A Routine Founded on Violence

Israel’s control over roughly five million Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip manifests itself in different ways in their lives. They daily face organized, ongoing state violence, some of it overt, more often hidden. Since Palestinians have no political representation in the Israeli institutions that govern their lives, the potential for arbitrary use of force – physical or administrative – against them is virtually unrestricted. The result is harassment and abuse sometimes for no apparent reason, sometimes based on barely plausible security grounds.