Mainstream media coverage of the Israeli Palestinian conflict gives the false impression that things are just now heating up between the two sides following the torture and death of  30-year-old Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat in Israeli custody. As usual, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Anyone following the situation since the Gaza ceasefire in late November knows that Jaradat’s death is just the latest outrage in a long line of injustices including continued demolitions, assaults, arbitrary arrests, indefinite detentions and killings of unarmed palestinians by Israeli forces.

Ben White created an info graphic that demonstrates what the mainstream media has failed to report since the ceasefire was put in place. You’ll notice the number of attacks on the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military far outpace attacks coming out of the Gaza Strip. In addition, the right margin highlights the economic suffocation of the Gaza Strip as well as Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank during the same time period.

[Illustration and design: Rachele Richards] Source: Al Jazeera

Keep in mind that it’s impossible to capture the everyday reality of occupation in a single graph. Each number represents an actual human being who was injured or killed meaning their family, neighbors and village were likely traumatized along with them. I’m beginning to think that the establishment press doesn’t see Palestinians as fully human because their everyday suffering rarely makes it into mainstream news reports until Israel is affected.

For example, the Associated Press, like much of the US media, has completely ignored the plight of dying Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli detention. In stark contrast, earlier this week one AP  headline screamed, “Gaza Militants Fire Rocket Into Israel“,  providing almost zero context for why Gaza militants would suddenly fire a rocket.

The media’s coverage of Israel’s violent suppression of Palestinian protests throughout the West Bank similarly downplays Israeli violence, often referring to episodes of Palestinian stone throwers versus IDF gunman as “clashes”, implying a fight between equally armed parties.

Such was the case today when Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was evacuated from a rally in the West Bank village of Bilin after Israeli forces fired tear gas, among other things, at protesters.

The AP published a handful of vague paragraphs that made the incident seem like no big deal, compared to the far more comprehensive and violent story reported by Ma’an:

According to a Ma’an reporter, Israeli soldiers showered the participants with tear gas canisters, stun grenades, and foul-smelling liquids while others fired rubber-coated bullets.

The soldiers, he said, chased the protesters in military jeeps between olive trees in the fields. As a result four young men were hit by high-velocity tear gas canisters. They were identified as 17-year-old Muatasim Mansour, 20-year-old Issam Yasin, 22-year-old cameraman Ali Abu Rahma, and 18-year-old assistant paramedic Nimir Malasa. Two of the victims were hit right in the head, and were evacuated to Palestine Medical Compound in Ramallah. The other two were hit in the abdomen and one on the foot.

Two ambulances were also hit by tear gas canisters smashing their windshields.

Launching tear gas at the heads of young Palestinians and live fire at ambulance trucks is routine for the IDF regardless of whether or not Palestinian youth throw stones. For proof check out the Oscar-nominated documentary film “5 Broken Cameras“, which shows the IDF routinely showering unarmed, non-violent Palestinian protesters in the West Bank village of Bilin with tear gas and live bullets without a second thought.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned the Palestinian Authority with an “unequivocal demand to restore quiet“.  In typical fashion, the US State Department followed suit, urging both sides to “exercise maximum restraint“.

These pronouncements almost make you forget that Israel is the occupier and colonizer. Perhaps someone should remind America and Israel that it’s not the responsibility of the oppressed keep calm in the face of injustice. It’s not the responsibility of the colonized to “maintain restraint” as their land is stolen and their culture annihilated. And it’s not the responsibility of Palestinians to sacrifice their human rights for the sake of “restoring quiet” and preserving Israel’s security (whatever that means).

Yousef Munayyer, Executive Director of The Jerusalem Fund at the Palestine Center, explains why the obsessive focus on Israel’s security is so problematic:

But the occupation itself is an intolerable and constant system of violence. It has been ongoing for decades, with episode after episode that could be a spark. Yet it is because an Intifada—or Palestinian uprising—is understood to mean that Israelis will face greater security risks, it suddenly generates urgency and fear. The message this sends is that only when Israeli security is challenged does the world seem to take note. The perpetual insecurity of Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation is acceptable to Israeli and American power-brokers.

The elevation of Intifada periods alone to the level of crisis suggests non-Intifada periods are not a crisis. But, in reality, the denial of self-determination to millions of people through military occupation is a crisis – a human rights crisis and a catastrophe.

Continuing to ignore the urgency of this reality, as Israel and America have done, is of far more consequence than any individual or isolated event. Unlike their Israeli and American counterparts, Palestinians don’t have the luxury of ignoring the military occupation around them. Sooner or later, they will scream out, because their security and liberty is no less important than anyone else’s.

What we should be asking is not, Are we on the cusp of the next intifada? But rather, Why on earth do we have to be in order to demand change to a fundamentally unjust situation?