Israel Won't Stop Killing Unless We Make Them

The Israeli raids in the West Bank this week make it clear that their war will not stay limited to Gaza.

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Last night, the Israeli military launched a series of violent, aggressive raids into the West Bank, killing at least 10 people in its largest formal incursion into that territory in years. The raids focused on Jenin, a neighborhood that is frequently targeted and that Israeli officials claim is the nexus of Palestinian armed groups.

Israeli spokespeople told most major outlets that the raids focused on militants in Jenin. This is the typical justification, the same party line, the same shit that they will always say when they decide they need to mount up and send a bunch of armored vehicles into a residential neighborhood to start a fight. It is, like most justifications for war and brutality, partially true — of course there are militants in Jenin, of course they are shooting and bombing and attempting to fight occupying forces. Some of these groups are Islamic extremists, some of them are political radicals, some of them are linked to Iran. All of them, of course, are reactionaries, a response to the fact that for decades an apartheid government has been grinding them under its boots, destroying their homes, and arming, enabling and encouraging opposing groups of religious extremists to carry out a slow but steady campaign of ethnic cleansing across the territory.