Haaretz: Israel allocates funds to help former IDF soldiers become sushi chefs
Demobilized soldiers will be able to study Asian cooking this year at the government’s expense, as part of an effort to reduce the number of foreign workers employed as cooks in Asian restaurants by training Israeli professionals to replace them.
Haaretz: Border Police train Israeli teens to detain illegal Palestinian workers
“I consider it a form of pleasure. It simply provides me with values, and I love the action.”
This is how Reut, a high school senior from the Modi’in area, describes her experience as part of the “No’ar Magav” Border Police Youth.
The initiative is financed by the Public Security Minister of Israel and the Modi’in Regional Council, without any knowledge on the part of Ministry of Education.
Approximately 36 teenagers between the ages of 16-18 take part in the project. In their spare time, they help catch “illegal residents”, or stand at checkpoints and help guard the neighboring settlements. According to the regional council, the teenagers have been able to catch dozens of illegal aliens, mostly Palestinian workers who lack Israeli work permits, in the past couple weeks.
“I like catching the Palestinian workers,” says Reut. “Generally we look for them because they scare children. The point is to catch them and return them back where they belong.”
Eran, another member of the group, describes the activities with joy: “It’s a fun feeling – you are filled with adrenaline and energy during such operations. We also feel pride for protecting our home. For instance, one time we went to a construction site and found a few of them there. We saw them hiding and we caught them, took their identification cards, sat them down in the vehicle, and called our commander to come check them.”
Jerusalem Post: The case of Haneen Zoabi, and the rule of law
During the debate in the Knesset last Wednesday, Levin repeatedly shouted that Zoabi would definitely not be a member of the next Knesset. There is no doubt that as elections for the 19th Knesset approach, right-wing parties will renew efforts to have Balad disqualified on the grounds that the party advocates turning Israel into “a state of all its citizens” – something they say essentially denies its existence as the state of the Jewish people. They also say Balad maintains contact with organizations that are defined in Israel as terrorist organizations.
In the past, the High Court of Justice has overturned Central Elections Committee decisions to disqualify Balad, but the last time the court ruled on this issue, it stated that Balad’s positions were problematic, implying that the party is walking on very thin legal ice. With the High Court’s more conservative makeup, and especially the approaching retirement of Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, it is quite likely that next time the court will uphold a committee decision to disqualify Balad.
I like catching the Palestinian workers,” says Reut. “Generally we look for them because they scare children. The point is to catch them and return them back where they belong.”
“It’s a fun feeling – you are filled with adrenaline and energy during such operations. We also feel pride for protecting our home”.
Those young guys were also proud for protecting their home.
Are the young Israeli secret admirers of them???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLW-6OU1EUo
I find that link, and the fact that it was linked and the comparison made to Hitler, offensive and counterproductive.
The intended parallel of the behavior of Germans in WW2 era to Jewish settlers in Palestine today fails on many measures: Germans WERE defending their own home turf — a natural and even legal expression of patriotism. Settlers are guarding stolen property from its repossession by the victims of the theft. They have neither a legal nor moral basis for their actions. Israeli zionism and behavior such as that exhibited in this article is sui generis, it is NOT caused by or related to or equivalent to the behavior of Nazi Germany. To make that claim gives Israelis moral cover, to which they are not entitled, and makes their rehabilitation that much less plausible.
Furthermore, the intended parallel that heaps perpetual opprobrium on Germany is counterproductive because it plays into the propaganda meme that Netanyahu relies on to demonize Iran: “It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany . . .” That refrain, too, is a false parallel, but Netanyahu knows that logic and truth are not elements of propaganda; fear and hatred are, and words that have come to signify unalloyed evil — words like Nazi and Hitler — need not be defined or rationally understood, they have taken on a life of their own. Your use of them adds value to Bibi’s campaign of hate.
And with the help of otherwise well-intentioned people, Bibi’s campaign to drum up “Hitlerian hatred” of Iran is gaining ground. A commenter at raceforIran noticed that even Chas Freeman is sliding right past reading and understanding actual assertions of Iranian leaders to adopt the posture of American warmongers.
Here is the speech by Ambassador Freeman: The Mess in the Middle East
Here’s the comment by ‘BiBiJon at RaceforIran: Drive by assertion is an epidemic —
Thoughtless and fact-free debate have entered into the mindset of even champions of fairness and rationality like Chas Freeman.
Somebody has to start calling out the errors in thinking and rhetoric that are leading US policymakers astray.
“If not we, then who?
If now now, then when?”
The fact that Israel is using Nazi Germany as a historical Bogeyman Image to scare the rest of the world with a potential ,Nazi -like “Iranian threat ” IS just a skillful, over-used propaganda tactic ,that some of the ignorant public still may, (and will) buy.
Israel, surprisingly, has a VERY good , suscpiciously good ,relationship with German government.
The comparison, done by Israel ,of everything that THEY deem to be evil,
to Nazi/ Hitler/WWII serves Holocaust religion ministers to hold a grip on public’s
collective conscience, and helps to label a potential critics of “Holocaust religion dogmas” as a Holocaust deniers, anti-Semites, self-hating Jews, etc.
Simple, yet still very effective method.
Imagine if in Europe a minority was isolated into restricted areas and people tried to escape to find work to feed their families. People who believe in natural rights should feel sympathy for others in such circumstances.
“Eran, another member of the group, describes the activities with joy: “It’s a fun feeling – you are filled with adrenaline and energy during such operations. We also feel pride for protecting our home.”
“mostly Palestinian workers who lack Israeli work permits, in the past couple weeks”
The patrol isn’t really about protecting one’s home, since the Palestinian workers are not dangerous. They are seeking work in the rest of their homeland because they have been isolated into bantustants by the permit system.
a good joke.:)
“An Israeli arrives at London’s Heathrow airport.
As he fills out the entry form, the immigration officer asks him: “Occupation?”
The Israeli promptly replies: “No, No, just visiting!”