Whose Security?

"Security" is an all-encompassing word for Israel that can justify virtually anything. Security is the reason for the Wall, the checkpoints, the home demolitions. It's the pretext for denying entire families from getting permits to access their own land that's been isolated by the Wall. Entire fields of olive trees have been razed to the ground for security purposes. No other explanation needs to be given, all of this is just done to ensure security. But whose security are we talking about? Who is being protected by all these measures, and who is really under threat?

Well, a little over a week ago, the Israeli army evicted about 250 settlers from a Palestinian house that they had been occupying in Hebron. The settler who said he bought the house (an American businessman from New York) said that this was his ancestral home, that the land belonged to him, and that he would not leave it. Some of the settlers who helped him occupy the house even threatened to start fighting with the army if they evicted them. And when the soldiers eventually got around to evicting the settlers, they did get really angry. But they didn't take it out on the soldiers, as they had threatened to do.

Instead, they took out all of their anger on the Palestinians. All over the West Bank, there were settler attacks on roads and in any villages that are unfortunate enough to have a settlement nearby. Palestinian houses were burned, cars were destroyed, buildings were vandalised, stones were thrown at people. There's even a video of a settler shooting two Palestinians point-blank.

You would think that these attacks would prompt a response from the army or the police. You would think that the authorities, who are supposed to provide security, would crack down on the settlers who were perpetrating these attacks. But the day after all this happened, I was in a car driving to a village up north, and along the road, we saw that at least one army jeep was stationed at the entrance to every Palestinian village. They were stopping people from entering villages, searching cars, etc. The fact that they were stationed at the villages doesn't seem to make sense. Shouldn't they be stationed at the settlements? Since it was the settlers who were attacking the Palestinians?

But instead, it's the Palestinians who got imprisoned in their own villages, who were subject to the humiliating roadside searches, who were treated like suspicious criminals just for entering or exiting their homes. So it's the Palestinians who were attacked, and the Palestinians who then paid the price and were punished for being attacked. It's all backwards.

And this is part of the security-mania that's everywhere in Israel. Israel's security is threatened, Israel is the vulnerable state, Israel needs to protect itself by any means necessary. But why does the occupier get to define what "security" is? Why does the settler who's sitting on stolen land and who's armed to the teeth get to say that the Palestinians threaten his security? Why does the soldier with his gun to a Palestinian's head get to say that he's enforcing security? And does Israel really think that it can achieve security by repressing an entire people?

The oppressor shouldn't be the one to make the security claim. And it definitely shouldn't be able to gain uncritical and unlimited international support for this claim. The entire dominant conception of security in relation to Israel-Palestine needs to be reversed. We have to look at the reality of the situation, and think about whose security we actually need to look out for. And we need to realize that security can never come from repression.