There is a certain class of Palestinian victims of violence whom the major media consistently choose to overlook. These are the Palestinians who are killed not by Israeli airstrikes, but by the rockets fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad or Hamas from Gaza into Israel, but that fall short, and instead of killing Israeli civilians, kill Palestinian civilians in the Strip. More on these “inconvenient Palestinians” is here: “The inconvenient Palestinians,” by Stephen Daisley, The Spectator, May 16, 2023:
His name was Abdullah Abu Jaba and I want you to remember it because it’s the last time you’ll hear it. He was a Palestinian from Gaza, reportedly a father of six, and was killed in the latest clashes between Israel and Palestine Islamic Jihad. You haven’t heard of Abu Jaba because he was an inconvenient Palestinian, one who cannot be held up as the latest victim of Zionist aggression. Pictures of his weeping widow and confused children will not fill your social media timeline. Major media outlets will not compete to tell human interest stories about how he played with his children or how his family will cope without him. No US congressmen or British MPs will demand justice for him.
Because Abu Jaba was not killed by Israel, but by Palestine Islamic Jihad. He was a labourer and working on an agricultural building site near Shokeda, a tiny Israeli village near the boundary with Gaza, when a PIJ rocket strike hit on Saturday. He was not protected by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system which only targets rockets heading for populated areas. Abu Jaba and a number of other men were working in a remote field despite an evacuation order issued by the Israeli army. A father will take whatever risks are necessary to put food on the table. Abu Jaba was 34, his eldest child is said to be 11.
Abu Jaba was one of 18,000 Gazans who this year were given the highly coveted work permits by Israel, enabling them to work in Israel. Another 120,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank have been given work permits by Israel, so that they may work in Israel and in the settlements. In Israel, the Palestinians from Gaza can earn ten times what they would earn at home. Thus they are able to support not only their own families, but their extended families as well, and to thereby lift them out of the poverty that is so widespread in Gaza.
He was one of the 18,000 Palestinians from Gaza who go to work in Israel every day. His brother, Hamad, is another. Hamad was seriously injured in the same attack. Israel’s defence ministry has recognised Abu Jaba as a terror victim, meaning his widow and children will receive the same compensation payments that go to Israeli families bereaved by terrorism. Palestinian guest workers in Israel can encounter suspicion, hostility and racism. It’s a relief, albeit a small one, that the Jerusalem bureaucracy will do right by Abu Jaba’s loved ones.
Though Abu Jaba was not a citizen of Israel, and he was killed by a Palestinian rocket, Israel will treat his death as it treats the deaths of its own citizens by terrorists, providing exactly the same compensation to his family that is given to the bereaved families of Israeli Jews. Such generosity, of course, will not be mentioned anywhere in the Western press.
Abu Jaba is not the only inconvenient Palestinian. Among the civilian casualties recorded in the past week were Palestinians Ahmed Muhammad a-Shabaki (51), Rami Shadi Hamdan (16), Yazan Jawdat Fathi Elayyan (16), and Layan Bilal Mohammad Abdullah Mdoukh (10). Each is believed to have perished after Palestine Islamic Jihad rockets fell short and dropped inside Gaza instead of Israel. They join other inconvenient Palestinians, such as the 14 Gazans — half of them children — killed by misfired Palestinian rockets last August, and Mahmoud Abu Asabeh. Abu Asabeh, a Palestinian working in Ashdod, was killed in 2018 when a rocket from Gaza hit his apartment building. He was 48 and had five children.
It is obvious why the PIJ and Hamas would want to avoid giving details about the Palestinians whom their own misfired rockets have killed. These deaths show the sheer incompetence of the terror groups, with about 20% of the rockets they launch at Israeli civilian targets falling short and killing people in Gaza. This isn’t something the terror groups want known. But why doesn’t the Western press give those deaths any attention?
The international media seldom list by name the Palestinian victims of Palestinian rockets in Gaza, and never mention that the terror group’s (both Hamas or PIJ) own rockets misfired. Instead, those killed by misfiring rockets will be added to the total number of “Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza,” without specifying that they were killed by Palestinian rockets. Thus do the terror groups provide the international media with a laconic and misleading characterization of those killed in Gaza by Palestinian rockets, one meant to lay the blame for their deaths on Israel.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I can find a way to blame Israel for this one. If they did not have a policy of allowing Palestinians to work anywhere in Israel, then Abu Jaba would likely still be alive today: either working somewhere in Gaza, if he managed to find a job there. Or else, he’d have either starved to death, or been killed by the Gaza authorities for flouting some rule or the other, but he would not have been killed in Israel as a result of working there
Israel needs to be more humane and order all muslims out of its territory, so that it’s not responsible for their deaths when missiles from Pali territories fly in
abu taleb says
I always mock Islam defenders by the fact that the muslims are usually poorer than the non muslims (except in the oil rich countries) even though Allah has promised muslims to become rich (At Taubah 9:28). The muslims should blame the infidels for making the muslims poor because the infidels do not want to give their wealth to the muslims so that Allah can keep his promise.
And actually some muslims do blame the infidels. LOL