License to Kill: Israel in Tuk’u

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I’m writing this at 10-11 pm Eastern time on Monday, August 12th. I’ve just received word from a friend in the West Bank village of Tuk’u (Arab Teqoa) to the effect that the Israeli military has entered the village in force, distributing leaflets that order the expulsion of the village’s population, and threatening to kill those who remain.  Direct quote commenting on a video that he sent me: “It’s 4 in the morning, the soldier is spreading papers that says [sic]: [if] you leave your house, you live, if you stay you die.” (To be precise, it was 4:30 am his time when he wrote that.) The video is available as a pinned post on my Facebook feed. Unfortunately, I couldn’t directly upload it here.

Tekoa has been the subject of a series of articles in The New York Times and elsewhere. For background, start with this 2019 video, “Natural Born Settlers.” Then this October 2021 article, “Israel Advances Plan for New Settlement Homes.” Then this June 2023 article, “Israel Eases West Bank Settlements Rules, Clearing Way for New Homes.” Then this November 2023 article, “The Occupied West Bank: Divided by Faith, United by Fear.” And finally this June 2024 dispatch, “In the West Bank, Guns and a Locked Gate Signal a Town’s New Residents.” Don’t forget the heartwarming contribution made by some of our fellow Americans: “Called to Serve, Israeli Reservists Wait to Deploy.” A soldier wearing a uniform and holding a rifle stands near his bedding and a stone barrier.

“Israeli” in this context turns out to mean “American.” There are estimated to be 23,000 more of them–23,000 more Americans serving a genocide under Israeli command. And what could be more American than demanding American dollars for it? Hard to think of anything more American than an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s killing.

Here, to vary our sources, is a random slice of life from 2006, “Settlers Attack Olive Pickers in Front of Soldiers,” a 2021 backgrounder on Israel’s settlement policy in the area (“This Is Ours–and This Too“), and for good measure, a short piece from November 2023, “Israeli settlers drive a new wave of anti-Palestinian violence in the West Bank.” And here’s another overview, from the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

If you make your way through the preceding (very far from exhaustive) material with any care, you’ll learn valuable lessons in the ABC’s of Zionism. In brief, you’ll learn how aggressors manage to set themselves up as victims, and then manage, by a sort of moral alchemy, to turn their thirst for aggression into a chronicle of perpetual victimization–and to be believed, no matter what they say or do. You’ll see how what looks at first like an innocent exercise in pioneer pluck and real estate entrepreneurship ends up, by incremental steps, being an exercise in conquest, expropriation, and ethnic cleansing. And you’ll learn how to get away with it.

Whatever you do, don’t tell me it “all started when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th.” At a bare minimum “it all started” when Israel decided to invade, conquer, and settle the West Bank, expropriating, driving out, and killing its Palestinian residents. That was June 1967, not October 2023. There are perfectly good arguments that “it all started” well before that.  The American version of this story may well have begun ten months ago, but the human version did not.

I think of Tuku’ as a kind of second home. I have no idea whether these particular Israeli threats are intended literally to do what they say, or are a series of trial balloons or bluffs. I just credit what my friend there tells me. And I wonder, when I wake up tomorrow morning, who will be alive in Tuk’u tomorrow morning to tell the rest of the tale–and whatever happens, who will be awake to care.

10 thoughts on “License to Kill: Israel in Tuk’u”

    • Thanks. I haven’t heard back from my friend, but often don’t since he often lacks WiFi connection for weeks on end.

      I think it’s reasonable to assume that the Israeli threats are meant to treat West Bank Palestinians as hostages against an Iranian attack on Israel. In other words, if the Iranians attack, the Israelis will carry out their threat to ethnically cleanse West Bankers. Of course, they may end up carrying out that threat anyway, but I think the flyers are there to make the threat seem imminent and real. Doubtless, some people are already leaving.

      https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/no-place-will-be-safe-in-all-of-palestine-palestinians-brace-for-prospect-of-regional-war/

      On the other hand, the Israelis may be bluffing. The Zionist militias famously succeeded in expelling the Palestinian population in 1948 by committing a few massacres, then threatening widespread massacres without going as far as they said they would. The combination worked then, and in principle could work now.

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  2. There’s been more coverage of Israeli attacks on the northern West Bank cities, but the B’Tselem link gives a play-by-play that includes the southern villages. Not even close to exhaustive. The first page displays 20 of 1,394 items. This particular time line only goes back four years, but the incidents themselves have been happening for decades. When the victims don’t matter, neither does the victimization.

    https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/surviving-until-the-next-raid-life-in-nur-shams-refugee-camp-under-israeli-assault/

    https://www.btselem.org/settler_violence_updates_list?page=0

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  3. It’s dangerous to get me going on this topic, because I have trouble stopping, but I just happened to watch this film, and couldn’t help noticing an “ominous parallel.”

    https://www.pbs.org/show/slavery-another-name/

    Throughout the film, you encounter mention of Southerners who rationalize the treatment of convict laborers or peons by insisting that, well, “Yes, the treatment was harsh, but they did after all commit crimes. It’s not as though they were innocent. It’s not as though the legal authorities were just maliciously sitting there, wondering: ‘How can I oppress another black person today?'”

    And the funny thing is that a huge number were entirely innocent. The legal authorities really were wondering, “How can I oppress another black person today?”

    What strikes me about the Israeli case is the literal repetition of this logic, down to the very words used to express it. Yes (we’re told), the treatment of Palestinians is harsh, but they are after all hostile to the very idea of a Jewish State, are they not? So it’s not as though they’re innocent. And it’s not as though members of the IDF or the settlers are wondering, “How can I oppress another Palestinian today?” There’s got to be a good reason for the destruction of all those people by presumptively civilized people.

    Once again, the funny thing ends up being that we’re talking about huge numbers of completely innocent people presumptively treated as rightless serfs. And both the IDF and the settlers are obviously wondering how they can deliberately, intentionally, and with malice aforethought, oppress some more Palestinians today, tomorrow, and the next day.

    I wish I had the Magic Teflon Moral Innocence that coats the purveyors of white and Jewish supremacy. It’s like an inverse Ring of Gyges. Instead of becoming invisible themselves, they render their victims that way.

    I’ve spent my entire adult life listening to libertarians going on and on about The Road to Serfdom. But the roads of the American South and of the West Bank were and are literally roads through serfdom. Funny that that never seems to register–and for most of them, never will.

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  4. A small sampling of recent events in the West Bank, mostly unreported in the mainstream Western press:

    From “Humanitarian Situation Update, UN Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs“:

      • On 6 August, Israeli settlers believed to be from Havat Ma’on, physically assaulted and injured two Palestinians shepherds, including one woman, near Tuba, Hebron. The settlers attempted to seize the herd of about 400 sheep and take them towards the settlement. Other Palestinians intervened to stop the settlers and prevented them from taking the sheep further, during which two Palestinians were injured. The settlers eventually left the area, and the injured Palestinians were treated on the ground by PRCS.
      • On 6 August, a group of Israeli settlers believed to be from Evyatar settlement outpost, attacked Palestinian property in Yatma village, south of Nablus city. According to the village council and the affected villagers, a group of Israeli settlers threw stones and set fire to Palestinian property, causing damage to three residencies, a vehicle scrap yard, one car, and olive trees. One man reported that the settlers set fire to the main entrance of his home and threw stones at him while he was trying to extinguish the fire. No injuries were reported.
      • On 7 August, Israeli settlers threw stones and injured a Palestinian woman on the road between Al Bireh and Al Jalazun Refugee Camp, Ramallah. Local community sources reported that Israeli settlers gathered at Israeli military observation towers along the barrier of Beit El settlement, where they threw stones at Palestinian vehicles. Israeli settlers have frequently used these towers to throw stones at Palestinian vehicles. A Palestinian woman was driving with her windows open when one of the stones hit and injured her head. The woman managed to drive to the entrance of Al Jalazun Refugee Camp and lost consciousness. She was later transferred to the hospital and received medical treatment. At least two vehicles sustained damage as a result of the attack.
      • On 9 August, a group of armed Israeli settlers believed to be from Itamar settlement, physically assaulted and injured a Palestinian man near Awarta town, southeast of Nablus city. The Palestinian man was driving to work after he passed through the Awarta checkpoint, when an Israeli vehicle blocked his path. Four masked Israeli settlers, one of them armed, exited the vehicle and attacked him and his vehicle with sticks. The man managed to escape and went to the hospital. The man reports that his vehicle was partially damaged.
      • On 12 August, Israeli settlers believed to be from a newly established Israeli outpost settlement near Khallet an Nahala, physically assaulted and injured two 15-year-old Palestinian boys near Artas, Bethlehem. The boys were herding sheep around Artas village when they were attacked by a group of Israeli settlers armed with knives, which the settlers put to their necks and forced them into the nearby settler outpost. The settlers then assaulted the boys, broke their legs, and urinated on them. Afterwards, the settlers handcuffed the boys, put them in a vehicle and threw them in an open area near Artas where one of the locals noticed them lying on the ground and called for an ambulance. The boys were then taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

    Netanyahu insists that the West Bank is Israel’s “homeland,” and can’t be relinquished:

    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240811-netanyahu-insists-occupied-west-bank-is-part-of-our-homeland-saying-israel-will-not-give-it-up/

    Six Palestinians shot by the Israeli military, including a couple of teenagers:

    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/6-palestinians-injured-by-israeli-army-gunfire-in-occupied-west-bank/3300618

    An American from New Jersey is shot by the Israeli military, but no reason for alarm, since he’s not Jewish:

    https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-forces-shoot-us-citizen-occupied-west-bank

    Some Arab citizens of Israel make a wrong turn into an illegal Israeli “outpost” in the West Bank. They’re attacked and their car is set on fire, but obviously, the attack is their fault. Next time fix your GPS, bitches!

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-israeli-attacked-by-west-bank-mob-rejects-far-right-mk-claim-her-car-wasnt-israeli/

    Israeli crowds storm Al Aqsa Mosque and a couple of West Bank villages on Tisha b’Av, but it’s OK, because Tisha b’Av is a holy night of mourning with Judaism, and it’s perfectly natural to mourn thousands of years of Jewish dispossession by attacking non-Jews, then impose restrictions on them for being attacked:

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/13/israeli-settlers-raid-palestinian-areas-on-temple-destruction-anniversary

    Israel publishes a new plan to settle even more of the West Bank with “civilians” whose explicit purpose is to cement a decades-old conquest, then pretend that the military plan in question is just a neutral matter of “people moving out, people moving in” (cf. The Temptations, “Ball of Confusion”).

    https://sarajevotimes.com/israel-publishes-plan-for-new-west-bank-settlement-as-regional-tensions-simmer/

    Settlers rampage in the village of Jit, kill one person, injure another.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c623zkwd04qo

    “Rebuke” issued by Israeli government, even though the rampage is now official policy, and has been for years:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/15/world/middleeast/west-bank-settlers-israel.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/18/world/middleeast/israel-settlers-attack-jit-west-bank.html

    Demolition in Umm al Khayr, 17 rendered homeless:

    https://www.facebook.com/Khirbat.Umm.Al.Khair/videos/1068106284749457

    But that’s OK, because house demolitions are to be expected in the West Bank:

    https://www.btselem.org/facing_expulsion_blog

    https://www.facebook.com/ICAHDRebuilding/posts/pfbid02Z4GuwYkYnPpGdCVLKUs91VQCJKFtk4gtSiENyfwKpyCS31D1vLb279yWj5iJGPq7l

    NPR’s Daniel Estrin decides that now is the opportune time to venture into the West Bank to report on a gay Palestinian’s being killed by other Palestinians.

    https://www.npr.org/2024/08/16/nx-s1-5044449/friends-remember-a-young-gay-palestinian-man-who-was-murdered-in-occupied-west-bank

    When I met Estrin on the street in Jerusalem after the 2017 Aqsa Riots, he told me that while the Israeli military was heavily armed, “they don’t usually use their weapons.” I feel like responding: though many Palestinians are gay, they aren’t usually killed for it. Legitimate response?

    Meanwhile, what is the pre-occupation of the American commentariat? Well, obviously, the “anti-Semitism” of the campus protesters.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/18/opinion/ucla-harvard-protests-rulings.html

    Because what could be more bigoted and anti-Semitic than college students and faculty protesting their university’s eager acquiescence in genocide and ethnic cleansing?

    This is the news from the West Bank, not Gaza, site of mere ethnic cleansing, not genocide. It’s just the news from the last ten days or so, and it’s not an exhaustive survey even of the last week or so–indeed, of any given day within that week. This is what Americans are arming, funding, supporting, and defending, but what they would dearly like to evade. It can’t be evaded. When the next 9/11 happens in this country, or the next October 7 in Israel, as it almost certainly will, this will be the reason why. Multiply this by 100 or 1,000 or 10,000, and you begin to get a sense of the guilt that Israel and the US bear for the fate of the Palestinian people. It’s impossible to have sympathy for the ruling class or moral leadership of countries like this, addicted to domination, addicted to destruction, addicted to lies. The blood, the destruction, and the guilt is all theirs. When the inevitable consequences arise–when the victims finally lash out and wreak vengeance on the supposedly innocent and civilized peoples of “the West”–it should not come as a surprise to anyone. But I’m sure people will try their hardest to pretend that it has.

    Hard to do if you follow the links and stare directly at what’s in front of your face. But otherwise, easy enough. Evasion always is.

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    • Well, since you asked, I’d say that this article is typical of the trash that the American media feels the need to dish out so that Americans will remain wedded to the myths they believe. The Post is just an extreme version of a generalized addiction to propaganda.

      The authors start out by asserting without evidence that Hamas treats the Gazan population as “human shields.” I so far have not seen credible evidence of this, but I guess myths have to start somewhere. In what sense are Westerners not “human shields”? All of us live under a nuclear umbrella, and huge numbers of us live in places proximate to the military-industrial complex, which is practically ubiquitous in our society. There is no sense in which Gazans are human shields but we are not.

      https://responsiblestatecraft.org/silicon-valley/

      Hamas’s three top leaders are “worth” $11 billion, we’re told. What does this mean, exactly? How was the figure calculated? Why not tell us what each individual is worth? Isabel Vincent has a reputation for being some kind of crack financial journalist. Apparently basic questions of this kind are beyond her–but then, they’re beyond her readership, as well.

      Dividing 11 by 3, we get roughly 3.7. So let’s imagine that each of the three leaders has $3.7 billion in his wallet right now (or in Haniyeh’s case, that his estate does). What does this prove? It doesn’t prove that any of the three is responsible for the poverty of Gaza. Israel has been blockading Gaza since 2007. So Israel is responsible for it. It can’t mean that any of the three can somehow disburse $3.7 billion to the people of Gaza, and relieve their misery. How would the money get there? What should they do, write a check to the local branch of Bank of Palestine? If only there was one. If they smuggled the money in, Isabel Vincent would complain that it broke the rules of the blockade. And what would they buy with the money, anyway? What would $11 billion buy in Gaza? I doubt there’s a million dollars’ worth of goods to buy in Gaza. On the other hand, what would $11 billion worth of goods do for Gaza if it was purchased outside of Gaza but couldn’t get in?

      Just fucking stupid all the way down, but precisely calculated to appeal to the prurience of the average American reader, who’s induced to think: well, if Ismail Haniyeh is willing to starve his own people to death, why can’t I applaud the Israelis when they do the same? The whole point of the article is to reinforce the belief that genocide is OK.

      Honestly, it wouldn’t bother me if Haniyeh, Marzouk, and Meshal really had $11 billion in their wallets. It’s not as though they’ve lived easy lives. I mean, put it this way: if someone gave me $11 billion, and gave me the exclusive choice of giving it to the leadership of Hamas vs giving it to the US government–allowing no third alternative–I would hands down give it to the former. I’m certain they could do more good with it than Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and/or JD Vance.

      What I love about this story is how little of a story there is here. “Politicians are wealthy!” screams the headline. Breaking news. But put it this way: imagine if you wrote a comparable story about, say, Bill Ackman, fixating on his personal wealth, and suggesting that his greed–his $90 million Manhattan penthouse–was responsible for the poverty of the poorest residents of New York. A hue and cry would suddenly arise about the “anti-Semitic tropes” that such a comparison had conjured up. But no such “tropes” ever arise no matter what one says about Palestinians–or what one does to them. That’s the real lesson of this story.

      The photographs do amusingly little to prove the point of the story. How convinced are you that Khaled Meshal is worth $4 billion because he has access to a Ping Pong table? We’re not even told that it’s his.

      As for Andy Ogles, I wonder how many people know that Ogles is responsible for sponsoring legislation that would punish campus protesters by sending them to Gaza.

      https://ogles.house.gov/media/in-the-news/rep-ogles-gives-terrorist-sympathizers-reality-check

      I’m not exaggerating when I say that that would be an inducement in my case: defiant trespass for a free trip to Gaza? Book my ticket!

      But honestly, I’d love to take Ogles with me. It warms my heart to imagine the reception he’d get when people figured out who he was, ripped him into bite-sized pieces, and fed him to the dogs of Gaza City.

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      • Cheers!

        I have another question to ask and I’m not sure if this is also propaganda, but is it true that Hamas was created by the Mossad? I keep reading this alot and I thought it was a myth, but people keep bringing it up. That Israel was trying to undermine the PLO so they created or helped create Hamas

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        • No, it’s not true. Hamas was founded by Palestinians–specifically by the imam Ahmad Yasin. It began as an Islamic resistance organization in the late 1980s (its founding is usually dated to 1987 or 1988) in the wake of the first intifada, and soon became a militant organization.

          Its rise is easily understandable. The first intifada was a grass roots movement that took place when the secular leadership of the Palestinians was in exile and somewhat discredited, along with secular nationalism itself. The Afghan mujahidin had just pushed the Soviets out of Afghanistan, so Islamic politics seemed the wave of the future. The Oslo Accords constituted an obvious capitulation to Israel, and were foredoomed to failure. Hamas saw this far more clearly than the PLO, and violently resisted it, which gave it popular support throughout the 1990s, when the PLO was seen (rightly) as collaborating with the Israelis contrary to Palestinian interests.

          The Israelis certainly capitalized on Hamas as a counterweight to the PLO, but they didn’t create it.

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