Last week we excerpted a Haaretz interview with Shlomi Eldar, an Israeli TV journalist, in which he said that he had suppressed information about Israel’s killings of civilians in Gaza during Cast Lead. Issandr El Amrani also picked up the Eldar interview, titled “There is no future,” and landed on this passage, with the biblical punishment of Gaza:
Eldar: A few days after the end of Operation Pillar of Defense, I gave a talk at a Herzliya high school. The children, who said they came from good homes, told me we have to kill all the Arabs, including the Israeli Arabs, because where do they get off thinking they will get control of the country. Their ideal is to go into the army and kill as many Arabs as possible. That’s one side of the picture, Israeli youth, the new generation, living in an atmosphere of demonizing the Palestinians − which is something the Israeli media are responsible for in no small measure. The other side of the picture is the young generation in Gaza, a child of five or nine. Let’s say he is not wounded, but a four-ton bomb landed next to his house. Do you know that in Operation Pillar of Defense, not one pane of glass remained intact in the whole of Gaza? It’s a tactic of creating sonic booms to frighten people without hurting them. A child who has a bomb like that land next to him can’t hear anything for the next three days. What does he think about the Jews afterward? And where will we end up, if this is how Jewish youngsters think about Arabs?
Nowhere good.
We are on a nothing-to-lose track. Which is why I say there is no future. When I told the high school class that we have to look at them as human beings, one boy jumped up and said, “Who do you vote for? You’re extreme left, no?” I replied, “It would surprise you to know who I vote for.” But that’s not the point. The point is that we in Israel have reached a situation in which if someone says we have to talk peace, he’s considered extreme left.
“Do you know that in Operation Pillar of Defense, not one pane of glass remained intact in the whole of Gaza?”
That is simply untrue.
that’s what i thought. i wondered if he meant the 08-09 massacre. but even that i had never heard before.
It may exaggerated but probably not by much. Seems the Palestines have learned to leave their windows open during Israel attacks and over flights because the
sonic booms and shock waves do break the windows.
link to haaretz.com
”S.’s 13-year-old son relates: “I was sleeping. The noise woke me up.” The shockwave warped the neighbors’ doors, he said. “We leave the windows open, so the glass didn’t break, but the neighbors’ windows broke. Shock Waves caused bricks to fall on cars and damaged them. One of them dented our car.”
“That is simply untrue’.
They dropped colored feathers on Gaza. And small puppies ran over with flowers in their collars.
He may exaggerate about the 100% of panes of glass, even about the 100% of (Jewish) Israeli youth in its eliminationist attidudes toward Palestinians, etc.
On the whole, it seems he correctly paints the picture we need to see. And this picture is confirmed (on the Israeli side) by the elections, which show little if any tendency by voters to choose political parties BECAUSE the party promises to seek peace based on return of land.
RE: “The children, who said they came from good homes, told me we have to kill all the Arabs, including the Israeli Arabs . . . That’s one side of the picture, Israeli youth, the new generation, living in an atmosphere of demonizing the Palestinians − which is something the Israeli media are responsible for in no small measure. ~ Eldar
FOR URI AVNERY’S CONCURRENCE*, SEE: “Israel’s Weird Elections”, by Uri Avnery, Counterpunch, 1/04/13:
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – link to counterpunch.org
* Catch Me If You Can Movie CLIP – Do You Concur? (2002) [VIDEO, 01:53] – link to youtube.com
It equally unlikely that 100% of Jewish shopkeepers had their glass broken during Kristallnacht.
Bingo! The point is not that every bitty glass was shattered- the point is that the intensity of hatred motivating both acts is identical.
RE: “Do you know that in Operation Pillar of Defense, not one pane of glass remained intact in the whole of Gaza? It’s a tactic of creating sonic booms to frighten people without hurting them [without physically hurting them, perhaps; but hurting them mentally to a very considerable degree ~ J.L.D.]. A child who has a bomb like that land next to him can’t hear anything for the next three days.” ~ Eldar
MY COMMENT: If this isn’t terrorism, then what is?
I recently read an article where a journalist had just been to Gaza during this quasi-lull in Israeli military action. While he was there, at the first sound of an Israeli aircraft, someone would jump up and open every window to make certain that all the glass panes would not be broken.
“5 Broken Cameras” is now available on Netflix in streaming and DVD. Do not miss it! I hope it gets the Academy Award.
“…with the biblical punishment of Gaza:”
I wouldn’t use “biblical” in this context and risk unleashing all manner of self-righteous gloating in Zionist loons who believe they are biblically entitled and protected no matter what evil they do. How about “monstrous”? It is after all closer to reality.
if you believe it then you deserve to eat it
if you eat it then you think it
tastes like it
i miss mooser. i wonder what he would say to that mcohen.
what do you mean, you ‘miss mooser’? what happened to him?
he just hasn’t been around.
He might observe that history has been full of mcohens leading ordinary Jews to disaster.
>> Do you know that in Operation Pillar of Defense, not one pane of glass remained intact in the whole of Gaza? It’s a tactic of creating sonic booms to frighten people without hurting them. A child who has a bomb like that land next to him can’t hear anything for the next three days. What does he think about the Jews afterward?
He probably thinks “Oh, what wonderful freedoms those Jewish State people have, that they can shatter our windows and eardrums with impunity. How I do hate them for their freedoms!”