Will the Real President Please Step Forward?

by Richard Edmondson, via Fig Trees and Vineyards:

A week ago Israeli forces fired tear gas and stun grenades at a group of Palestinian children, ages six to twelve, who had gathered on a public street in Hebron to perform a dance.

The group consisted of 15 children in all, both boys and girls, and the dance they were performing was dabke, a traditional Palestinian folk dance. Their activity was part of an annual “Open Shuhada Street” protest, held each year on the anniversary of the massacre carried out by Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 took an assault rifle into a Hebron mosque and opened fire, killing 29 people and wounding 125 others.

After that massacre, 21 years ago, Israel took over Shuhada Street, a commercial district that once was the thriving heart of Hebron, forcing Palestinian businesses there to shutter, and turning the central bus station into an Israeli Army base. It has remained this way ever since.

The children’s dance performance took place in a part of Hebron that is, at least officially, controlled by the Palestinian Authority, but it was held near the Shuhada check point, and apparently this is what agitated the Israelis.

According to a report here, at least 13 Israeli soldiers were spotted on rooftops around the area as the protest got under way.

“As soon as the dancing kids moved closer to the checkpoint, soldiers immediately attacked with two tear gas grenades and two stun grenades,” according to one person who witnessed the incident. “Israeli soldiers fired tear gas even though the children were not throwing stones.”

After at first fleeing the assault, the children bravely made the decision to continue their dance. About 20 soldiers and eight border police charged forward from their checkpoint into the ostensibly PA-controlled area. Palestinian youths in the crowd began hurling stones, at which point the security forces threw about a dozen stun grenades into the crowd.

Apparently the children are alright, but two adults reportedly suffered injuries from rubber-coated steel bullets.

On Tuesday, March 3, the prime minister of the state whose soldiers fired projectiles at the dancing children will speak before a joint session of Congress—and the scheduled address has been pitted as a confrontation between the Obama administration and Benjamin Netanyahu and his adoring fans. It is also leading, most likely, to the inevitable questions in people’s minds about who really runs America, because of course—it doesn’t seem to be Obama.

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