A couple of readers have pointed out that the IDF has suspended the soldiers who exposed their buttocks to Palestinian shepherds outside of Hebron. Good for the Israelis. Though I wonder how many other incidents of this character take place without consequence. These guys were caught on video redhanded, as it were. And what is anyone doing about the larger issue, the colonization of the West Bank. Bupkus.
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This was more about the morale of the army than a PR stunt.
This whole incident shows me that van Creveld was right in his IDF history – the IDF metamorphosed from a lean and mean, superb fighting machine into a fat, bloated, low morale occupation force.
Occupation will do that to an Army, even one that used to be as highly motivated and with a high morale as the IDF used to be.
The disciplinary action is much more probably connected with the folly of being caught in the act, not for the act itself. The offense given the Arabs is unimportant, as is the offense given to the Gentile witnesses, but being CAUGHT causes bad publicity, and that is unforgivable. Look at the slander being published about Rachel Corrie and/or Tom Hurndall.
Bare butts? Big deal.
They should, however, handover the IDF driver who bulldozed Rachel Corrie. War criminals deserve to be prosecuted. And let Caterpillar pay reparations for equipping the barbarians.
Israel has struck a blow for anti-mooning organizations throughout the world. Good for it!
Now, if we just could the US government to stop torturing.
Michael Blaine
http://www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com
"B. Michael wants troops to expose their butts instead of performing more shameful acts" :
If you are proposing a proportional response to every action, then the IDF would be required to shoot a live artillery shell into the heart of a town of 20,000, every time a Qassam shells Sderot.
It would be inhuman to do so, as it is inhuman to shell Sderot.
Let them bare their asses. Lets start providing the Palestinians with anti-tank weapons. After the IDF gets a few anti-tank weapon enemas perhaps the war criminals will act with civility.
By "live artillery shell" Richard means those glorified bottle rockets. The terror.
I'm sure one of those would have the Palestinians in Gaza shaking in their boots. After all, for now, they only have to deal with bulldozers, tanks, supersonic fighter jets, cluster bombs, magnesium flares, white phosphorus, tear gas, assassinations, kidnappings, ethnic cleansing, and torture.
What would be the proportional Palestinian response to all of that, Richard?
What would be the proportional Palestinian response to the ethnic cleansing of Najd, a prerequisite for your cherished exhibit, "Sderot"?
- What if I were the descendent of someone killed or forcibly dispossessed in the Nakba?
- What if I grew up in misery and squalor in the jail of Gaza City, or the supremacist war front of Hebron?
- What if my mother/father had been killed in old age by an Israeli bulldozer/bomb/bullet?
- What if I had seen an infant cousin or sibling murdered in the same fashion, and heard it rationalized as "security" against "terrorism"?
- What if I had immediate family that were in Palestine that I could only reach by going through Israeli checkpoints and risking life and liberty to do so?
- What if my son dedicated himself to be a martyr for the Palestinian people, against my wishes, and I were powerless to stop him?
- What if I were threatened or beatened by rabid supremacist settlers on a daily basis–would I still believe that my neighbors wanted peace?
"Egypt's foreign minister said that no further violations of its borders would be tolerated in the wake of a 12-day breach of its frontier with Gaza and said anyone daring to cross would have their legs broken, the state news agency reported."
Whatever.
"What if I were threatened or beatened by rabid supremacist settlers on a daily basis"
I'd say you'd be an incredible pussy! There are a few hundred of those settlers for every ten thousand Palestinians. That might be why we never, ever, heard of daily beatens (sic) of Arabs by settlers.
"Bottle rockets"?
A uniquely lame rationalization.
They are more than nothing and less than an act of war.
They are criminal mischief +, that kills people and knocks down buildings.
It has NEVER accomplished any goal over the years that its been done, except to say "we will never accept your existence".
And, in response to "I will never accept your existence" was "how can we stop the staging of terror and shelling, without violating law or morality", then "if we can't accomplish it perfectly, how can we moderately".
It is the right of civilians to live free from assault, and when a foreign demi-government takes credit for the assault then it becomes an act of war, or an act of adolescent mischief.
You take your pick. Acts of adolescent mischief conveys, "we must then continue to occupy, as these adolescents have no self-control".
Acts of war conveys "we have no holds barred in protecting our civilians from acts of aggression done without provocation".
Not good options for Palestinians.
Only gullible or grossly immature interpret Hamas shelling Sderot as innocuous or "firecrackers".
Is Hamas that impotent?
Just a few more or less random thoughts:
Does anyone know the origin of the aphorism: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter?"
Cf:
The difference between resistance to the Brits and "resistance" to Israel, is that the Brits were ONLY colonizers.
In Israel, the people getting shelled live there. It is more like animosities in the Balkans.
Each side feels like, and is, victims to the others' actions.
But, Hamas by shelling with "firecrackers" that kill civilians and smash civilian buildings without provocation, are insisting that Israel respond.
The British colonizers lived there too, so I don't understand the distinction you're trying to make.
The inhabitants of Sderot today are living on top of the ruins of the homes of the refugees in Gaza. You may not know this, but every Palestinian does.
The Israeli government can secure billions and billions every year in loan guarantees and funding for weapons systems and warfare, invade Lebanon, send fighter jets into Syria, go on missions in Gaza, but apparently evacuating S'derot is just too pricey.
Not that actual monetary cost, literally a drop in the bucket when you consider what Israel spends trying to get Jews to migrate to Israel, no, but the opportunity cost: the lost propaganda value of having of a bunch of lower middle class pawns sitting on the edge of the enraged prison colony.
"The difference between resistance to the Brits and 'resistance' to Israel, is that the Brits were ONLY colonizers. In Israel, the people getting shelled live there. It is more like animosities in the Balkans."
Why did so many colonials escape to Canada?
"Each side feels like, and is, victims to the others' actions."
True as in pioneers and Indians in the old west.
"But, Hamas by shelling with "firecrackers" that kill civilians and smash civilian buildings without provocation, are insisting that Israel respond."
If I bulldozed your home your family had lived on for generations, would you be provoked? What's the dividing line between massive hi-tek collateral damage and "firecrackers"?