The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Israel:
The Impasse of Repression

Sep 19, 2016

On August 3rd, the Israeli Parliament lowered the minimum age for imprisoning a child for “a grave terrorist act” from fourteen to twelve. With this law, the Israeli state pretends to fight the attacks launched by sometimes very young Palestinians against Israeli soldiers or civilians.

This simply testifies to the impossible situation Zionist policies have created in what used to be Palestine. According to an Israeli human rights organization, in 2015, 30 Palestinian children were killed by the Israeli army, and 1,735 were wounded. Already in 2015, 860 very young kids have been arrested, 136 of them under the age of twelve.

This situation results from the oppression of the Palestinians and the complete absence of any perspective that their situation might improve. Israel continues to encroach more and more on Palestinian lands and the sealing of the West Bank and Gaza means the Palestinians are trapped in an open-air prison. In these territories, unemployment and poverty hit almost everyone.

This policy of more and more repression cannot possibly bring security to the Israelis. On the contrary, it can only push more Palestinians to fight to change their situation. By imprisoning children, even the very young, the Israeli government just transforms them even more quickly into young rebels.