The international community is now arguing over Israeli atrocities in Gaza. Were they an aberration? Are not the Israelis a moral fighting force? Etc. Etc. The following report confirms that the atrocities were not an aberration; they sprang from a mindset of utter contempt for Palestinian life and custom. This is a post from Gaza by an Ivy League student, a young friend of my wife's, who shall remain nameless for the time being:
Even more visible willful destruction is seen by
simply driving on the roads in the North. Some of the tanks are armed
with something like a big pin that rips through the middle of the
road as the tanks drive, ruining the road permanently. Sometimes
bulldozers are used to tear up the entire street. There has not been
any new asphalt in Gaza for over two years; therefore there is no way
of repairing the roads- something desperately needed in Gaza.
This kind of destruction goes beyond military necessity, and goes beyond what wartime can explain. This kind of destruction is the sickening effect of power, power of soldiers to ruin the lives of Gazan civilians with simple actions that have no effect on them or their conscience.
There's a completely uncorroborated and unsourced account in TIME today of the Israeli air raid in Sudan. It's pathetic how they treat their anonymous Israeli briefers as unquestioned purveyors of fact — not to mention the little valorising touches like "revealed exclusive details of the bold raid…"
and the euro-american community will continue to argue, debate, evade, hem and haw/equivocate, speak from both sides of mouth or just the ass what all have known from the beginning of this shitty entity.
from raping and cutting open pregnant women to defecating in homes and churches and mosques to stealing toilet paper and clothing and topsoil and furniture and goats and clothing to destroying homes, trees and land to shooting children to urinating water supplies to hateful grafitti jews define themselves as malicious, cheap, mean, small, hatefilled, pointless, banal, and evil – the banality of evil.
There's nothing new about the Israeli Army and this type of very courageous feat of arms.
In the West Bank in 2001-2002, it was normal to see entire rows of parked cars that had been 'accidentally' run over and crushed by Israeli tanks. Likewise there was a great deal of deliberate damage to electrity and telephone poles, electricity sub-stations and sewage plants. Indoors, the troops seemed to enjoy using anything to deficate on or in, except toilets which were invariably smashed.
Little of this behaviour could be justified by anything other than vindictive hatred and very poor discipline.
Most surprising was the stupidity of these actions; it was hard to imagine a more effective means of feeding hatred in the Palestinian population, and helping the armed resistance groups to recruit.
That's the point though.
Perpetuate the pretext for indiscriminate force. It's sort of like the MIC and the economy of Israel itself.
I read a CIA document on WikiLeaks once that talked about the method of turning populations against there militias. I need to dig it up but it relates to this and what the US does in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Anything about Hamas torturing and murdering fellow Arabs on her blog?
you tell us,Julian, you tell us.
There's a rather droll article about the perversely named 'Museum of Tolerance' in today's JPost. It mentions among other things, the idea of "installing a barrier between the building's foundations and the ground below to prevent graves from being disturbed." Whatever will they think up next?
julian is embarrassed by his beloved idf's action, and needs to deflect it somehow… he hasn't had a jeff halper experience yet..
>>“I first became aware of being an ‘Israeli in Palestine’ on July 9, 1998, the day my friend Salim Shawamreh calls ‘the black day in my life and in the life of my family’. On that day the bulldozers of Israel’s Civil Administration, its military government in the West Bank, demolished his home for the first time. It was an act so unjust, so brutal, so at odds with the ethos of the benign, democratic, Jewish Israel fighting for its survival I had absorbed on ‘my side’ of the Green Line that it was inexplicable in any terms I could fathom. It had nothing to do with terrorism or security. It was not an act of defence or even keeping Palestinians away from Israeli settlements or roads. It was purely unjust and brutal. As the bulldozer pushed through the walls of Salim’s home, it pushed me through all the ideological rationalisations, the pretexts, the lies and the bullshit that my country had erected to prevent us from seeing the truth: that oppression must accompany an attempt to deny the existence and claims of another people in order to establish an ethnically pure state for yourself.”
I just received an email from something called HebrewNet entitled "Israel's Mossad and Ahmadinejad" and containing an attachment which turned out to be an HTML straw poll asking "Should Israel kill Ahmadinejad? Yes/No."
I did not reply, I used the "safe unsubscribe" option (I don't recall ever having subscribed, but it may have been something to do with my hebrew lessons two years ago).
It's almost as if they want to make it so difficult for the Palestinians to live there that they'll just up and leave on their own.
Are they even allowed to leave if they want to?
I was amazed that Dish Network actually showed Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in Israel. Admittedly, it was on a left/alternate channel, Free Speech TV. The show was "Alternate Focus" and the 3/31 show featured Gary Fields, a University of California at San Diego communications professor (link to communication.ucsd.edu
who documented many of the atrocities, including the deliberate uprooting of the olive trees of a Palestinian farmer, the throwing of trash, bricks, etc, down from the settlements into the streets of the old Palestinian city districts, so that nets had to be constructed above the streets and more. Dr. Fields also filmed a peaceful demonstration by Palestinians against one of the wall installations, and Israeli soldiers were present. One of the soldiers shot rubber grenades at Fields's feet and tried to prevent his filming the event. Alternate Focus is a show whose purpose is to provide an alternative to the mainstream media's censorship of Middle Eastern issues. Their website is link to alternatefocus.org
Mr. Fields has written several books & articles on the Palestinian/Israel issue. See the UCSD link cited above for titles.
Great link, Rebecca999. Some really great material on Prof. Field's site.