Nearly every facet of Israels occupation of the West Bank (Bethlehem included) speaks to the fact that Israel sees Palestinians as suspect simply because theyre Palestinianthat indeed, random lynchings are to be expected, because thats what Palestinian culture looks like.
Moreover, nearly every facet of Israels foreign policy appears predicated on a kind of us-against-the-world-ism that casts the rest of the global community as a set of stock characters, the behavior of each predictable and entirely unrelated to anything Israel might actually do.
America is a thing you can move very easily, for instance, and Palestinians hate and want to kill us because thats just what Palestinians are like. Thats who they are. (Iranians, too). It doesnt matter if Israel builds settlements or incarcerates children or surrounds Palestinian homes and farmlands with a 25 foot concrete wallthey just hate us. Haters gonna hate.
All of which explains why any event in the world can be seen though the eyes of Jewish suffering. Jesus and Mary? Not really that important unto themselves, but boy do they serve to make a point about Jews whove been killed by Palestinians. Fridays tragic events in Newtown, Connecticut? An opportunity to completely de-contextualize the decades-long war between Israel and the Palestinian people via sympathy note. The current geo-political stand-off between Israel, Iran, and the US? Its all about the Holocaust, baby.
wow
