David Shulman
The West Bank, Part I
On the West Bank, the Palestinian September has come and gone in an eerie quiet. Abu Mazen returned from the UN to a hero’s welcome in Ramallah, and there were low-key celebrations in other cities as well; but the mass demonstrations that many predicted, and that the Israelis feared, have not materialized. The Palestinian security forces were given strict orders to keep demonstrators away from potential places of friction such as roadblocks, checkpoints, and of course Israeli settlements. Expecting the worst, the Israeli army invested considerable resources in crowd-control technology, including the infamous “Skunk” spray, which disperses an unbearable malodorous mist; but so far they haven’t needed these methods. In the meantime, has anything changed on the ground?
October 18, 2011