Who'd Be an Occupier These Days?

"The heavily armed soldiers do not respond in the face of what appears to be an attempt to provoke rather than harm them." (Women's 'assault aims to provoke Israeli soldiers', AFP, The Australian, 23/12/17)

The 50-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestine is unique in the annals of military occupations.

Up to now, military occupations were always thought to consist of an occupying force, lording it over an occupied people.

The former was a strutting brute, armed to the teeth. A potential thug, or even killer.

The occupied, on the other hand, were essentially at his mercy, although, when sufficiently provoked by the inherent injustice of the occupation or by specific incidences of brutality on the part of the occupier, sometimes lashed out at the occupier. (Up until the Israeli occupation of Palestine, these were known as acts of resistance, and every right-thinking person understood them as such and applauded them.)

Not any longer, however.

These days, none of this received wisdom applies. These days, in occupied Palestine at least, it's the occupying forces, not the occupied population, one has to feel sorry for. Just imagine: Israel's occupying forces, innocent bystanders really, must go about their pure-as-the-driven-snow business, never knowing when they may be provoked or - God forbid! - harmed.

Given this paradigmatic shift in our understanding of these matters, maybe its time historians revisited the subject of, say, the French resistance to the Nazi occupation. What say you, Agence France Presse?