On Saturday morning, 31 August, after a painful summer 'vacation', children went back to school all over the West Bank under the authority of the still-existing Palestinian Ministry of Education. They went back despite the curfew imposed on Palestinian towns, despite the two years of cordons around most of the villages, despite the growing death toll. In the week preceding that Saturday, 13 Palestinian civilians were shot dead by the Israel Defence Forces; none of the 13 was implicated in terrorist activity, even in the official IDF version of events, but the Army has already concluded that in all cases the soldiers acted properly. In short, Israel is waging a war, not only against militant Palestinian organisations, but against the Palestinian people.

LRB 3 October 2002 | PDF Download