Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Adding insult to injury
...is bad enough. Adding injury (and even death) to death is worse:
Israeli troops wounded nine Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday in a clash with stone-throwing protesters at the funeral of a 10-year-old boy killed a day earlier, Palestinian medics said."Stone-throwing protesters." Of course, they wouldn't have been throwing stones in the first place had not the Israeli Army been present on their territory, building an illegal wall. But such is the logic of occupation, from Palestine to Iraq to Afghanistan and around the world. The presence of occupiers causes protest, and the occupiers, with no regard for the lives of the occupied, shoot and kill.
They said the Israelis had shot the protesters with rubber bullets. A 21-year-old Palestinian was hit in the head and doctors described him as brain dead.
Not that a Palestinian throwing stones in the heart of Tel Aviv would be justifiably executed, mind you. A thrown stone might put someone's eye out, but it's hardly likely to kill. Whatever happened to "an eye for an eye"?
On the domestic front, updating a story from the other day, the autopsy has now shown that the young man killed by police in Oakland was shot in the back, i.e., while running away. DWI or resisting arrest are both illegal acts, but neither is a capital offense. Unfortunately, DWB (driving while black) all too often is, just like PWP (protesting while Palestinian).