At a Minnesota conference forum, American Indians and Palestinians:
Parallel Injustice,î
Nehad Awad introduced himself: ìMinnesota is my home. I studied at Hamline and the U of M. Thank God I came to the Twin Cities. One of the first people I met was Nick Boswell, a Native American man who converted to Islam. A Native American Muslim.î
Awad spoke about growing up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan where he watched black and white American movies. He noticed that the Indians were portrayed as scary, dangerous bad guys. When he came to the U.S. he realized that as a Palestinian he was considered scary and dangerous in the same way, while the whole time growing up he had understood himself and his people to be victims. He was shocked to see Palestinians portrayed as violent.
ìWhat brings us together?î he asked and then answered, ìOppression.îHe explained the recipe for oppression: S-K-L.: Steal the land, Kill the people, Lie about it.
Watching the movies he knew something was wrong. The way of portraying American Indians in Hollywood movies was very effective and it took him years to undo the stereotypes. The heroes were the god- fearing, good people with guns. The villains, who threatened the safety of the white people, had to be killed. Killing these people was always justified.
ìMy knowledge of Native Americans was that they have no feelings and they donít speak. The victims were dehumanized. They had been victims of genocide for over 500 years,î he said.
Awad said he ìunderstands that fear and suffering led Jews to establish a political state.î Everyone acknowledges and empathizes with the suffering Jews have endured throughout history. But the conflict between Jews and Palestinians has to do with America and its Weapons of Mass Deception, he said. He nevertheless ultimately has great hopes for working together; he has faith in peace, faith in justice.
About Gaza, he said it was the first time in history that civilians were not able to flee; it was ìlike bombing people in a cage. The press and humanitarian aid were not allowed into the area.î
ìWe know thereís injustice. Our tax money supports Israel. We give them political support and weapons and we donít speak up about the injustice. It hurts me as a U.S. citizen that these things are done in my name. The majority of America is decent. How come this is done in our name?î
He emphasized, ìSpeaking against Israelís actions is not anti- Semitism. Everyone needs to speak up. I ask my government to be fair, to hold people accountable, to hold Israel accountable to international laws. Obama promised change, letís ask him for that.î
http://www.southsidepride.com/2009/06/articles/American_Indians.html
Prussia on the Mediterranean? (thanks, Eldad)
The Nation
It is an assumption almost universally acknowledged among the liberal American intelligentsia that while the Israeli occupation is repressive and abhorrent, Israel itself is an open, fully democratic state with a lively, argumentative and very free press.
Perish the thought. After spending three months in Israel on a fellowship, I can say that nearly every member of the liberal Israeli intelligentsia I've talked to says something quite different: that their country's media are seriously diseased, failing to provide the minimal level of fair reporting and serious critical inquiry that are crucial pillars of an open society.
Americans who don't read Hebrew or watch Israeli television news may get a skewed view of the spectrum, assuming that Ha'aretz, the smaller- circulation daily read mostly by intellectuals and the political classes--and foreigners, who devour its English-language edition online--is representative, and that critical columnists and reporters like Gideon Levy, Akiva Eldar and Amira Hass are sprinkled throughout the Israeli media. It isn't, and they aren't. The larger-circulation dailies Yediot and Ma'ariv, as well as the Jerusalem Post and television news, are tilted much more to the right--just like the mainstream US media, which certainly have nothing to teach Israel in this regard.
And as for being an open, fully democratic state, most people I talk to speak of a chilling of dissent in recent years, running in parallel with the election of increasingly right-wing governments. The nadir came during the recent Gaza "war." I've seen a microcosm of this myself here in Beer-Sheva, at Ben-Gurion University. A few days ago, Noah Slor, who is in the graduate program in BGU's department of Middle Eastern studies, was arrested by police at the request of campus security and detained for several hours for quietly handing out leaflets opposing a bill now before the Knesset that would make it a criminal offense to commemorate Nakba Day (the day in May when Palestinians mourn the catastrophe of their dispossession and expulsion, which for Jews is a celebration of independence). She was doing this in a spot right outside the main campus gate, where students traditionally hand out everything from party announcements to information about political rallies, with never a bother from security.
Student activists and professors attest to a pattern of politically motivated harassment by campus security. Indeed, Slor, an activist with Darom le Shalom (the South for Peace), a recently formed group of Arabs and Jews in the Beer-Sheva area who "struggle against racism and for equality and coexistence between Arabs and Jews," told me that at the time of her arrest, a security officer told her, "Listen, don't pretend you're so naÔve--I've seen you in past demonstrations. Everything is recorded and written, everything is documented." She can't prove it, but she's convinced security went after her because she was protesting the Nakba Day legislation; "that was the subtext," she told me.
The students were not going to take this sitting down. That same night, about sixty or so held a demonstration protesting the arrest, gathering at a university ceremony attended by the board of governors and other dignitaries. The students put masking tape over their mouths and held up signs saying "The Security Department Runs the University" and "Security Department = Secret Police." (In a response to questions about the incident, university spokesperson Amir Rozenblit said students are not allowed to distribute fliers on campus--why in the world not?--and that Noah was handing them out "in an area considered part of the campus"--even though it was outside the main gate. He also claimed one security guard was detained as well as Noah.)
The stifling of dissent was pervasive during the Gaza campaign. Nitza Berkovitch, a BGU sociologist, said, "I think the media was completely and truly mobilized. There was complete support of the war." A few days after the start of the war, in late December, a group of Arab and Jewish students held a peaceful demo against it. The police soon arrived and demanded that they disperse. They agreed, but as they were folding their signs, several were tackled by police, dragged to cars and held for hours, accused of "rioting." There was another demonstration in mid-January, this one even more moderate, with people holding signs calling for peace and an end to violence on both sides. Again, the same thing happened: dozens of police arrived and roughed up the crowd, arresting several. One BGU student, Ran Tzoref, was put under house arrest for a month.
Harsh repression of Palestinian citizens is a deeply engrained practice in Israel. Recent incidents indicate there may be a loosening of constraint on repression of Jewish dissent as well. Hundreds of Israelis were arrested for protesting the Gaza campaign, probably most of them Palestinian but many Jewish as well. Tzoref told me, "I was in protests in the occupied territories, and they acted the same here. For me it was shocking that riot police came to the university and attacked us. This was never done before, not on this scale." Berkovitch said, "It was like I was in a South American dictatorship. It was as if an arbitrary order had been given nationwide that a certain number of people needed to be arrested--it was a simple matter of intimidation."
Certainly the Gaza campaign brought out the worst in the apparatus of repression, which was fueled by a public mood of vengeance and hatred of Palestinians, which was itself heightened by the Hamas rocket barrages. (Berkovitch told me that many passers-by at the January demonstration shouted abuses at the protesters, calling them traitors and saying things like "Jews should kill more Arabs." "So much hatred I've never encountered in my life," she said.) The trend is worrying, but it should be emphasized that in general, Israeli Jews, unlike Palestinians, still enjoy a remarkable degree of freedom to speak out on almost any issue.
With a far-right government that is not only determined to avoid serious negotiations with the Palestinians but is actively promoting settlement growth; that shows all the signs of preparing for war against Iran and is actively stoking public paranoia on that front; that increasingly sees Palestinian citizens as a menace, as the enemy within, the contradictions of a nation that claims to be both Jewish and democratic are fraying. How can a state that imprisons 4 million Palestinians behind ghetto walls, bypass roads and a blockade, and treats another 1.5 million as second-class citizens, be democratic? BGU geography professor Oren Yiftachel calls Israel an ethnocracy (the title of a recent book of his); the late Hebrew University sociologist Baruch Kimmerling called it a "Herrenvolk democracy." Whatever you call it, if Israel continues along its current path, the repression will necessarily intensify, and the avenues for free expression will become ever more constricted. The old joke about Prussia was that it was an army masquerading as a state. Is Israel destined to become Prussia on the Mediterranean?
=======
It is an assumption almost universally acknowledged among the liberal American intelligentsia that while the Israeli occupation is repressive and abhorrent, Israel itself is an open, fully democratic state with a lively, argumentative and very free press.
Perish the thought. After spending three months in Israel on a fellowship, I can say that nearly every member of the liberal Israeli intelligentsia I've talked to says something quite different: that their country's media are seriously diseased, failing to provide the minimal level of fair reporting and serious critical inquiry that are crucial pillars of an open society.
Americans who don't read Hebrew or watch Israeli television news may get a skewed view of the spectrum, assuming that Ha'aretz, the smaller- circulation daily read mostly by intellectuals and the political classes--and foreigners, who devour its English-language edition online--is representative, and that critical columnists and reporters like Gideon Levy, Akiva Eldar and Amira Hass are sprinkled throughout the Israeli media. It isn't, and they aren't. The larger-circulation dailies Yediot and Ma'ariv, as well as the Jerusalem Post and television news, are tilted much more to the right--just like the mainstream US media, which certainly have nothing to teach Israel in this regard.
And as for being an open, fully democratic state, most people I talk to speak of a chilling of dissent in recent years, running in parallel with the election of increasingly right-wing governments. The nadir came during the recent Gaza "war." I've seen a microcosm of this myself here in Beer-Sheva, at Ben-Gurion University. A few days ago, Noah Slor, who is in the graduate program in BGU's department of Middle Eastern studies, was arrested by police at the request of campus security and detained for several hours for quietly handing out leaflets opposing a bill now before the Knesset that would make it a criminal offense to commemorate Nakba Day (the day in May when Palestinians mourn the catastrophe of their dispossession and expulsion, which for Jews is a celebration of independence). She was doing this in a spot right outside the main campus gate, where students traditionally hand out everything from party announcements to information about political rallies, with never a bother from security.
Student activists and professors attest to a pattern of politically motivated harassment by campus security. Indeed, Slor, an activist with Darom le Shalom (the South for Peace), a recently formed group of Arabs and Jews in the Beer-Sheva area who "struggle against racism and for equality and coexistence between Arabs and Jews," told me that at the time of her arrest, a security officer told her, "Listen, don't pretend you're so naÔve--I've seen you in past demonstrations. Everything is recorded and written, everything is documented." She can't prove it, but she's convinced security went after her because she was protesting the Nakba Day legislation; "that was the subtext," she told me.
The students were not going to take this sitting down. That same night, about sixty or so held a demonstration protesting the arrest, gathering at a university ceremony attended by the board of governors and other dignitaries. The students put masking tape over their mouths and held up signs saying "The Security Department Runs the University" and "Security Department = Secret Police." (In a response to questions about the incident, university spokesperson Amir Rozenblit said students are not allowed to distribute fliers on campus--why in the world not?--and that Noah was handing them out "in an area considered part of the campus"--even though it was outside the main gate. He also claimed one security guard was detained as well as Noah.)
The stifling of dissent was pervasive during the Gaza campaign. Nitza Berkovitch, a BGU sociologist, said, "I think the media was completely and truly mobilized. There was complete support of the war." A few days after the start of the war, in late December, a group of Arab and Jewish students held a peaceful demo against it. The police soon arrived and demanded that they disperse. They agreed, but as they were folding their signs, several were tackled by police, dragged to cars and held for hours, accused of "rioting." There was another demonstration in mid-January, this one even more moderate, with people holding signs calling for peace and an end to violence on both sides. Again, the same thing happened: dozens of police arrived and roughed up the crowd, arresting several. One BGU student, Ran Tzoref, was put under house arrest for a month.
Harsh repression of Palestinian citizens is a deeply engrained practice in Israel. Recent incidents indicate there may be a loosening of constraint on repression of Jewish dissent as well. Hundreds of Israelis were arrested for protesting the Gaza campaign, probably most of them Palestinian but many Jewish as well. Tzoref told me, "I was in protests in the occupied territories, and they acted the same here. For me it was shocking that riot police came to the university and attacked us. This was never done before, not on this scale." Berkovitch said, "It was like I was in a South American dictatorship. It was as if an arbitrary order had been given nationwide that a certain number of people needed to be arrested--it was a simple matter of intimidation."
Certainly the Gaza campaign brought out the worst in the apparatus of repression, which was fueled by a public mood of vengeance and hatred of Palestinians, which was itself heightened by the Hamas rocket barrages. (Berkovitch told me that many passers-by at the January demonstration shouted abuses at the protesters, calling them traitors and saying things like "Jews should kill more Arabs." "So much hatred I've never encountered in my life," she said.) The trend is worrying, but it should be emphasized that in general, Israeli Jews, unlike Palestinians, still enjoy a remarkable degree of freedom to speak out on almost any issue.
With a far-right government that is not only determined to avoid serious negotiations with the Palestinians but is actively promoting settlement growth; that shows all the signs of preparing for war against Iran and is actively stoking public paranoia on that front; that increasingly sees Palestinian citizens as a menace, as the enemy within, the contradictions of a nation that claims to be both Jewish and democratic are fraying. How can a state that imprisons 4 million Palestinians behind ghetto walls, bypass roads and a blockade, and treats another 1.5 million as second-class citizens, be democratic? BGU geography professor Oren Yiftachel calls Israel an ethnocracy (the title of a recent book of his); the late Hebrew University sociologist Baruch Kimmerling called it a "Herrenvolk democracy." Whatever you call it, if Israel continues along its current path, the repression will necessarily intensify, and the avenues for free expression will become ever more constricted. The old joke about Prussia was that it was an army masquerading as a state. Is Israel destined to become Prussia on the Mediterranean?
=======
Israel's righteous fury and its victims in Gaza
Ilan Pappe The Electronic Intifada
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10100.shtml
My visit back home to the Galilee coincided with the genocidal Israeli attack on Gaza. The state, through its media and with the help of its academia, broadcasted one unanimous voice -- even louder than the one heard during the criminal attack against Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Israel is engulfed once more with righteous fury that translates into destructive policies in the Gaza Strip. This appalling self-justification for the inhumanity and impunity is not just annoying, it is a subject worth dwelling on, if one wants to understand the international immunity for the massacre that rages on in Gaza.
It is based first and foremost on sheer lies transmitted with a newspeak reminiscent of darker days in 1930s Europe. Every half an hour a news bulletin on the radio and television describes the victims of Gaza as terrorists and Israel's massive killings of them as an act of self-defense. Israel presents itself to its own people as the righteous victim that defends itself against a great evil. The academic world is recruited to explain how demonic and monstrous is the Palestinian struggle, if it is led by Hamas. These are the same scholars who demonized the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in an earlier era and delegitimized his Fatah movement during the second Palestinian intifada.
But the lies and distorted representations are not the worst part of it. It is the direct attack on the last vestiges of humanity and dignity of the Palestinian people that is most enraging. The Palestinians in Israel have shown their solidarity with the people of Gaza and are now branded as a fifth column in the Jewish state; their right to remain in their homeland cast as doubtful given their lack of support for the Israeli aggression. Those among them who agree -- wrongly, in my opinion -- to appear in the local media are interrogated, and not interviewed, as if they were inmates in the Shin Bet's prison. Their appearance is prefaced and followed by humiliating racist remarks and they are met with accusations of being a fifth column, an irrational and fanatical people. And yet this is not the basest practice. There are a few Palestinian children from the occupied territories treated for cancer in Israeli hospitals. God knows what price their families have paid for them to be admitted there. The Israel Radio daily goes to the hospital to demand the poor parents tell the Israeli audience how right Israel is in its attack and how evil is Hamas in its defense.
read more http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10100.shtml
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10100.shtml
My visit back home to the Galilee coincided with the genocidal Israeli attack on Gaza. The state, through its media and with the help of its academia, broadcasted one unanimous voice -- even louder than the one heard during the criminal attack against Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Israel is engulfed once more with righteous fury that translates into destructive policies in the Gaza Strip. This appalling self-justification for the inhumanity and impunity is not just annoying, it is a subject worth dwelling on, if one wants to understand the international immunity for the massacre that rages on in Gaza.
It is based first and foremost on sheer lies transmitted with a newspeak reminiscent of darker days in 1930s Europe. Every half an hour a news bulletin on the radio and television describes the victims of Gaza as terrorists and Israel's massive killings of them as an act of self-defense. Israel presents itself to its own people as the righteous victim that defends itself against a great evil. The academic world is recruited to explain how demonic and monstrous is the Palestinian struggle, if it is led by Hamas. These are the same scholars who demonized the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in an earlier era and delegitimized his Fatah movement during the second Palestinian intifada.
But the lies and distorted representations are not the worst part of it. It is the direct attack on the last vestiges of humanity and dignity of the Palestinian people that is most enraging. The Palestinians in Israel have shown their solidarity with the people of Gaza and are now branded as a fifth column in the Jewish state; their right to remain in their homeland cast as doubtful given their lack of support for the Israeli aggression. Those among them who agree -- wrongly, in my opinion -- to appear in the local media are interrogated, and not interviewed, as if they were inmates in the Shin Bet's prison. Their appearance is prefaced and followed by humiliating racist remarks and they are met with accusations of being a fifth column, an irrational and fanatical people. And yet this is not the basest practice. There are a few Palestinian children from the occupied territories treated for cancer in Israeli hospitals. God knows what price their families have paid for them to be admitted there. The Israel Radio daily goes to the hospital to demand the poor parents tell the Israeli audience how right Israel is in its attack and how evil is Hamas in its defense.
read more http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10100.shtml
Iraqi refugees live life of desperation
Iraqi refugees live life of desperation
By Diane Sommer • April 12, 2009
A dark brown scarf is wrapped around Baneen's head and neck to hide the scar on her throat. But there is nothing that can mask the torment and pain imprinted on her dark eyes, eyes that have witnessed atrocities most people cannot comprehend.
Advertisement
I traveled to Damascus, Syria in November 2008 with activist documentary filmmaker Andrew Courtney to assist in finishing a film project he started in June 2008 concerning the estimated one to 1.4 million Iraqi refugees living in Damascus. We revisited several Iraqi refugee families he had documented to find out if anything had changed with their living conditions or resettlement status. I was most touched by the story of 12-year-old Baneen, her parents and her six siblings.
Baneen's family has been traumatized by many encounters of extreme violence inflicted by the militia in Iraq. Her mother Nahida is Sunni; her father Abdul is Shia. Before the U.S. occupation, they lived comfortably in a middle-class neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq's capital, where Sunni, Shia and Christians lived peacefully. Nahida was a member of the Ba'ath party, of which Saddam Hussein was a leading member. In December 2003, after the U.S. invasion, Saddam was captured by U.S. forces, leaving Iraq without a leader. Groups that had been repressed under his thumb came out in droves to assert their revenge.
Horrific experience
In 2006 masked people with guns opened fire on Nahida's home and kidnapped her for 10 days, saying she was a Saddam element and a criminal. Gunmen shot out the lock on the front door. When her oldest son tried to stop them, they beheaded him and threw his head onto his younger brother's lap.
Ten-year-old Baneen was attending primary school in Baghdad at the time. One day the militia invaded her school and forced the school director to hand 12 children over to them. Baneen was one of the children. They were forced onto a bus, where all were beheaded - except for Baneen. She watched in horror as one of the men began to cut her neck. But someone had informed U.S. soldiers, who then followed the vehicle and Baneen was quickly thrown out. She was taken to a nearby U.S. military base for treatment.
In an ultimate act of violence, Baneen's family's house was raided and blown up - everything was destroyed. With financial help from friends, the family fled to Syria on a bus and have been living in a tiny apartment in Damascus for the past three years.
Advertisement
Refugees are not allowed to work, yet they must still find a way to pay for food and rent. This leads to a plethora of problems, including lack of education for children, prostitution, malnutrition and homelessness.
Hope endures
The day I met Baneen, she wore a T-shirt with a message written in English: "Happy World." Although dreadful memories and fearful images must flood her mind daily, Baneen said she will never give up hope for a peaceful world. Some day she just might become a powerful leader in the peace movement. I made a promise to Baneen and all of the refugees I met, to share their personal stories of despair and courage with Americans.
Millions of Iraqis have been targeted because of their religion, profession, ethnicity, or simply because they worked with Americans in some capacity. Mainstream media in the U.S. do not give due coverage to the victims of war crimes. It would inundate the news and arouse the public. The campaign of deceit that was designed to sell the Iraq war was the first of a series of war crimes and crimes against humanity by George W. Bush and his administration. Now it is up to us, the people, to prosecute the George W. Bush/ Dick Cheney administration in order to restore justice. There is no statute of limitations for war crimes.
Diane Sommer lives in LaGrangeville and is a writer, artist, social activist and the mother of two children.
By Diane Sommer • April 12, 2009
A dark brown scarf is wrapped around Baneen's head and neck to hide the scar on her throat. But there is nothing that can mask the torment and pain imprinted on her dark eyes, eyes that have witnessed atrocities most people cannot comprehend.
Advertisement
I traveled to Damascus, Syria in November 2008 with activist documentary filmmaker Andrew Courtney to assist in finishing a film project he started in June 2008 concerning the estimated one to 1.4 million Iraqi refugees living in Damascus. We revisited several Iraqi refugee families he had documented to find out if anything had changed with their living conditions or resettlement status. I was most touched by the story of 12-year-old Baneen, her parents and her six siblings.
Baneen's family has been traumatized by many encounters of extreme violence inflicted by the militia in Iraq. Her mother Nahida is Sunni; her father Abdul is Shia. Before the U.S. occupation, they lived comfortably in a middle-class neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq's capital, where Sunni, Shia and Christians lived peacefully. Nahida was a member of the Ba'ath party, of which Saddam Hussein was a leading member. In December 2003, after the U.S. invasion, Saddam was captured by U.S. forces, leaving Iraq without a leader. Groups that had been repressed under his thumb came out in droves to assert their revenge.
Horrific experience
In 2006 masked people with guns opened fire on Nahida's home and kidnapped her for 10 days, saying she was a Saddam element and a criminal. Gunmen shot out the lock on the front door. When her oldest son tried to stop them, they beheaded him and threw his head onto his younger brother's lap.
Ten-year-old Baneen was attending primary school in Baghdad at the time. One day the militia invaded her school and forced the school director to hand 12 children over to them. Baneen was one of the children. They were forced onto a bus, where all were beheaded - except for Baneen. She watched in horror as one of the men began to cut her neck. But someone had informed U.S. soldiers, who then followed the vehicle and Baneen was quickly thrown out. She was taken to a nearby U.S. military base for treatment.
In an ultimate act of violence, Baneen's family's house was raided and blown up - everything was destroyed. With financial help from friends, the family fled to Syria on a bus and have been living in a tiny apartment in Damascus for the past three years.
Advertisement
Refugees are not allowed to work, yet they must still find a way to pay for food and rent. This leads to a plethora of problems, including lack of education for children, prostitution, malnutrition and homelessness.
Hope endures
The day I met Baneen, she wore a T-shirt with a message written in English: "Happy World." Although dreadful memories and fearful images must flood her mind daily, Baneen said she will never give up hope for a peaceful world. Some day she just might become a powerful leader in the peace movement. I made a promise to Baneen and all of the refugees I met, to share their personal stories of despair and courage with Americans.
Millions of Iraqis have been targeted because of their religion, profession, ethnicity, or simply because they worked with Americans in some capacity. Mainstream media in the U.S. do not give due coverage to the victims of war crimes. It would inundate the news and arouse the public. The campaign of deceit that was designed to sell the Iraq war was the first of a series of war crimes and crimes against humanity by George W. Bush and his administration. Now it is up to us, the people, to prosecute the George W. Bush/ Dick Cheney administration in order to restore justice. There is no statute of limitations for war crimes.
Diane Sommer lives in LaGrangeville and is a writer, artist, social activist and the mother of two children.
Thank God, It Was Only Rumors
| STANLEY HELLER Counterpunch 1.04.09 http://www.counterpunch.org/heller04012009.html |
Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit has instructed the Military Police Investigation unit to close the inquiry into Israeli soldiers` accounts of serious violations of the army`s rules of engagement during the Gaza Massacre or as the IDF so winningly calls it: “Operation Cast Lead”. It turns out the General discovered all the charges `were based on hearsay and not first-hand experience.` Just a bunch of rumors. Thank God for that. Those shells were just rumors, the ones that hit the U.N. warehouse and the al-Quds Hospital. It wasn’t white phosphorus. The jellyfish-like white tentacles that are a signature for a white phosphorus burst were probably a Palestinian fireworks display. The Abu Halima family was wrong. There was no shell that exploded in their house killing four children. Human Right Watch made a mistake. It must have been a sandstorm or a jinn. Stories that Israeli soldiers wrecked and defiled Palestinian homes were obviously urban legends. After claiming to visit one home near Jabalya camp Israeli newspaper columnist Amira Hass wrote, “There are houses where excrement was smeared on the walls, or where dry piles of it were found in corners. In many cases, the smells indicated that soldiers had urinated on piles of clothing or inside a washing machine. In all the houses the toilets were overflowing and clogged, and there was filth all around. When the Abu Eidas returned to house No. 5 in Jabalya, they discovered pots of urine and excrement in the refrigerator.” Where did she come up with this tall tale? The courageous Israelis who commented on her article nailed her good, “What Propaganda”, said Gershon Reed” , “Yes, Amira War is Hell”, said Baruch Gold. “More Hamas Propaganda”, said “Rambo”. In an effort to clear up confusion Israeli army chief Gabi Ashkenazi announced, `I can say that the IDF is the most moral army in the world.` Well there you have it. It comes from the Chief of Staff, himself. The International Red Cross complained that the Israeli army was firing on ambulances. No doubt the charge is a lie. An Israeli handwritten order on a piece of paper that stated: “Rules of Engagement: Open fire also upon rescue’, was obviously just a joke. Have humanitarian organizations no sense of humor? Amos Harel, the Haaretz military affairs reporter, tells about the testimony given to Danny Zamir who interviewed soldiers who had graduated from his pre-military preparatory program at Oranim Academic College and who had fought in Gaza. Zamir claimed that soldiers told him accounts of soldiers killing a woman and two of her children, shooting and killing an elderly Palestinian woman, and destroying property at will. Supposedly a soldier told Zamir, `That what`s great in Gaza, you could say - you see someone walking down a track, not necessarily armed, and you can simply shoot them. In our case, it was an elderly woman.” Obviously Harel or Zamir made it all up. In another article Harel brings up testimonies about the army’s use of the so-called `neighbor procedure`. What’s wrong with asking a Palestinian to invite his neighbors to come out for a polite chat with the Israeli army? Harel says Israeli soldiers force Palestinians to do this. Nonsense. Hearsay. Baseless slander. Israelis don’t take human shields. By definition that’s only something Arabs do. Another Haaetz columnist Gideon Levy wrote, “An army whose armored corps has yet to encounter an enemy tank and whose pilots have yet to face an enemy combat jet in 36 years has been trained to think that the only function of a tank is to crush civilian cars and that a pilot`s job is to bomb residential neighborhoods.” What does Levy know? An old woman could be a suicide bomber. A six year old could be a suicide bomber. So the IDF destroyed 20 ambulances. Ambulances could be carrying terrorists. As a U.S. bumper sticker said in Vietnam days, “Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.” Bleeding heart Amnesty International bellyached about the use of flechettes in Gaza. “Flechettes are 4cm long metal darts that are sharply pointed at the front, with four fins at the rear. Between 5,000 and 8,000 are packed into 120mm shells which are generally fired from tanks..” They are “ anti-personnel weapon designed to penetrate dense vegetation”. Well, doesn’t Israel have to fight the terrorists who hide in Gaza’s vast jungles? Amnesty claims Wafa` Nabil Abu Jarad, a 21-year-old pregnant mother of two, was one of those killed by flechettes in Gaza. Where does it come up with this science fiction? Since the IDF is a most moral army the photos of hateful graffitti soldiers allegedly wrote on houses in Gaza were necessarily faked. Journalist Amira Hass says there were sentences like “We came to annihilate you; Death to the Arabs; Kahane was right; No tolerance, we came to liquidate.” She writes about scribblings cursing the prophet Muhammad. Clearly bogus. So what if the graffiti “appears alongside the names of army units and individual soldiers.” Hasn’t she heard of Photoshop? And where did the Israeli journalist Uri Blau come up with this dubious report? “Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children`s graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques - these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty.” He claims “A sharpshooter`s T-shirt from the Givati Brigade`s Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull`s-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, 1 shot, 2 kills.’ He even has a photo. Still, he must have made a mistake. The most moral army in the world doesn’t shoot pregnant women. It wouldn’t brag about its cruelty on casual wear. Givati Brigade T-shirts no doubt feature purple bougainvillea flowers emblazoned with the slogan “Purity in Arms”. Stanley Heller is host of “The Struggle” TV news magazine Contact him at mail@TheStruggle.org |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)