The Palestinians of the Galilee and the war

The Palestinians of the Galilee and the war

The weekend was very hard for the Palestinian community which lives in the Galilee. 9 people were killed in several Arab villages. From the beginning of the war 14 Palestinians were killed, almost half of the civilians who were killed in this war. One can say: it’s very normal because they make 50% of the population in this area and Hezbollah shoots indiscriminately to all towns and villages in the North part of Israel. The facts are a little different. It’s true that the Palestinians consist 50% of the population and now 80% after the departure of the majority of the Jewish citizens, but this is not the real reason for the relative high causality among them. There are at least 3 other more important reason for that.
1- The Katyusha rockets are not shot blindly to the north. One can’t find even one Palestinian who believes that Hezbollah targets also the Arab villages. The reason that some rockets fall in these villages that Israel built many of its military bases near Arab villages and that many of the Israeli settlements and town are also built on confiscated Arab land close to these villages. If we take Majd Alkroom as an example: only 3 km to the east-south is Karmiel which was built on the lands of Majd alkroom itself and other neighboring villages too (Nahef, Bi’neh, Deir Alasad) and few km to the north there’s a military camp and industrial park. And because Hezbollah doesn’t possess advanced and clever missiles like Israel then it’s normal that they sometime miss their original targets. The same in Tarshiha, Mighar, Nazareth and other places.
2- In most Arab villages there are no shelters or safe rooms. Israel never considered them as part of its security policy for the civilians. It never built a public shelter in any Arab town. This reminds me of the discussion in the government in 1991 during the first Golf war whether to provide masks for the Arab population or not. Mostly we hear the sirens from the neighboring Jewish settlements. While in the Israeli settlements there are Lexus shelters with all that they need including entertainment shows from artists from the center.
3- This reason is which I think is the most important one. That almost all the Palestinian population support Hezbollah in this war. When they see on Arab satellite channels the destruction, killings, massacres caused by Israel in Lebanon, such a thing the averages Israeli doesn’t see in his own TV, then they say: let Hezbollah destroy more even if we have to pay something. Therefore when the sirens start screaming the Israelis run to a shelter while the Palestinians run to their roofs to see where the rockets fall. Besides, I think that most Palestinians still have open wounds from the Nakba and the other defeats which they had since 1948, they didn’t forget the humiliation and the feelings of powerlessness, depression and revenge. And now, here finally there’s an Arab organization which daress not only to say no to Israel, but also to beat it in sensitive places.
This situation makes the Israeli politicians and media crazy. In the beginning of the war they tried to convince these Palestinians that Hezbollah is their enemy too. They talked about a mutual “solidarity”. Now it’s clear for everybody above all doubt that these people belong to the Lebanese-Palestinian Arab nation and not to the state of Israel.