ARE THE ISRAELIS TRYING TO PROVOKE A THIRD INTIFADA?

The increased frequency of killings by Israeli occupation forces of Palestinians in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank coupled with the testimony of Israeli soldiers who are beginning to speak out about Israeli operations in the occupied territories seems to confirm that Israel is attempting to deliberately provoke the Palestinians into launch a third Intifada in order to provide Israel with a casus belli to fully occupy the West Bank with the long term aim of annexation.

For ten years a group called Breaking the Silence, founded by ex-Israeli Defence Force personnel who have been sickened by their involvement in the crimes committed by the Israeli military, have been documenting and publishing those crimes via their website. The Guardian today publishes some extracts from the Breaking the Silence files.

The stories are filled with evidence of a program designed to deliberately provoke Palestinians into reacting against an Israeli military presence in the West Bank. There can be only one reason for this Israeli policy of deliberate provocation and that is to prod the Palestinians into retaliation by launching a third Intifada which will then provide the Israelis with an excuse to launch a full-on invasion of the West Bank and an opportunity to eventually unilaterally annex all of the occupied territories.

Talk of annexing the settlements has already surfaced but has little support among the general populace of Israel or the minor political parties that make up Netanyahu’s coalition government – at the moment. However, an Intifada could turn around public opinion in Israel to support a full-on occupation and annexation.

Abbas’s recent reunification of his Fatah movement with Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip has further provided incentive for the extreme right of the Israel government to thwart Palestinian advancement on the world public opinion stage, particularly within the United Nations and the various organisations the Palestinians have applied to join. The Israelis are becoming aware that the Palestinians are gaining a lot of sympathy which means, in turn, that the Israelis are losing a lot of world sympathy – particularly as their crimes against the Palestinian people have become exposed. In short, the right-wing Israeli Zionists are getting desperate. They sense the world turning against them and, as a consequence, feel the need to tip the balance and, as has so often happened in Israeli history in the past, the best way they know how to turn things around is by provoking their enemies into a fight. And the best way they do that is through a succession of provocative incidents that they hope the world won’t notice that leads eventually to retaliation that makes it look as though their enemies actually provoked the Israelis.