Someone recently asked me how I can continue to be an advocate for Palestinians without losing hope. I must admit that on days like this keeping a positive view of the goodness of humanity is a hard task.
Two days ago media outlets covered a video taken near Hebron in the West Bank of a five-year old Palestinian boy begging Israeli police to not take his father away. The boy's father was being arrested for "stealing" water-- water that had previously been stolen by Israel for the Jewish-only illegal settlement, Kiryat Arba. It is a disturbing video.
The footage shows a barefooted child crying and screaming as his father is roughly handled and shoved into a van. In the Sky News coverage, Hashem Abu Maria, of the Defence For Children International charity, said it was obvious the child thought his father would never return.
So just when you think this event is sad enough, we get this from the Israeli police:
Pictures from the incident show "that the family chose to make cynical use of a 5-year-old boy" and that "he was well instructed and directed."
"Instead of the family acting responsibly toward a child and removing him from the situation, they chose to make cheap anti-Israel propaganda, whose sole purpose is to present us in a negative light around the world. As is seen in the pictures, and in order to remove any doubt, the authorities on site acted lawfully against the unacceptable phenomenon of water theft."
Talk about cynical.