Qusra is only the beginning: A state that backs abuse has no right to exist
The events in Qusra are not just another local incident, but an expression of a broad policy involving settlers, the army, and the government. Faced with images being distributed globally and growing international damage, the question is when Israel will stop denying the reality it faces.
In the din of explosions, gunfire, screams, and wails, one can hear the dull, soft rustle of debris falling like heavy rain echoing somewhere below. These are the clods of earth on the coffin in which Israel is being buried. Why? Qusra. Qusra as a generic strategic layer of the government's ethnic cleansing policy.
External monitoring of the events in Qusra leads to the conclusion that today, the true culprit is the regional commander who failed (or sabotaged) the evacuation of the rioting settlers.
The damage to the remnants of the IDF's moral fabric, the international resonance that added weight to sanctions against Israel, the substantiation of investigation materials in The Hague — all these oblige the Chief of Staff to dismiss him. This will not happen. What is happening is that a state that backs abuse against entire families has no right to exist.
Even the opposition, which is full of generals and electoral considerations, does not dare to come out head-on and take to the streets against the involvement and complicity of the IDF in ethnic cleansing. The question, as always, is what "normative" soldiers should do when they find themselves in a reality they are supposed to rise up against.
American soldiers and sailors who are tired of sitting for a year opposite Iran in the Mediterranean Sea jump from an aircraft carrier into the sea. In Israel, they do not refuse orders, and rightly so, because of the political constraint: tomorrow the government may place us all in circumstances of real threats, and an army is needed to deal with them. This is how we ended up in the terrible place where we are stuck today.
Meanwhile, for those who forgot (all of us), the spearhead of the settlement enterprise, the "hilltop youth" hooligans, took over buildings in the village of Qusra with the goal of evicting their occupants and settling in their place. They even brought a sofa, a canopy, and nets to prove their intentions. This time, several factors converged that placed this abuse on the global market stall, and it looks like all the other events in Qusra — horror.
The Chief of Staff issued an order to "prevent the incidents." So he said. For several days, the hooligans besieged the house in Qusra, and the one who broke the routine was an American citizen who watched the news at his home in Ohio and saw that the house being besieged in Qusra was his house.
He made a phone call to his congresswoman and unleashed the attack dogs in the United States and the world against the State of Israel, which backs the settlers. It is good that he acted this way, but the ethnic cleansing campaign did not subside, and settlers returned to the jars and gardens and also to Qusra on the way to Gush Katif.
At the same time, soldiers of the Netzah Yehuda battalion handcuffed a Palestinian by his limbs to a bed and sent his picture to the world. This is an amazing iconic photograph that requires viral distribution. Perhaps even a prize for documentary photography that reflects reality. One picture is worth a thousand denials.
