What the Israeli police fired at Palestinian protesters in East Jerusalem was really nothing but steel bullets, covered with a rubber jacket, and capable of causing serious injuries.
This is what was confirmed by the French Middle East studies expert, Jean-Pierre Filiu, in a report in the French newspaper Le Monde, indicating that the international press, in its coverage of the recent cycle of violence in East Jerusalem, described what the Israeli police fired at Palestinian demonstrators as "bullets." Rubbery ".
However, he noted that the Le Monde correspondent in Jerusalem was among the few journalists who took notice of this matter and began describing these bullets as "real, which is that they are" metal bullets coated with a rubber layer. "
He added that this layer is very thin and hardly affects the intensity of the bullet, which, if aimed at the head, could cause serious or even fatal injuries.
Therefore, Filio says, it is important to refute the myth of "rubber bullets" that Israeli security forces use in East Jerusalem, while live ammunition is used in the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories.
He added that the myth of "rubber bullets" and the restraint that is supposed to accompany it are inseparable from the myth of East Jerusalem, which is intended to be fully part of Israel.
Legend in legend
In this regard, he explained, this holy city was divided through the "green line" of the ceasefire, from 1948 to 1967, between a western part incorporated in Israel and an eastern part, with the Old City and the holy places that follow.
But Israel, as the writer says, began as early as June 1967, the de facto annexation of East Jerusalem, under the banner of "administrative unification" of the municipality now responsible for the entire city, and then formalized this annexation, in July 1980, Under a "Basic Law," of constitutional value, voted by 69 of the 120 representatives in the Knesset, a law that the UN Security Council described as "null and void," which deprived Israel of the right to unilaterally change the status of these occupied Arab lands.
The writer added that the United States adhered to this international consensus, until former President Donald Trump's decision in December 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and to transfer the US embassy to it in May 2018, which has not been done so far by any other country except Guatemala and Kosovo. While all other countries of the world maintained their embassies in Tel Aviv.
Here, Filio points out, that the myth of "united" Jerusalem is broken with every Israeli-Palestinian crisis, and instead the "green line" emerges again between West Jerusalem and 365,000 Israelis on the one hand, and East Jerusalem on the other hand, where 220,000 Israelis face 350,000. Palestinian.
The writer asserts here that from the point of view of international law, these Israeli residents in East Jerusalem are just as settlers as 440,000 settlers in the West Bank, as these two Palestinian areas have been occupied since 1967, and moreover, Palestinians in East Jerusalem are not carrying Israeli citizenship, and they can only participate in the municipal elections, which they boycott to a large extent in order not to legitimize the de facto occupation.
The author concludes by comparing the reality of both the bullets and the aforementioned and the reality of East Jerusalem, saying, “(rubber bullets) can lead to death, and in many cases, to cause serious and permanent injuries, which means that the lie that this bullets do not harm the Palestinians is matched only by the lie of failure. The occupation of East Jerusalem, in both cases, scratching the surface suffices for the bitter truth to emerge.