No “joint life”  in Barkan

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned Sept. 27 to the UN General Assembly hall in New York to send what he termed 'a message to the tyrants in Tehran,'” writes Akiva Eldar. “Netanyahu’s tough stance on Iran evidently did not impress the young Palestinian who killed Kim Levengrond-Yehezkel and Ziv Hajbi on Oct. 7 at the West Bank’s Barkan industrial area where they worked. The Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip who launch incendiary kites and balloons into Israel to burn the fields of the neighboring Israeli communities were not impressed, either. Netanyahu is unable to defend his people in those places, at this point in time.”

“The explanation for the gap between Netanyahu’s presentations and press briefings regarding the Iranian nuclear threat and the assessments by Israeli and international experts should be sought in the Palestinian arena,” Eldar explains. “In fact, it can be found in the prime minister’s own comments regarding the murder of Levengrond-Yehezkel and Hajbi. ‘This despicable terrorist, this evil man, wished to kill Jews and at the same time destroy the fabric of joint [Palestinian-Israeli] life in Barkan,’ Netanyahu wrote on Facebook, pledging to remember the two victims forever and to keep developing the Barkan zone.”

“Netanyahu certainly knows there is no ‘joint life’ in Barkan, only the type of coexistence one finds between a rider and his horse,” adds Eldar. “The Palestinians employed as laborers at the Barkan plants are banned from entering nearby Israeli settlements and are forced to lead their lives under military rule. As with other industrial parks Israel has established in the West Bank, Barkan was built on land considered by the international community (including the United States) and international law as occupied territory. A promise to develop Barkan, located in the heart of the West Bank, is tantamount to a commitment to perpetuate and deepen the Israeli occupation there. Occupation with no hope or end in sight is a surefire recipe for violence. During Netanyahu’s nine years in power, 144 Israelis have been killed and hundreds injured in terror attacks, the vast majority of which occurred in territories under Israeli occupation.”