Jeff Blankfort stands up for Barbara Lubin's report of a Sophie's Choice story in Gaza. My point is, I love Barbara Lubin too, but as to this incident I want more precise information, and some names. Anecdote and journalism are different forms of expression. (Phil Weiss) Blankfort:
I have known Barbara Lubin for more than 25 years and she is a hero of
our times, working tirelessly in behalf of the children of Palestine,Lebanon and Iraq
while fending off vicious barbs from Berkeley's smug pro-Israel
community. She knows truth from fiction and she doesn't make up
stories, nor do the Palestinian mothers whose treatment at the hands of
Israel's sadist military have been reported over the years in Israel's
Hebrew press, and were available in English through the late Dr.Israel Shahak's translations.
I have my own stories of Israeli sadism to tell. In 1970, while in Amman, I was invited to spend the night at Schneller refugee camp outside the city by a young man who worked as a guard at the PLO office in the city. I found that I would be sharing sleeping quarters with three others besides the guard,the five thin mattresses placed side by side filling the entire width of the small metal hut. When night fell,the guard took his uniform to put on his pajama top I noticed that the upper part of his body, which was all I saw, was covered with small scars. When I asked what they were he told me that when he was 16, Israeli soldiers in the West Bank had accused him of being a fedayeen, which is what Palestinian fighters were called in those days, and asked him for information about things he didn't know. When he told them that they responded by pushing their lighted cigarettes into his arms and upper torso and they capped it off by breaking both of his arms backwards at the elbows. He then became a fedayeen.
Shortly afterward, also in Amman, I met a woman leader in the Democratic Front, DFLP, to whom I mentioned the young man's story which prompted her to tell me her own. It seems she had been caught in her West Bank home by the Israelis who demanded information and when she refused they began to rape her daughter in order to get her to talk. When she refused and after her daughter had been done with, the leader of the Israeli contingent asked her what kind of a mother she was to allow her daughter to be raped before her eyes? She told me all this calmly, without histrionics.
From my own experiences in the West Bank,Gaza and Lebanon I can attest to the sadism that permeates the Israeli military. Its overpowering presence dominates even the statements of Israeli officers and their PR spokespersons about their Arab enemies who they see as subhuman. The German army in the 3rd Reich was known for the sadism of its elite units and the US military as we are well aware has its core of sadists but it is safe to say that no modern army has descended to the level of sadism as has that of Israel.
I have my own stories of Israeli sadism to tell. In 1970, while in Amman, I was invited to spend the night at Schneller refugee camp outside the city by a young man who worked as a guard at the PLO office in the city. I found that I would be sharing sleeping quarters with three others besides the guard,the five thin mattresses placed side by side filling the entire width of the small metal hut. When night fell,the guard took his uniform to put on his pajama top I noticed that the upper part of his body, which was all I saw, was covered with small scars. When I asked what they were he told me that when he was 16, Israeli soldiers in the West Bank had accused him of being a fedayeen, which is what Palestinian fighters were called in those days, and asked him for information about things he didn't know. When he told them that they responded by pushing their lighted cigarettes into his arms and upper torso and they capped it off by breaking both of his arms backwards at the elbows. He then became a fedayeen.
Shortly afterward, also in Amman, I met a woman leader in the Democratic Front, DFLP, to whom I mentioned the young man's story which prompted her to tell me her own. It seems she had been caught in her West Bank home by the Israelis who demanded information and when she refused they began to rape her daughter in order to get her to talk. When she refused and after her daughter had been done with, the leader of the Israeli contingent asked her what kind of a mother she was to allow her daughter to be raped before her eyes? She told me all this calmly, without histrionics.
From my own experiences in the West Bank,Gaza and Lebanon I can attest to the sadism that permeates the Israeli military. Its overpowering presence dominates even the statements of Israeli officers and their PR spokespersons about their Arab enemies who they see as subhuman. The German army in the 3rd Reich was known for the sadism of its elite units and the US military as we are well aware has its core of sadists but it is safe to say that no modern army has descended to the level of sadism as has that of Israel.
The stories Blankfort tells have nothing in them that show one way or the other whether they are true. Real soldiers might commit atrocities to try to get information. It is illegal for them to do so under Israeli law of course, but some people break the law.
Although it is also possible that the stories are entirely made up. We are talking about people who send their own children to suicide bomb Israeli children. So they would suicide bomb civilians but they wouldn't lie? Come on.
As for Ms. Lubin's story, as I have said elsewhere, the characters in it are movie villains, not real ones. Killing five people and leaving six eye witnesses alive in a controlled setting with no reason other than "just to be evil". Puh-lease.
Hasbara Thom,
You obviously know nothing about Blankfort's writings & oeuvres other than a cursory knowledge of the man. I would believe Blankfort any day of the week over your callow repetition of GIYUS talking points thinking the people on this board are stupid readers and researchers who fall for that nonsense.
As for Ms. Lubin's story, as I have said elsewhere, the characters in it are movie villains, not real ones.
Right. You were there. You did what Leila did and try to contact Ms. Lubin for more info. You're an honest information broker.
GIven your obvious great capacity for logic, what makes you the arbiter of belief or non-belief? What credentials do you have other than a computer and a point-of-view that you feel outclasses Amnesty International reporting-on-the-ground, Channel 4 reporters, Kenneth Roth, etcetera?
The IDF Soldiers Who Moved into West Bank Cities Left Behind Destruction and Degradation (Someone Even Managed to Defecate into the Photocopier)
by Amira Hass – Published May 6, 2002 in Ha`aretz of Israel
No one deluded himself that the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, which takes up five of the eight floors of a new building in the center of El Bireh, would be spared the fate of other Palestinian Authority offices in Ramallah and other cities – that is, the nearly total destruction of its contents and particularly its high-tech equipment…….
……..In every room of the various departments – literature, film, culture for children and youth books, discs, pamphlets and documents were piled up, soiled with urine and excrement.
There are two toilets on every floor, but the soldiers urinated and defecated everywhere else in the building, in several rooms of which they had lived for about a month. They did their business on the floors, in emptied flowerpots, even in drawers they had pulled out of desks.
They defecated into plastic bags, and these were scattered in several places. Some of them had burst. Someone even managed to defecate into a photocopier.
The soldiers urinated into empty mineral water bottles. These were scattered by the dozen in all the rooms of the building, in cardboard boxes, among the piles of rubbish and rubble, on desks, under desks, next to the furniture the solders had smashed, among the children's books that had been thrown down.
Some of the bottles had opened and the yellow liquid had spilled and left its stain. It was especially difficult to enter two floors of the building because of the pungent stench of feces and urine. Soiled toilet paper was also scattered everywhere.
In some of the rooms, not far from the heaps of feces and the toilet paper, remains of rotting food were scattered. In one corner, in the room in which someone had defecated into a drawer, full cartons of fruits and vegetables had been left behind. The toilets were left overflowing with bottles filled with urine, feces and toilet paper…….
ENTIRE ARTICLE –
link to commondreams.org
MY COMMENT: 'MARKING' THEIR TERRITORY ?
GAZA, JANUARY 2009:
"….They left behind their own unique detritus: bullet casings, roasted peanuts in tins with Hebrew script, a plastic bag containing a "High Quality Body Warmer", dozens of olive-green waste disposal bags, some empty, some stinking full – the troops' portable toilets.
But most disturbing of all was the graffiti they daubed on the walls of the ground floor. Some was in Hebrew, but much was naively written in English: "Arabs need 2 die", "Die you all", "Make war not peace", "1 is down, 999,999 to go", and scrawled on an image of a gravestone the words: "Arabs 1948-2009".
There were several sketches of the Star of David flag. "Gaza here we are," it said in English next to one….."
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to guardian.co.uk
EXCERPT FROM ARTICLE: "Then one of the soldiers said, 'Look, one of them is coming down with a jug of water for you'. The settler emptied the jug over me. It was full of human shit……"
FROM "THE INDEPENDENT" (U.K.):
Jews protect Palestinians in harvest of hate
Israelis cross religious divide to shelter olive farmers from settlers' attacks
By Donald Macintyre in Awarta, West Bank – Friday, 10 October 2008
In the shade of the trees where they have been picking olives all morning, in this wadi, south-east of Nablus, a Palestinian farmer, Jamal Otman Koarik, and two of his daughters share a lunch of home-baked bread, zatar, oil, courgettes and salad with three visitors. It's a bucolic scene that could have happened any time in the past century. But what makes it notable in 2008 is that the guests who have been helping Mr Koarik pick the olives are Israeli Jews: a rabbi, an anthropologist and a youth worker, Hellela Siew.
Born in Tel Aviv, Ms Siew served in the army, took a university degree, then a teacher's diploma. Thirty-six years ago, she took the tough decision to emigrate to London, telling her parents: "I won't come back until there's peace." Ms Siew, who is now 64, remains an Israeli citizen but now lives with her British husband in Hebden Bridge. She has kept to her word, except that each autumn she comes back to stay in her hometown with her relatives and spends each day of the two-month harvest season picking olives on Palestinian farmland in the West Bank……
…..Last year, she was in a group in the South Hebron Hills confronted by settlers who fired shots from a pistol and an M16 assault rifle, despite the presence of the army and police. "Then one of the soldiers said, 'Look, one of them is coming down with a jug of water for you'. The settler emptied the jug over me. It was full of human shit."……
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to independent.co.uk
@MRW
What does Hasbara mean?
I actually have e-mailed Ms. Lubin's organization for more info. No reply yet. Amnesty international isn't reporting this story, nor AFAIK is Channel 4, or Kenneth Roth. As far as I know the only source for it is Ms. Lubin herself.
The fact is that the story does not ring true. It reads like something out of a movie script, not something that involves real people, even real evil people.
Contrast this story to the rape and murder of that 14 year old Iraqi girl by American soldiers (subsequently caught because one of them talked). They killed every Iraqi witness.
Here, Ms. Lubin is saying that she was told a story by who knows who and these guys killed five children in cold blood for no reason and then left six eye witnesses alive that they had no reason to leave alive. The story is pure hokum.
If it didn't involve Jews, you wouldn't buy it for a minute.
IDF troops film themselves humiliating bound Palestinian
By Haaretz Service – 06/11/2008 (Nov. 6, 2008)
Channel 10 on Thursday released footage taken by Israel Defense Forces soldiers of themselves humiliating a bound and blindfolded Palestinian man at a West Bank checkpoint.
The footage shows the Palestinian kneeling and repeating sentences given to him to say by the soldiers, who belong to the Golani infantry brigade.
One of the lines is: "Golani will bring you a log to stick up your ass."
As the detainee repeats the words, the soldiers are heard laughing raucously in the background…..
ENTIRE ARTICLE & VIDEO – link to haaretz.com
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There ya go, Thom, we are all motivated solely by the inexplicable disease of 'jew hatred', so you can sleep easy in your bed. But, in the long run, doesn't it ever strike you that there should be more to life than just saying to everybody, "you hate us, admit it"?
Thom,
Your argument of not leaving witnesses would be valid, but for two points:
One, if one is invincible, then more fun is to be had to leave (some )people to suffer, they can't possible be any comeback.
Two, if one slaughters animals, surely there is no need to waste time to slaughter the WHOLE herd.
Does that explains it better why the most moral army in the world may have left witnesses behind?
Please do not compare Iraq with Palestine. It makes good propaganda points but does not compare well. American and British Army actually do investigate and punish it's soldiers, something that is singularity missing from IDF, and contributes mightily to its barbarism.
Posted by: Thom | January 25, 2009 at 02:46 PM
Then, you didn't see the Al-Jazeera or Channel 4 video of the woman who have birth while 30 members of her family were slaughtered next door to her and she could hear her children's cries. This was the family that was herded into the home by the IDF then bombed and shot. The mother giving birth was next door. 30 family members were killed. How did they know it was true? They and the bodies to prove it.
Sorry for the unforgivable typos in the post above. Makes it read as if English were a second language for me.
@MRW
Oooh, sorry, no but thank you for playing. We are talking about a different story. Nothing in Barbara "Blood Libel" Lubin's story about birth, or 30 family members, or anything like what you described. As for the video, got a link or better description? Nothing like it shows up when I do a google news search for "channel 4", birth, and Gaza.
Without looking at the video, I have no idea what the incident you are talking about was. Though it wouldn't surprise me if a woman gave birth next door to a place that got caught in the crossfire of a war.
@Eva Smagacz
Thank you for proving both my points. The motive you give is right off the evil overlord list "I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it … leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat."
In case you were wondering, things get on the list for being movie villain standards.
Second, that only someone who was already bigoted against Jews would buy that load of crap. The Israelis do not think that the Palestinians are animals who can be killed without consequence. Cows can't testify against you at a murder trial, Palestinians can. Which is important because Israel has prosecuted Israelis on those rare occasions that an Israeli murders a Palestinian.
Oh, and if I were trying for propaganda points I would never bring up Iraq. Israel was attacked by the terrorist government of Gaza. The U.S. wasn't attacked by the terrorist government of Iraq.
If I wanted a good analogy for the Gaza war, I would go with the U.S. attacks on the Taliban, which killed far more than 1400 people (heck far more than that many civilians). And that was after one big attack on American soil, not after 11,000 rockets fired at Americans (or half a million if you want to scale up proportionate to the population).
Thom needs some additional instructions from his Israeli mentors.
They need to tell him that the regulars on this blog are no more in favor of American crap, that Israeli crap. The American people finally
got rid of Bush, and now they need to get rid of his mental equals in Israel. We're working on it.
..
Now that Barbara Lubin admitted that she didn't know truth from fiction, and did make up this story, has Jeff Blankfort retracted his comments or apologized?
No? I'm shocked.
"Now that Barbara Lubin admitted that she didn't know truth from fiction, and did make up this story, has Jeff Blankfort retracted his comments or apologized?
No? I'm shocked.
Posted by: Thom"
That's hardly an honest description of what happened:
"A massacre did happen, though not the one as originally outlined during the current assault by Lubin who has offered this to correct her account.
Excerpted from a letter to Barbara Lubin from Talal Abushawish
It’s not so far from from what you reported because the victims are the same…the story happened in Bourij Camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip. The Israelis called the woman, Manal Albatran, and told her that they wouldn’t kill her or her husband Hussein Albatran, instead they would make them die of sadness because they would kill her children. The next day they shot her house with a rocket killing her and 5 of her children.
The dead:
Manal Albatran 30 years old
Walaa Albatran 12 years old
Islam Albatran 11 years old
Belal Albatran 10 years old
Ezz Albatran 8 years old
Ehsan Albatran 7 years old
The father who is an employee at an UNRWA school and the youngest child were saved. This is the real story and I hope the amount of victims will convince others to believe the crimes we face. Thanks a lot for your appreciated visit and I hope to see you again soon.
Regards,
Talal Abushawish"
Link: link to pulsemedia.org
The only significant difference in this verified account from the original one is that the mother was murdered along with her five children. Only one child — not five — survived, along with the father. The sadism is the same, perhaps even worse, in view of the cold-blooded "warning" a full day in advance. Those who displayed such premeditated, cold brutality are not, unfortunately "movie villains". As any eyewitness to the continuous atrocities of the zionist colonization project (outside of hasbara-land) could tell you, they are all too "real".