It sounds really terrible to say 'cleanse' but those were the orders.
- Israeli tank commander
Wednesday night the British television network Channel 4 ran the story above using footage from a documentary shot by Israeli filmmaker Nurit Kedar. These testimonies, like those collected by Breaking the Silence, confirm many of the findings of the Goldstone Report, including the intentional targeting of wide swaths of Gaza's civilian infrastructure.
In the video a 24-year-old tank commander recounts being told that the Israeli soldiers entry into Gaza was to be "disproportionate". He says that his orders were clear:
"We needed to cleanse the neighbourhoods, the buildings, the area. It sounds really terrible to say "cleanse", but those were the orders....I don't want to make a mistake with the words."
Another solider recalls the absurdity of killing chickens and destroying the Sawafeary chicken farm. About this event the Goldstone Report said:
The Mission finds that the Sawafeary chicken farms, the 31,000 chickens and the plant and material necessary for the business were systematically and deliberately destroyed, and that this constituted a deliberate act of wanton destruction not justified by any military necessity.
The report added, "The systematic destruction along with the large numbers of killings of civilians suggest premeditation and a high level of planning. Even in the context of a campaign that had many serious violations of international humanitarian law, the events in Zeytoun at this time stand out."
One thing that comes across in this short clip is not only the dehumanization of Gazans that took place during the fighting, but the toll this took on the Israeli soldiers themselves. One soldier remembers in disgust how soldiers would compare the number of Gazans they killed. Another soldier named Shay is clearly still shaken by what he did in Gaza, especially in contrast to his comfortable life in Israel. From Channel 4:
He recalls being disgusted that Israeli conscripts had already defecated all over the bathroom of this family house. The family photos had been scrawled over. Graffiti was on the walls saying "long live Israel".
"All the time we were there you could sense this family with us. Meaning they were there. All the clichés. There was a wooden rocking horse, I remember, you’d be on guard and next to you there's a wooden rocking-horse."
Here's an interview with filmmaker Nurit Kedar that touches some on these issues:
While it seems that some Israeli soldiers might be having second thoughts about what they did in Gaza, the Israeli government seems much less introspective. Here's a statement the Israeli embassy released to Channel 4 in response to the report:
"Unlike much of the region, the open society within Israel allows for all allegations such as these to be aired and investigated.
"Israel has already authorised over 100 separate investigations into the operation, five broader investigations, and close to 50 criminal investigations are also taking place.
"All this in the context of having to respond to over 12,000 missiles raining on our citizens - such an operation could unfortunately never be flawless given these circumstances.
"Our judicial process is renowned across the world for its independence. This is a country after all, which holds even the very top of society to account, as has been proven in recent days. This is Israel in the 21st Century, a flourishing democracy, thriving amongst a desert of tyranny in the Middle East."
The statement issued by embassy officials seems to be outdated propaganda from the early 1950s. I give them bonus points for managing to insert the made-the-desert-bloom propaganda as a metaphor for forms of governance. A twofer.
Now, imagine if the embassy of an Arab state had issued a similar statement, using similar caustic language in describing Israel, the whines of anti-Semitism would never cease.
But, then again, Israel is used to biting the hand that feeds it. That same “desert of tyranny” keeps Israel — the apartheid state that it is — safe from people who are yearning for freedom and equality, whether in Egypt or in Jordan.
Gotta love the ‘desert of tyranny in the middle east’ spin, even as various Knesset and cabinet members express support for the Egyptian dictator Mubarak.
It’s a desert because Israel and its US enabler keep it that way. Blame the victims.
“Iranium” is to be premiered on Feb. 8. The Clarion Fund is offering special terms for persons who arrange a private screening of the film on that day +- .
I suggest that as many as possible of us screen the video in this article, and/or “Defamation,” on Feb. 8. Invite your friends, your peace group, college groups. Advertise heavily in the Jewish community in your community, invite their participation. Invite Hillel.
Push back. Justly. Fairly. Firmly. but LOUD.
take away: US policy is to support 7 million Jews in Israel, at the cost of autonomy and human rights for 80 million Egyptians, 70 million Iranians, untold numbers of Algerians, Afghanis, Saudis, etc.
very good catch pg. i rec the AJ video.
wildly off topic — Phil, are you aware of “iranium,” the movie? Tikun Olam is talking about it.
link to richardsilverstein.com
If Michael Lerner wants an antidote for his misstep re the Tucson shootings & antisemitism, he will come out four-square in opposition to this new display of organized Jewish-sponsored hate speech.
words can kill.
The strange thing is this. I listened closely to the public statements from Istratine at the very start of the campaign to destroy Gaza, and before the recent attack on Lebanon. Both Mr Barak and senior commanders repeatedly said in many different ways, that they intended to behave like a mad man, so that nobody would dare so much as look sideways at istratine. Having said that their policy was to a be a rogue, how can they possibly say in retrospect that what happened wasn’t preplanned?
Actually such low level prosecutions as have happened must be wrong, since the rabble were doing what they were told to do.
link to mondoweiss.net
“Never Again.”
don’t know if it’s still there; last time I was in DC near holocaust museum, the theme of the posters surrounding the exterior was,
“Remember what you saw.”
I saw that “Family in Gaza” video on Mondoweiss a few weeks ago and I can’t get it out of my brain. I dream about seeing a lump of flesh just beyond my reach, in the street in front of my house. I can’t get it out of my mind. It drives me crazy.
“Remember what you saw.”
Dr. Sanho Tree and Dr. John Dower, “Cultures of War” –
(Sanho Tree speaking):
If you stir into this “conditioning-dehumanizing” formula the realization that Jewish Israeli schoolchildren are conditioned to feel hated, to which they respond by hating the other, as is recorded on the video, “Defamation:”–> the rising Israeli public is conditioned to hate.
AND, stir into this formula the Jewish trait of assumed intellectual superiority, which Milton Friedman asserted, in a 1972 speech to Hillel at University of Chicago: –> Israeli Jews assume they know best how to “understand” Iranian intentions, motivations, behaviors, but they are looking through eyes conditioned to dehumanize; Israelis who interpret Iran are looking in a mirror and seeing their dehumanized selves.
AND, stir into this formula that media is dominated by Jews — “Iranium” is the latest manifestation.
The outcome is explosive.
Can it be neutralized?
I can’t get it out of my mind. It drives me crazy.
This is a sign that the film traumatized you. It’s like a mini-PTSD. Now imagine that you lived through a war and could not shake the hours and days and years of images….
What an upsetting video….but with no surprises. The closest thing to a surprise was that soldiers were talking about what they and others in the IDF did during Operation Cast Lead.
The soldiers followed orders given by their superiors. One felt this relieved him of accountability….of war crimes. Another soldier questioned his actions…he’d spent 30 seconds of watching and identifying with a man only to shoot him seconds later…the senseless shooting of chickens He questioned his accountability, looked for some type vindication.
Israeli officials released a statement, quoted in this post. Justification for Israel’s actions? 12,000 missiles raining down on Israel from Gaza..(many were rockets not missiles)…An Israeli officer’s term used to describe the “war’…disproportionate!!! What an understatement! How in the world can those rockets and missiles from Gaza compare? Insight from such a blood bath of destruction? The rockets can’t be guided towards a target, they’ve left minimal damage, they have killed or injured few (though one death is one too many) how can they lead to something as horrific as Operation Cast Lead?
Perhaps more soldiers like the third one will come forward, speak out, change minds. He identified with the family whose house they occupied, felt guilty about the damage, the destruction of personal belongings. He left them a letter of apology…he appeared to agonize about what the Israeli army was doing.
The world must question Israel’s motives; their illegal actions and voice their opposition. The time for speaking out; holding Israel accountable is long over due!!
Sadly this film just sounds like shooting and crying to me.
Another solider recalls the absurdity of killing chickens and destroying the Sawafeary chicken farm.
Nothing absurd about it. Israel wanted to destroy Gazan independence and self-sufficiency in the offensive, so that the blockade (imposed almost immediately after the assault) would be maximally effective.
The wanton destruction and explicit orders of “disproportionate” violence recall Gideon Levy’s take that Cast Lead allowed Israel to freely exact its hatred against Arabs and Palestinians. Usually when serving in the territories, there is at least some modicum of restraint or discipline (however loosely imposed or weakly based on self-serving, self-made “rules of engagement”). An often forgotten fact of the operation is that Israel banned journalists during its assault, exactly so that such details would not trickle out. That they have, despite the best efforts of Israel and US to keep all scrutiny of the massacre at bay, reveals just how tyrannical the invasion was.
C’mon. Those chickens would have just grown up to be terrorists anyway.
Without minimising the intentional brutality of the Gaza massacre, the word “cleanse” (letaher) in IDFspeak generally means to locate and “take out” fighters, not kill civilians. There were many equivocal and unequivocal orders to kill and destroy in Gaza, but I wouldn’t get hung up on this particular word.
Conscripted Wehrmacht troops got lots of those eqivocal and unequivocal orders too–from the time they left Germany to when they found themselves near Stalingrad. I’m not sure what’s equivocal about the order the 24 year old IDF tank commander got, to wit, “Every house gets a shell.” He said he and his friends fired two shells at every house. He saw whole Palestinian familes leaving in the middle of the night’s darkness, men, women, kids, babies; one always held a stick with a white flag rag tied on it. They machine-gunned chickens “twice every hour,” aware they were killing the Palestinian food supply and means of making a bare living. The IDF reservists held festivities in the abandoned homes, using the Palestinian’s clothing to darken the windows, crapping all over the place; they scrawled grafetti on the walls, such as a Star of David and the inscription, “Long live the people of Israel.” Even the elite IDF troops who came after were appalled. This is a light to the goy world?
Exactly. I was just about the write the same thing. It’s unequivocal in this film that “cleanse” meant wipe out civilian neighborhoods, house by house. So even if that was the original meaning of the Hebrew word, it appears to have, ummm, evolved.
It’s been a few years since I was in the IDF. I guess things just keep getting ‘better and better’ :-(
This is the rot that inevitably follows from occupying and suppressing another people. And just as inevitably, one day these “chickens” will come home to roost… you will find this language seeps over the border and into the very fabric of Jewish society itself, and someday, mark my words, if it hasn’t already happened, someone will receive an order to “cleanse” another Jewish area or a Jewish person or a Jewish political party… something Israel has never ever understood – you can’t perpetrate all this evil against another people and then go home and be the same human being – a human being who values the lives of others…. So these evil concepts creep and morph and “evolve” until one day they come back to bite you, very very hard. Because the human mind, the human psyche is not somehow bifurcated into two dimensions of alternate reality. And all those soldiers who are committing war crimes go home in the end and live within their own society.
And by the way, the guy in the film who says “You can’t tell me I committed war crimes – I was just following orders and doing what everyone else was doing.” Yeah. Right. Sorry dude, but that didn’t go over too well in the Holocaust and it doesn’t wash now.
“Another solider recalls the absurdity of killing chickens and destroying the Sawafeary chicken farm. ”
Race memory of the Cossacks attacking the shtetl .
Now the Israeli Jews are the Cossacks
The utterly delusional nature of the Israeli ‘response’ to the honesty of the soldier’s disgust at what they were doing is very revealing. It is so far off the scale that it qualifies as fantasy. “A judicial system renowned across the world” – yes, but certainly not for independence, rather the opposite – the routine application of apartheid policies and dismissal of civil rights for non Jews. “thriving amongst a desert of tyranny” – wow, now they are boasting about the privileges they grant themselves whilst tyrannising the Palestinians. This is why some decent Israelis are cracking under the pressure – no-one can hold up such a flagrantly dishonest fantasy whilst confronting the reality of what they are doing, the wanton cruelty and sadism they are asked to inflict on a poor and defenceless people. It seems the worse Israel behaves the more fantastical the lies – principally to protect the self delusions of those who instigate and support the polices of apartheid and discrimination. The dissonance between the fantasy and the reality erupts in those soldiers who haven’t been totally brainwashed by the Israeli ideology – the likely result of which is that phenomenon invented by Zionist apologist doctrine – the self-hating Jew. In other words Zionism is creating a generation of people who have absorbed the flagrant fantasies of their moral superiority whilst having to acknowledge the realities of their savage treatment of indigenous, poor families. Zionism contains the seeds of self-hatred. I am not surprised that these interviews are attempts to acknowledge this burden and remove it by being honest and admitting the reality. It is also not surprising that those addicted to the myths can only respond by increasing the exaggeration of their fantasy, gilding it to the most ludicrous extent that it is transparently ridiculous to outside observers. They are caught in the absurdities and contradictions of their hermetically sealed ideology, the imminent collapse of which only spurs them on to reinforce it with ever more fantastical claims like the propaganda bulletin above.
>> This is why some decent Israelis are cracking under the pressure – no-one can hold up such a flagrantly dishonest fantasy whilst confronting the reality of what they are doing …
Meanwhile, the Zio-supremacists just “hold their noses” a little more firmly to ensure that the stench of reality doesn’t overwhelm the delusion of “necessary”.
The fact that israel’s chief negotiator in 2008 had this to say to the palestinians
“No. In order to create your state you have to agree in advance with Israel – you have to choose not to have the right of choice afterwards. These are the basic pillars.”
and this video go together to show that Israel’s democratic structures and checks and balances are meaningless. Zionism has consumed everything.
Those young soldiers killed, maimed and destroyed on orders.
Jews say: “never forget and never forgive”!
Does this also apply to your so called enemies?