Huwara, a town of about 8,000 people, sits on the only major road connecting the West Bank’s north and south, and is traversed regularly by both Palestinians and Israeli settlers. That has long put it on the front line of Israel’s expanding settlements in the West Bank, and it is a target of frequent attacks and harassment by settlers driving through.But on Feb. 26 the violence reached new levels, traumatizing the residents of Huwara and leaving them fearful for their safety, as attacks by settlers surge and Israel’s right-wing government vows to assert greater control over the occupied West Bank.That day, two settlers were shot and killed by a suspected Palestinian gunman as they drove through Huwara, prompting an angry mob of hundreds of Israelis from the hillside settlements to rampage through the town and neighboring villages, throwing rocks and burning homes, businesses and vehicles. In the wake of the attack, in which a Palestinian man was killed, the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, called for Huwara to be “erased” by the state.Hundreds of Israeli soldiers are now deployed on its streets, occasionally shutting roads and intersections, forcing businesses along the main road to close and seizing rooftops and entire buildings.
While I'm not at all excusing the violence done by settlers there, the article spends 95% of its time discussing the response to a double murder in Huwara and very little about the terrorism that prompted the response.
Reading the article, one gets the impression that there is a major road passing through Huwara. Looking at Google Maps, one gets the same impression of a highway slicing a corner of the town:
And there are hundreds of angry Jew-hating Palestinians with guns.
Of course the army has to be there. There is no other way to secure the non-Arab population that pass through the area. And, last I checked, Jews still have human rights not to be murdered, even by Palestinians.
Even "settlers."
Instead of balancing the stories of two populations in fear, the NYT - as it virtually always does - humanizes the Palestinians and positions the Israelis as faceless, inhuman aggressors.
The dangers of driving through Huwara have been known for a while. To reduce friction, since 2019, Israel has been building a bypass road specifically to avoid this problem.
This is a sign advertising the upcoming bypass road:
It says that the project is expected to be completed by...February, 2023. It is now scheduled for completion in March 2024.
The Yaniv brothers were murdered on February 26.
If this bypass road had been completed, not only would the Yanivs be alive - but the Palestinians in Huwara would not be living in fear of the IDF and angry Jewish residents looking for revenge.
Wouldn't that be a win-win?
The New York Times would never publish that information - because the road makes life more livable for "settlers." The NYT would rather see Jews (and Palestinians) killed and radicalized than help entrench the "occupation." They want to see 700,000 Jews being forced out of their homes as the highest moral imperative.
So even though this bypass road would have saved lives, it is a Bad Thing that must not be discussed until there is an angle found to say that it hurts other Palestinians somehow. In fact, I predict that by 2025 there will be articles in the mainstream media about how awful the bypass is for some random person who is inconvenienced by it - and not a word about the lives it is likely to save.
(h/t YMedad)
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