The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York includes a remarkable canvas by the 17th century Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbaran. The painting, “The Battle between Christians and Moors at El Sotillo,” depicts an alleged event in 1370, when, the description informs us, “the Spanish forces were saved from a night ambush when a miraculous light revealed the hidden Moorish troops.” At the top of the painting we see the source of that light: the Blessed Mother holding the baby Jesus.
Most museum visitors probably appreciate the beauty of the painting, and may also value its insight into how medieval Spain regarded the battle to reconquer the peninsula for Christianity. Museum-goers would most certainly be surprised to learn that a senior Israeli colonel says publicly that the same kind of miracle protected his troops during Israel’s invasion of Gaza in 2014.
We are indebted to Max Blumenthal and his vital new book (The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza) for introducing us to Col. Ofer Winter, the religious fanatic who Blumenthal points out is “emerging as one of the most revered military figures in Israeli society.” Here is just one of Col. Winter’s comments:
[After the Gaza onslaught,] Winter conjured a hallucinatory vision of godly intervention. “We were protected by clouds, clouds of divine honor,” he claimed. “We — all the warriors — were suddenly covered by a heavy fog, which came to us throughout the attack.”
Any journalist with an ounce of news sense should have raced to put together a profile of this man. What has formed his apocalyptic thinking? Why is he so popular in Israeli society? A man who talks like this could fill a long magazine article with provocative observations.
Yet so far, there’s been next to nothing in our mainstream media on Colonel Ofer Winter. You might even suspect that correspondents for the New York Times and others are deliberately hiding him from American audiences, to avoid shocking readers with the truth about what Israel is really like in 2015.
There is one exception to the U.S. news blackout of Col. Winter. Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who passed through Israel during the Gaza invasion, did take note of another of Winter’s fanatical religious statements. Friedman allowed that Winter sounded “frightening.” But he did not follow up.
‘Friedman allowed that Winter sounded “frightening.” ‘
Just not frightening enough to stop Friedman from talking about himself for a moment.
Poor NYT! didn’t know whether to put in international news, religious news, or perhaps art news. so they dropt the ball. dear, dear!
Israel is attacking Gaza by air and sea right now. Govt buildings have been evacuated.
To the military in the United States and around the world, Israel serves as a kind of laboratory for battle tactics, especially those involving counterinsurgency. Its wars with guerrilla groups like Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah—four in the past nine years—are pored over by the Americans for the lessons they hold and the questions they raise. The story of Hadar Goldin raises one question in particular: How far should a modern military go to prevent one of its own from being captured?
Israel has its own sophisticated technology, ….but it supplements those tools with a tactic the army revived in the aftermath of the Shalit ordeal—code word Hannibal—that calls for a massive use of force when a soldier is captured. Two Israelis familiar with the wording of the classified procedure described it as measured and restrictive. But for other Israelis in and out of uniform, it’s clear that soldiers often interpret it as something less nuanced—a kind of signal from commanders that a dead Israeli fighter is better than a captured one. Revenge on Gazans for the Hannibal directive failure was demonic….
Of course none in Winter’s Givati Brigade have ever faced prosecution for war crimes and therein lies the crux of the matter…..
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/operation-hannibal-119209
Well, they’re too busy covering up Trump’s ethnic cleansing remarks to worry about Winter.