Palestinian vs Israeli Debate - Research Paper Example

It goes without saying that throughout the history of the Arab-Israel conflict, Israel’s solution and response to the Palestine issue has been predominantly military. Time and again, Israel has not only responded to the popular Palestinian aspirations with military might but also the tactics adopted by the Israelis have been brutal and lethal in their approach and ramifications. Since the onset of this conflict, Israel has killed a large number of innocent and unarmed men and women, children, and the aged. This amounts to a gross violation of the established Military Rules of engagement, UN conventions, and the International Criminal Law.

In that context, it will be really practical to back such claims with available and authentic statistics. As per the statistics provided by B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, an organization, which is very careful and meticulous about the violation of human rights in the occupied territories, since September 2000, Israeli security forces have killed almost 1,463 Palestinian children in the occupied territories (Online). A large proportion of these children were killed by the Israelis while pursuing normal day-to-day activities like playing, going to school, being at home, etc. (B’Tselem: Online). Also, more than fifty percent of these Palestinian children got killed as a direct result of the Israeli air and ground offensives and owing to indiscriminate firing by the Israeli forces. Also as per B’Tselem, in the same time period, Israeli forces deployed in the occupied territories killed almost 6379 Palestinians, of which 6359 Palestinians were killed on their own land (Online). Most of these victims were in no way directly engaged in conflict with the Israeli forces and were unarmed. Realistically speaking the number could be much higher considering the fact that it is simply not possible for B’Tselem to accurately account for each and every Palestinian killed by the Israeli forces (Online). Besides these figures also do not include the Palestinians killed because of being unable to access timely medical help. It also needs to be noted that in the time period under consideration, almost 50 Palestinians were killed by Israeli civilians in the occupied territories (B’Tselem: Online). It is a well-known fact that a large number of Israeli settlers in the occupied territories are heavily armed and have undergone formal military training. The attitude of these settlers towards Palestinians is mostly hostile and aggressive.  It is surprising that as per the official records, Palestinians have only one Israeli political prisoner in their jails, while Israelis have imprisoned almost 5935 Palestinian political prisoners (B’Tselem: Online). Sadly, Palestinians have never demolished even a single Israeli home, while the Israelis since 1967 have demolished more than 24813 Palestinian homes (B’Tselem: Online). At present, Israel has 236 Jewish settlements on the confiscated Palestinian land, while Palestinians do not have a single settlement on the Israeli land (B’Tselem: Online) There is very little reason to doubt this statistic as it has been provided by an Israeli organization.

Sadly, the atrocities, human rights violations, and war crimes inflicted by Israelis on Palestinians have attracted very little international attention. In fact, is it not atrocious that the daily US military aid to Israel amounts to $ 8.2 million (B’Tselem: Online)? Now is the time for Israel to account for this inhuman usage of violence and lethal force against Palestinians.