While Israeli authorities claim they are still trying to determine who killed Muhammad Abu Khedair and why, the court of world public opinion has already come up with its own verdict: Muhammad was killed in revenge for the deaths of three Jewish teenagers. It was a copycat murder by right-wing vigilantes who burnt Muhammad's body almost beyond recognition following the killing of the three teens last month. Palestinians and Israelis are clearly entering a violent new phase in which people are taking the law into their own hands. This climate of recrimination, fear and menace is not unknown nor is it entirely strange, for the air was like this in the lead-up to the two Palestinian uprisings. Violent clashes have broken out in East Jerusalem's Shuafat neighborhood where Muhammad's body was found. Israel has begun reinforcing its military forces on its border with the Gaza Strip amid heightened tensions with the Palestinians. This follows air strikes in Gaza. Tensions are soaring across the region. Certainly, the killing of the three settlers in the West Bank has given Israel the excuse it was waiting for to set a huge military operation in motion. Since the teens went missing, Israel has stormed through towns, ransacking homes and civil institutions, conducting night raids on families, stealing property, kidnapping, injuring and killing. Warplanes were repeatedly dispatched to bomb Gaza, destroying more homes and institutions and carrying out extrajudicial executions. Over 570 Palestinians have been kidnapped and imprisoned. At least 10 Palestinians have been killed, hundreds have been injured, and thousands terrorized. This wanton thuggery is official state policy conducted by the Israeli military and does not include the violence to persons and property perpetrated by Israeli settlers whose persistent attacks against Palestinian civilians has escalated in the past weeks. But there is a wider picture, larger than the issue of the Israeli teens. Israel has been spoiling for a fight with the Palestinians over other matters. There is, for one, the blaming of Mahmoud Abbas for the collapse of the recent peace negotiations. Second, Israel has not taken kindly to the Palestinian Authority's moves to join international organizations in the United Nations and sign international treaties. Palestinian attempts to join the International Criminal Court would give the ICC jurisdiction in Palestinian territory and thus give victims of war crimes, or crimes against humanity, access to international justice. Third, Israel rejects the recent internal Palestinian political reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas and the formation of a Palestinian unity government. The reconciliation agreement has closed the schism in Palestinian ranks much to Israel's chagrin, and it has once more unified the West Bank and the Gaza Strip politically. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict stands on the edge of a dangerous precipice, more perilous than at many other times of fracture. It does not seem to matter that no one knows who murdered the Israeli teens. It seems the entire state of Israel is calling for Palestinian blood. The entire Palestinian population will be made to suffer, more than they already are. As for the death of Muhammad, it too does not seem to matter who killed him or whether the murderers will ever be found. Just notch it up to one more death of a Palestinian by what Israeli officials will surely ascribe to unknown assailants for reasons they claim they do not know. This is the terrible disparity in the value of life in the eyes of Israel, where Palestinian life is held to be cheap and disposable while Jewish life is sacrosanct.
