The other day we ran a post about the fact that the Jewish Forward ran several photos of Israeli independence day that highlighted the scary degree of militarism in that society– pictures from a settlement of children and guns.
Well this is probably more significant: The San Jose Mercury News has run even more of the same photos, taken by Gali Tibbon. In an album of shots from Israel’s independence day, check out numbers 1-8. This is the new face of Israel, children caressing guns.
Here are the first eight pictures’ descriptions:
An Israeli boy plays with an M-16
An Israeli man shows his son how to work a machine gun during a traditional military weapon display to mark the 66th anniversary of Israel’s Independence at the West Bank settlement of Efrat on May 6, 2014
An Israeli child holds a rocket launcher…
An Israeli boy in a military vest throws a mock grenade [shown above]
An Israeli woman holds up an M-16
An Israeli boy jumps from an Armoured Personnel Carrier
An Israeli man shows his son how to work an M-16
An Israeli boy wearing a military vest crawls on the sand
Later photos are traditional Israel celebrations: they show kids with balloons and an old man with small Israeli flags pasted to his face. But as we say in San Jose, you get the picture.
Reader Kathlene writes:
I had stumbled upon these photos via a link at the Mercury News which innocuously mentioned photos of Israel’s celebration of its independence. Expecting a pro-Israeli propaganda piece, I was shocked (in a good way) to see these photos. Unsurprisingly, comments are closed under the photos.
The photos that disturbed me most included photo 3 of an angelic girl clutching a weapon next to another girl who is holding a doll, and photo 2 of a father showing his son how to use a machine gun. I was immediately repulsed by these photos, similar to the revulsion I feel when I see American gun-culture photos of young girls clutching pink AR-15s in the name of freedom. The innocence that is being destroyed in the name of hatred (which is disguised as freedom) is immoral, sad and sickening. The fact that a mainstream publication would post these photos online makes me hopeful that people will see Israel’s role in preventing peace in the Mideast and with Palestine.
It was bound to happen. Someone in MSM would break the mold and come clean about Apartheid Israel.
Who is next.
The Oakland Trib or does Gerry Brown have his fingers in that pie.
Did these pictures run in the printed paper? If not, how about correcting this post to say mercurynews.com ran the pictures? To me that’s a very different thing from having them in the paper: putting them in print would be much more of a statement on the part of the editors and would be much more noticeable to readers than just including them in the photo gallery section of their web site, which on the same day also featured pix of “‘Dog-In’ at Oakland City Hall,” “125th Anniversary of Eiffel Tower opening at Paris Exposition,” “V-E Day 69 years ago, allies celebrate surrender of Germany,” and so on.
Repulsive, indeed. Monstrous, too. Child abuse. A lost generation.
American soldiers learned to their cost in Vietnam that the M-16 is an inferior weapon to the AK-47 Kalashnikov.
Do you people even know how many hundreds of photos are in existence of Palestinian babies dressed as suicide bombers complete with paper ‘bomb belts’ older kids with toy rocket launchers, or “caressing” as you say AKs and other arms. If your point is that now Israeli parents have stooped to the level of animosity displayed by Palestinians then its a valid point. Otherwise-it just shows how intractable the conflict is. Not much different then how the southern US civilians demonized the mechanized and faceless warmongers of the north while the northern press aka Horace Greely demonized the south as rebellious and retarded barbarians hiding behind ‘polite’ mannerisms and false glory. In the end-and in the midst of ruinous battles the two sides often found themselves mingling like the two neighborous peoples they once had been. If this sites fans can not see that they function as a pr arm of one side, and one side only of the conflict it would behoove them to read a little more history about warfare and its often humdrum affect on its subsequent populations.