The video above was sent to us by an Israeli activist who goes by the name gangreentv. They also sent this explanation:
Today is Tish'a B'Av, the day on the Hebrew calendar that Jews all over the world commemorate the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem because of baseless hatred. So it's especially ironic that his past week we witnessed no less than FOUR new laws proposed and passed in the Israeli Knesset that are outrageously anti-democratic in nature:
- Stripping an Arab parliamentarian of her privileges for her non-violent activism
- Narrowly defining who is considered a Jew, and therefore able to access state privileges
- Requiring a loyalty oath to a supremacist ideology in order to receive state privileges
- Criminalizing free speech that advocates divestment from the occupation
Under these circumstances, it is nearly impossible to not feel inexorably swept towards total fascism. Combining the dystopic art of local artist Yosi Even Kama with the video for the Flobots' song "Handlebars" approaches a sense of the fear and frustration that the peace and justice camp is currently experiencing in Israel.
Thanks Adam! I’ve played this song many, many times. It gives me so much strength when it comes to dealing with issues concerning the conflict. My last trip to Israel, I don’t know what I would have done without this song!
i empathize with those inside israel working towards peace and justice… this is a heavy load to carry and an uphill slope too… unless israel changes soon, these folks will increasingly be marginalized and israel will continue to slip into a state of full blown fascism/apartheid..
very heavy load to carry.
the rise of fascism…can it be stopped?
>> … this past week we witnessed no less than FOUR new laws proposed and passed in the Israeli Knesset that are outrageously anti-democratic in nature …
At first glance, these laws appear anti-democratic, but Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East” and an “outpost of Western civilization” so, clearly, nuances exist which are being missed. Fail to appreciate the nuances and you end up with an Israel covered in Christmas trees. Terrible stuff.
Since the legislative process in Israel is a long one requiring passage of a bill three times, if the bills were passed once, it is accurate to say that the bills were passed. But in fact as far as I know the bills only passed their first reading and in the American sense of a bill passing and being signed by the President, the bills have not yet passed. (If I am wrong, please correct me.)
Does the fact that Weimar was a democratic republic way back when mitigate what they merely proposed, WJ?
That video is a masterpiece.
Jews all over the world commemorate the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem because of baseless hatred.
The temple was NOT destroyed “because of baseless hatred;” it was destroyed by the Romans as they put down bar Kochbar’s rebellion. Jews had been granted special privileges by the Roman government; Jews lived comfortably in the Roman Empire, perhaps more comfortably and prosperously and with more collective power than any other minority group in the empire at the time. A small band of hothead Jews objected to the way Jews were treated, so they challenged Roman authority, and LOST.
zionists tell Palestinians that “starting wars and losing them has consequences.”
Why, yes, it does.
A small band of Jews started a war against Rome and lost. Rome defeated them and punished them. It may not have been right or fair, but Rome’s retaliation was NOT “baseless.”
btw, Jews were NOT banished from the Levant; they were not permitted to enter Jerusalem except one day each year, which Rome permitted in order to rub their noses in their loss.
Shlomo Sand has brought to the fore this fact-based rendition of what was admittedly collective punishment of ALL Jews for the ill-advised acts of a FEW Jews: Jews were never banished from Palestine; Jews lived throughout the Roman Empire BEFORE the destruction of the Temple and Jews lived in the Levant AFTER the destruction of the Temple.
Rather, that band of hothead Jews went so far as to object to the way other Jews chose to conduct themselves, and it was the baseless hatred of those hothead Jews which inspired the Romans to destroy the temple, much as the baseless hatred of hothead Zionists today seems likely to cause the current state of Israel to implode in the near future.
psycho god- The message that the second temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred was an internal one. Because Jews hated each other, therefore the temple was destroyed. (Considering the divisions between various factions at the time, this is a cause and effect reason rather than a God disapproved and therefore destroyed the temple reason.)
Also, Bar Kochba lived in the year 130, the temple was destroyed in the year 70. (Maybe the militarism of the sicari were responsible for the destruction of the temple and you see some continuity between that and Bar Kochba’s rebellion.)
Also, if Jerusalem is the center of a country’s civilization, to forbid Jews from entering Jerusalem is a mighty blow against the Jewish presence in the land. (Of course, since they weren’t exiled from the land, only from the capital, it is technically inaccurate to call the edict an exile from the land, but there was a loss of sovereignty and a loss of the hub of the religion.)
Yes, and if unicorns had existed, Noah could have saved them by taking a pair with him on the ark.
One of the well known scenes of Israeli abuses from the late 80s is the scene of the soldiers standing over the seated and handcuffed Palestinian as they bashed his head with rocks.
The footage was shot by a foreign TV crew who filmed from a few hundred feet away, unbeknown to the soldiers.
Several years later after the incident I was invited by friends to a dinner; In a case of pure coincidence, present there was the army psychologist who counseled these soldiers and — allegedly — studied the motives for their behavior. What struck me at the time was his portrayal of these soldiers as victims. While it is true that any human being born into Israel, its society and the state-sanctioned military occupation is a victim — as opposed to someone who is born into a quiet peaceful village in the Danish countryside — I was struck by the lack of concern for the Palestinians. The concern seemed to be for the soldiers, for the ‘Jewish soul’, i.e. “Look what the occupation has done to us.”
At the same time, knowing the tactics and the government-sanctioned policies that the army was implementing in its oppression of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, I found the entire episode to be a cynical ploy by the army to vindicate itself by scapegoating a few soldiers. It was as if those were the few bad apples and they had serious psychological problems.
To this day, I’m not sure who was fooling whom, whether it was the army psychologist fooling everyone at that dinner table or fooling the army rank and file, the army establishment fooling the citizens, the entire Israeli society fooling itself, or perhaps it was the Israeli government fooling the international community. It was bizarre.
Avi- the film shown is disturbing enough, but clearly they were not hitting the Palestinian kid in the head but in the arm or back.
Plenty of us have seen that video. First the kids are hit in the back to break ribs, then their arms are stretched out and they are battered to break the bones. Quit nit-picking.
.
Are you referring to the video above, those floating on YouTube or did you actually see the raw and unedited footage from the moment the cameraman zooms in on the soldiers and struggles to stabilize the shot?
It’s on the Breaking the Silence website somewhere.
Break the Bones, video by B’Tselem
notice, at 1:22 in the video, IDF who is holding the arms of the Palestinian being tortured, notices he’s being filmed and drops the arms of the victim.
a conscience at work.
Fear of prosecution.
>> Break the Bones, video by B’Tselem
>> notice, at 1:22 in the video, IDF who is holding the arms of the Palestinian … drops the arms of the victim.
Man, those IDF guys looked like they really needed a hug, but all that Palestinian guy could do was sit around and have his restrained arms smashed by a scared, rock-wielding soldier.
It’s a tough gig being an oppressor-victim.
“Remember the Holocaust!”
“Remember the Holocaust!”
Nothing like making a mockery of the genocide of 12 million people.
Are you insane? You just viewed a soldier systematically breaking the bones of a bound and helpless prisoner. An act of unmitigated brutality, and you fucking have the nerve, the narcissism to focus on that comment? You disgust me.
“Nothing like making a mockery of the genocide of 12 million people.”
?!!
“12 million people.”?!!
Not to be mocking but did the number jump to double its size while I was asleep at the keyboard?
Schwartzman…We have a problem! No, really!
>> Nothing like making a mockery of the genocide of 12 million people.
Mockery of the Holocaust is made by the people who use its name and horrors to justify violence, murder, theft, assault, expulsion, oppression and hatred.
Me, I just use it as a sort of rallying cry: “Remember the Holocaust, dear frightened soldier, and smite his arms mightily!” (These scared, “generation to generation” fear-scarred IDF guys aren’t very bright: They don’t get hugs, so they smash arms, but how are Palestinians with smashed arms supposed to hug the soliders?)
“Avi- the film shown is disturbing enough, but clearly they were not hitting the Palestinian kid in the head but in the arm or back.”
I watched that film (clearly edited as it’s often the case) on a French TV back then and I recall the scene as the following: Two soldiers were holding down the youth all the while hitting him on the ribs, a third holding a stone was hitting in a hammering like manner, the stretched arm and elbow in an obvious effort to break the bone. I’m not sure if they weren’t following to the letter what Rabin has said at the time: “break their bones”..
Talking about “bad apples”
From Max Blumenthal:
Bombshell Report: 550 IDF Officers And Soldiers Interrogated About Possible War Crimes In Gaza”
“On July 18, a bombshell report appeared in the Israeli daily Yediot Aharanot. The article, which has only been published in Hebrew and was buried on page 8 as a small news item, stated that 550 officers and soldiers who participated in Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip in late 2008 and early “2009 have been investigated by IDF military police for possible war crimes. Among them is the former commander of the Givati Brigade, Ilan Malka, who was interrogated for an air strike that resulted in the killing of 21 members of one family in Gaza City. At least one other soldier is accused of using human shields, or “use of neighbor” tactics. In fact, nearly all battalion commanders who participated in Cast Lead have been interrogated regarding their conduct. Maybe Judge Goldstone wasn’t so crazy after all.”
link to maxblumenthal.com
Yes, that makes it so much more acceptable and less disturbing.
All Zionists conform to some form of denial and ignorance to support their racist-supremacist ideology. Your manner seems to be nitpicking and obfuscating in order to diminish Israel’s atrocities.
Jerrold Post attempts to work the same magic on Americans. The Mind of the Terrorist.
It’s been a while since I heard this talk; I recall that Post observed how psychologically unbalanced young Palestinians were since they just couldn’t learn to enjoy living under Israeli rule, which was pretty comfortable, rather than pine for their own homeland. Post commented that he discussed this with a tennis buddy at the country club. . . .
by the streams of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered thee o zion. . . .
Oh, the wicked came to carry us away into captivity…
Admittedly this is from The book of The Melodians so YMMV.
amazing images and video. many thanks to gangreentv and all who worked on this.
Those posters in the video – they could be from nazi Germany if they were written in Deutsch rather than Hebrew.
Both israel and zionism need to be demolished.
Like fucking yeaterday.
The Palestinian Information Center: Jewish groups go on provocative marches in Jerusalem (July 20, 2010):