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Do Israelis Feel Victorious After the Police Gun Down a West Bank Family?
Israel is sinking into a dangerous apathy. Who really cares about what's happening in the West Bank and Gaza Strip? Is the Palestinian issue still a decisive question in Israeli politics? Those demanding Palestinian reform as a condition for change must also look inward, at Israeli society
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Skudeneshavn 20. mars 2026
Jan Marton Jensen
HELE artikkelen i Haaretz 19. mars 2026:
Do Israelis Feel Victorious After the Police Gun Down a West Bank Family?
Israel is sinking into a dangerous apathy. Who really cares about what's happening in the West Bank and Gaza Strip? Is the Palestinian issue still a decisive question in Israeli politics? Those demanding Palestinian reform as a condition for change must also look inward, at Israeli society
The killing of the Bani Odeh family – parents and two children – by Border Policemen in Tammun this week wasn't just another link in the chain of West Bank violence. It placed a mirror in front of Palestinians and Israelis alike, one that forces them to ask: "How did we get here?"
As for the Palestinians, they seem to have reached a roundabout with no exit. All three of the strategies that have defined Palestinian strategy in the past few decades have collapsed – armed struggle, diplomatic negotiations and relying on international law.
Armed struggle, which is deemed terrorism in Israel's narrative, had catastrophic effects on Palestinian society, especially after October 7. But diplomatic negotiations since the Oslo Accords haven't led to a Palestinian state. On the contrary, they turned the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority into weak, dependent organizations devoid of influence. And as for international law, it is still mainly a rhetorical tool for creating press statements.
Trapped in this triangle by Israel's military and economic superiority, the Palestinians are being worn down.
The prevailing feeling in the West Bank today isn't anger, which would lead to a desire for revenge, but exhaustion, which leads merely to an aspiration to survive. In the past, an incident like the one in Tammun would have sparked demonstrations and clashes and led to a large-scale escalation. But today, the response has been a heavy, almost apathetic silence, stemming from despair.
Israel could conclude from this that the Palestinians have been defeated. See, there's no significant resistance, no effective leadership, no international pressure. Some people will say that reality has cohered around the messianic right's vision. Others will see this as proof of the success of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's consistent policy, which was aimed at making the Palestinian problem disappear. And some will conclude that the peace bloc has definitively lost its grip on reality.
But if the Palestinians were indeed defeated, we need to ask what this "victory" actually means. Has Israel achieved stability or real security? Or has it merely preserved an explosive situation in which one side has been oppressed to the point of paralysis, while the oppressor has simply stopped asking questions?
Even if we accept the claim that the Palestinians have "never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity," that doesn't absolve Israel of responsibility for the reality it is shaping. Nor does it explain what is happening in Israeli society.
At a time when the Palestinians are fighting to survive, Israel is sinking into a dangerous apathy. Who really cares about what's happening in the West Bank and Gaza Strip? To what extent is the Palestinian issue still seen as a decisive question in Israeli politics? Who is posing these questions to candidates for prime minister? Almost nobody.
Nor does the upcoming election hold out the promise of substantive change. Even if Netanyahu doesn't form the next government, there will be no diplomatic glad tidings.
The optimists will say, "First let's replace the government, then we'll see." But the realists understand that the problem runs deeper than that. It doesn't depend solely on who the prime minister is, but also on deep-rooted processes in Israeli society – radicalization, the normalization of the occupation and apartheid and the rejection of any diplomatic solution.
Anyone who demands that the Palestinians change as a condition for changing the situation must also look inward, at Israeli society. A situation in which one nation is merely surviving while another nation's sensibilities have been blunted is no victory. It's a moral and political defeat of the stronger side
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