads, water, and sewage--often impedes authorization for new construction. Building permits will not be granted for construction in areas with deficient public infrastructure, even if the plans had been approved.

Strict zoning laws further limit Palestinians’ ability to build in east Jerusalem even when construction permits are granted. Limitations on Palestinian construction density is quite harsh, often reducing their plot ratios to half, or even less, of what is permissible for Israelis in neighboring settlements in east Jerusalem. The end result: harsher plot ratio restrictions leads to fewer housing units for Palestinians in comparison to Israelis, despite the higher population growth rate of Palestinians.

As if the aforementioned limitations were not enough, the applicable fees for obtaining a permit are quite high, and often, prohibitive, especially when considering that 2/3 of the non-Jewish population of Jerusalem lives below the poverty line. According to OCHA’s Special Focus of April 2009, the cost for a permit to erect a small 100m² building on a 500m² area of land will roughly total NIS 74,000 or USD 17,620. Note that these fees pertain only to the obtainment of a permit, not the costs accompanying actual construction.

Jennifer Urgilez is a Writer for the Media and Information Program at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mip@miftah.org.

To View the Full Special Study as PDF (80 KB)

Hebron, the southernmost city of the West Bank and settler stronghold, continually and for obvious reasons, falls into an abyss of neglect. In 1997, The Hebron Protocol divided the city into two fractions: H1 and H2. While H1 constituting nearly 80% of Hebron remained under PA control, Israeli military forces assumed responsibility for the internal security and public safety of H2 inhabitants, including that of both Palestinians and Israeli settlers—or at least this was their mandate. Instead, discriminate applications of the law and continuous whitewashing of settler violence is an almost daily occurrence. On a trip to the Abdel Karim Al Jabari home in H2, I became but another witness to the injustices inflicted on local Palestinians, wrongs often excluded from news headlines.

At 10:53am, our tour bus parks parallel to the Al Jabari home isolated from its sheep and goat pen, olive trees, and land by concrete walls, fences, and barbed wire reaching a minimal of 12 feet in height. Here we encounter a local political activist who introduces us to Mr. Al Jabari’s daughter and offers us a tour of the land whose mere landscape tells a callous tale of razing, seizing, and trespassing by ideological Israeli settlers living just up the hill in the Givat Ha’avot Jewish settlement. Not even 10 minutes afterwards, an Israeli military jeep enters the family’s land and just stands, observing the internationals’ every move like a hawk awaiting provocation. Taking the military’s arrival, and then that of the police, as a clear signal of our unwanted presence, the coordinators quickly hurry us onto the bus as the officers watch on, ensuring them that our Palestinian “friend” did not board the bus or travel by settler-only roads prohibited to Palestinians.

Just when I thought we had evaded the watchdogs, at exactly 11:09am, an Israeli police officer pulls the bus over. According to the policeman, by contacting a political activist, we were engaging in a “political act.” While Yoav, our coordinator and an Israeli-Jew, attempts to ease the officer’s suspicions by assuring him that our visit to Hebron was serving a purely educational purpose, the officer remarks that prior to the entry of such a large group into H2 territory, authorization from Israeli forces should have been sought. Just then, a tour bus carrying 40-plus tourists and two Israeli soldiers passes us by. The picture suddenly becomes clear: in their efforts to repress and censor information accessible to internationals, armed soldiers escort foreign travelers into areas plagued by settler violence.

Agitated, waiting impatiently in a bus filled with silence, curiosity, and frustration, I look on as the officer spends nearly 45 minutes on both his mobile and handheld transceiver discussing the “situation at hand” with his superiors. Meanwhile, a combination of at least 20 military and police trucks, jeeps, and cars turn down our street. As I ponder their purpose, I notice a Palestinian mother with her children watching the spectacle from her second floor apartment window. I look up, smile, and wave. Perhaps it was my covert picture-taking of the police or my constant shrugging that revealed my distress, but soon enough, I see this woman whom I had never met trying to comfort me, making hand gestures indicating that it will take a little while, but ultimately, they will let us go. “Istannee,” she says to me in Arabic. “Just wait.”

Now, whenever I walk down a Palestinian street and hear someone utter the three-syllable word, "istannee," all I can think of is the woman at the windowsill. How a family, living under constant fear and military barricades, manages not to lose hope is truly remarkable.

Al Jabari and his 13 children are representative of Palestinians targeted by Hebron's systematic settler violence. Neither he nor his three physically impaired children have been exempt from assault. The family’s situation is quite dire: as one of Al Jabari’s daughters explains, fearing a settler invasion, an adult male is always present. Yet, irrespective of who is there, whether members of the Al Jabari family or internationals, the settlers attack. Habitually after 10pm, the settlers come down from their tactical safe havens throwing stones, sometimes even shooting bullets at the home while chanting, “Kill the Arabs.”

Ideological settlers from Givat Ha’avot routinely intimidate, harass, and target the few Palestinian families wedged between this settlement and Kiryat Arba for standing as obstacles to their linkage and Israeli purification of the H2 area of Hebron. Determined to cleanse H2 of its Palestinian roots, settlers exact a “price” from Palestinians, like the Al Jabari family, who refuse to yield to settler concessions by abandoning or selling their property. Hence, unable to take a direct route to school due to restrictions on Palestinian movement, the Al Jabari children cannot cross their own land without risk of being stoned or attacked, even in the midst of day.

The harassment does not end here, however. From erecting a tent serving as a synagogue on their property, to preventing them from harvesting their olive trees, to stealing their goats, the settlers deliberately strangulate the family's livelihood, attempting to drive the Al Jabaris off their own land.

Despite the upward trend in settler violence reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, in which 31% of total recorded settler-related incidents in the West Bank targeting Palestinians and their property in the first ten months of 2008 occurred in the H2 area of Hebron, Israeli soldiers barely intervene on behalf of Palestinians. Instead, complaints are often made in vain followed by deficient investigations, more often than not, granting the settlers impunity. While the soldiers protect their fellow citizens, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of settler lawlessness, with video cameras provided by human rights organizations, such as B’Tselem, the Al Jabari family and others alike have been able to document the injustices sustained—as a local political activist tells me, “The camera is our gun.”

Although international humanitarian law defends Palestinians’ rights, the Israeli government incessantly breaches the safeguards guaranteed to its occupied people under the Hague Convention of 1907 and Fourth Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, including protections from forced displacement, transfers of population, and property acquisition. Hebron, a ghost-town-in-waiting in which rows of shops once adorned by keffiyehs, needlework, and Palestinian souvenirs in the Old Souq, or market, have been replaced by tightly shut green metal doors, illustrates the economic strangulation accompanying Israeli-Jewish settlements in the center of what once was a vibrant, robust city. And yet, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks of “natural growth,” not expansion of West Bank settlements.

Defying United Nations Security Council Resolution 465 calling on Israel to “dismantle the existing settlements” in flagrant breach of international humanitarian law, Prime Minister Netanyahu conveys an unnerving disregard for the international consensus on the illegality of settlement development in the occupied Palestinian territories. Hence, to no surprise, a quick glance at a comparative map of the West Bank finds the two synonymous—natural growth and expansion.

Rather than halting settlement expansion in accordance with international demands, the Israeli government is pursuing an expansionist policy reminiscent of the United States’ Indian Removal Act of 1830 clearing lands east of the Mississippi River of Native Americans for the purpose of establishing American settlements. Similarly, the Israeli government incentivizes settlement growth in the West Bank through subsidies and other monetary inducements. As one Temporary International Presence in Hebron observer notes, “The settlers are stealing inch by inch the land of the Palestinians.” Unless the international community reigns in the occupation, continued expansion is sure to obliterate not only the viability of a two-state solution but predetermine Palestinians’ fate. Is a Trail of Tears next?

Jennifer Urgilez is a Writer for the Media and Information Program at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mip@miftah.org.

The systematic arrest of Bil’in activists begins with the covert intrusion of Israeli soldiers into Bil’in at the stroke of midnight. From the west, soldiers cross the Separation Wall in military vehicles concealed under a blanket of darkness, each entering one by one in 10 minute intervals dropping off soldiers on the eastern side of the barrier. Five to 30 soldiers, depending on the size of the military vehicle, jump off and immediately transition into combat-mode, laying close to the ground, managing to maneuver across the land on their elbows, while signaling the army car to recede back into isolation within two to three minutes of ensuring no opposition in sight.

From here, the soldiers clandestinely begin their operation towards the village in silence, veiled by the obscurity of night. They slowly proceed without flashlights, some wearing military camouflage paint while others, black masks. The soldiers circumvent the most direct route into the heart of Bil’in, executing their mission through neglected back roads and fields, keeping a careful eye on the lookout for Palestinians, ready to drop and hide. Often, the activists stand on their rooftops, attempting to catch the soldiers in the act and forewarning each other of the troops' coming. Upon receiving word, Abdullah Abu Rahmah and other activists immediately get in their cars and pursue the predators only to find no evidence of their nearing. Raids usually comprised of approximately 100 soldiers divided into groups of 20-30 men, each encircling the home of an accused stone-thrower at varying hours of the night, are ideal for operations in highly volatile regions, but not to detain a 16-year-old child taking part in a peaceful resistance movement.

Witnessing the injustices endured by the villagers of Bil’in as detonated tear gas bombs adorn the eastern side of the wall relates the oppression of occupation under which Palestinians are subjected. Even while its backdrop tells its tale, it was not until my interview of Abdullah Abu Rahmah, a local Bil’in villager and organizing member of the Bil'in Popular Committee Against the Wall, that this story of their subjugation to Israeli raids and arrests became known.

Cognizant of Israel’s tightening grip over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, largely as a response to the Aqsa Intifada, the villagers of Bil’in have shunned away from armed struggle, and instead, banded in uniform as a peaceful, nonviolent resistance to the Separation Wall. Setting the ground for the annexation of 49% of Bil’in territory into Israel, the Separation Wall, far from the 1949 Armistice Line, snakes well into the West Bank isolating 1,968 of Bil'in’s 4,040 dunums, or 486 of its 998 acres of land. The inception of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall in January of 2005 afforded activists ripe ground for the genesis of peaceful, Friday demonstrations reminiscent of Women in Black’s non-violent vigils in Israel demanding the “end of the occupation.” Emblematic of the overall catastrophe befallen Palestinians, activists from all walks of life—Palestinian, Israeli, and international—unite in the struggle against economic strangulation, occupation, and apartheid.

From resisting the uprooting of olive trees for the construction of the wall, to blockading the bulldozers from gaining entrance to Bil’in roads, to building a small edifice in the midst of dusk between the Modi’in Illit settlement bloc and the Separation Wall to secure access to their lands, the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall refuses to allow the Israeli military to tiptoe around UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and the International Court of Justice July 2004 ruling declaring Israel’s Separation Wall and Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank in breach of international humanitarian law. Fighting the occupation two-dimensionally, through legal contestments and nonviolent public activism, the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall has monitored and challenged the construction of the barrier every step of the way, cornering the government of Israel in its own courtroom.

In his judgment of September 4, 2007, President D. Beinisch of the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that the government of Israel must implement an alternative route of the separation barrier on Bil’in land relinquishing both agricultural land in the Dolev riverbed and terrain seized for future development of the eastern region of the Mattityahu settlement. Irrespective of the Israeli High Court of Justice’s decree, the Israeli government has not rerouted the barrier, rather finalized its erection, depicting the already-suspected disconnect between the Israeli government’s judicial and military branches. Inferring from President Beinisch’s judgment and Israeli military operations, settlement growth, and not security motives, lay at the heart of Israeli expansionist policy.

Despite the brokering of the Oslo Accords in 1993 partitioning the West Bank into three distinct security enclaves—Area A under absolute Palestinian Authority (PA) control, Area B under PA civil control and Israeli security control, and Area C under complete Israeli military control—as Mr. Abu Rahmah denotes, “Nothing is Area A, everything is Area C.” Commencing on June 23, 2009, the Israeli military initiated its most recent string of raids into the village of Bil’in in spite of its Area A demarcations.

In the past three weeks, 15 youth activists have been detained—13 Palestinians, one Israeli, and one American—and scores injured at Friday’s peaceful demonstration with sound bombs, tear gas canisters, rubber-coated bullets, and a foul-smelling chemical spray, a clear use of excessive force against unarmed protesters. Hence, regardless of the detainee’s culpability, an entire military unit is not needed to arrest one individual. Judging from their actions, the Israeli military’s goal is psychological warfare—the brewing of helplessness and terror among Bil’in’s 1,800 residents aimed at freezing the resistance. Surrounding the house, destroying everything in their path, and even confiscating the detainee’s mobile phone at 3:00am can certainly break Palestinian morale. Luma, Mr. Abu Rahmah’s seven-year-old daughter, depicts the constant panic in which these children live. As of late, Luma awakes in the middle of the night, sometimes in screams and tears, calling out for her father. Luma’s sleepless nights are illustrative of the emotional and psychological despair of children in conflict.

Moreover, in their attempts to dismantle the movement, the Israeli military specifically targets the youth. For example, on June 23 and 25 of 2009, four children were detained ranging from 16-17 years of age, who during interrogation were forced to release the names of peace activists and information related to the movement’s organizing body. In response, the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall, recognizing that the children do not have “experience” in these types of matters, gathered all the youths and with the assistance of a lawyer, “trained” the children on how to act during an Israeli interrogation, and further instructed them not to answer any questions—“I don’t want to speak. I have rights.”

If the systematic arrest and injuring of activists is the military’s methodological plan to demolish the movement, it fails to understand the struggle’s resilience—“If they want to arrest us all, they can. But our wives and children will continue the struggle,” admits Abdullah Abu Rahmah. On April 19, 2009, Bassem Abu Rahmah, a peaceful demonstrator, was shot in the chest with a tear gas bomb during one of Bil’in's nonviolent, Friday protests. Thus, if neither the murder of Abu Rahmah, Abdullah's extended family member, nor the 1,300 injuries and 60 arrests endured by activists has broken their spirits, virtually nothing can affect them now. As Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi pursued satyagraha—nonviolence—in his quest for Indian independence, the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall too employs this philosophy in the pursuit of achieving Palestinian sovereignty and absolute freedom from Israeli occupation.

The picture is clear: concessions to Israeli “democratic” values and security modus operandi deprive Palestinians of their inalienable human rights. Our common humanity generates a moral duty to uphold the United Nations’ explicit benchmark for an occupying power’s conduct in its occupied territories. Despite big brother’s backing in the Security Council, Israel is not absolved of its responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War—the Separation Wall and settlement activity in the West Bank indeed constitute war crimes. The international community needs to stop playing big-power politics and start dodging the aura of taboo accompanying espousal of the Palestinian plight—accountability is a must and exoneration, pure blasphemy.

Jennifer Urgilez is a Writer for the Media and Information Program at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mip@miftah.org.