Yesterday I saw another guy try to solve his problems with an M16 machinegun. The conclusion is obvious: Palestinian society is extremely violent. The big question, then, is: why?
There are no police stations - they were all destroyed by the Israeli forces. There are no police officers - they have all either been killed or sent underground by the same Israeli forces. Remnants of any official bureaucratic branches have all been destroyed. Men and women with leadership skills are either in jail or dead. All of the latter are necessary steps in a successful occupation and oppression. To remove all organization and structure from within a society is to undermine the very foundations of so-called civilized life. And so it has in Palestine.
Justice is a dream for most. The old barely remember it, and the young have only heard stories about it. When people here think of how their infinitely more civilized Israeli overlords solve problems, the only methods they can call upon are violence and brutality. The Israeli occupation machine uses nothing less than extreme violence and brutality in every form of dealing with the Palestinians. When one looks through their experiences for a list of solutions, they find only violence.
The natural checks of violent and aggressive behaviours are the institutions created by society to administer justice in other ways, such as courts and the police. Why would you kill somebody over an antenna when you can just call the police and receive compensation? The problem, however, is that having an effective police force or judicial system is an extreme threat to the occupation. It is a threat because it allows society to become organized, freeing up time and resources for other things. But most of all, it is a threat because it allows individuals to grow and gain knowledge, experience and leadership skills - hallmark characteristics of any resistance.
Every Palestinian with logical reasoning and a strong will is a problem. Throwing rocks at tanks is a resistance symbolic. Understanding is the real threat to occupation, and so those who risk understanding are killed or arrested with the same vicious fervor as those with guns. Maybe more. As these people who understand and who presume to lead society are jailed and killed, Palestinian civil society suffers. Two years ago, the Jenin refugee camp's main council was made up of men in their thirties. Last year, when I was there, it was made up of men in their twenties. This year, "men" in their teens are in leadership positions. Even if those in their teens had the same respect and knowledge of their killed and jailed predecessors, they cannot possibly have the same wisdom and experience.
None of this is new. Malcolm X used to talk about the effects of a massive oppression machine on the civil society of blacks in the United States during the civil rights movement. Black-on-black and black-on-white violence, X used to say, were the direct result of the conditions that had been created by the oppression of whites. This violence was constantly used to justify increased brutality against blacks, and to paint black people as pathologically inferior and incapable of civilization. X blamed white society completely for the rotten state of black society. I am inclined to transpose his views onto the Israeli-Palestinian situation, but find it difficult to completely absolve individuals in Palestinian society of their responsibility to not fall into the traps created by the Israeli Occupation Machine.
Before the guy with the M16 got out of the door, his family grabbed him and convinced him it wasn't the way. That act showed that there is still great determination and recognition that violence is a sub-optimal method for dealing with personal problems. The Palestinians are victims of an Occupation Machine whose interests it is to paint them as pathologically violent, not victims of a system that can produce nothing but violence.
tarek