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An Israeli veteran comes forward to decry ‘how shitty we are’ to Palestinians

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The latest testimonies from the Israeli soldiers’ group Breaking the Silence are extremely powerful, but I haven’t seen these amazing women popping up yet in the American media. Soon I hope. As we all know, it seems to require Jewish voices to persuade American elites to pay any kind of attention to the issue; and here are many anguished Jewish voices.

So I’m going to break some of them out. Above is a very moving video from Yael Lotan, who served in the Gaza strip. She explains why she’s breaking the silence:

The reason I’m doing the interview with Shovrim Shtika– I think that I went from a process of being a child soldier whose brain was molded and made into whatever you do is critical for state security to understanding how it’s all false, and how we are doing the least human thing to a neighboring nation —

And how shitty we are, that’s the only word I can think of. How we think that it’s OK to ruin a person’s life and abuse them because we feel like it, because we think it’s right.  And the reality in the territories is– [sighing and shaking her head] It’s just crazy.

People don’t understand it. People don’t understand what people go through there. We ruin people’s lives on a daily basis, and it’s like a consensus that it’s OK, and it’s not. And we should talk about it. People need to know what’s happening there. It’s not the Israel Defense Forces defending us against horrible terrorists who are out to destroy the Jewish nation–

It’s people who live here and who lived here, even when we weren’t here. And they’re trying to live, and we just had the better hand, the stronger hand, and we are using it without batting an eyelash. And I think that people should know that. 

Wonderful. My only question to Yael would be, Who is we? And isn’t the political answer to construct a community that is not based on ethnicity or religion? 

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Wonderful, indeed. Good for her for doing the right thing here. We should think of her and the others who have joined her any time we have blanket negative thoughts about Israelis.

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This is bullshit.
She served in the visual intelligence and monitoring unit.
The only Palestinians she ever saw during her service were seen through a monitor fed by a high def camera.Sitting shifts in an air conditioned office day in and day out.
The rest of her talk is the usual left speak אשמנו פשענו.

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Bless you, Yael.

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what sort of world, were not so many people’s identity tied to my country, right or wrong, rather than if my country’s wrong, my job to make it right?

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RE: “The latest testimonies from the Israeli soldiers’ group Breaking the Silence are extremely powerful, but I haven’t seen these amazing women popping up yet in the American media. Soon I hope.“ ~ Weiss

MY ÜBER-PESSIMISTIC COMMENT: Dream on, Phil!
SEE: “Jewish Donors Warn Obama on Israel”, By Laura Meckler, Wall Street Journal, 5/19/11
LINK – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703509104576331661918527154.html

FROM WIKIPEDIA [Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media]:

[EXCERPTS] “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media” (1988), by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, is an analysis of the news media, arguing that the mass media of the United States “are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion”.[1] . . .

● Editorial bias: five filters
Herman and Chomsky’s “propaganda model” describes five editorially distorting filters applied to news reporting in mass media:
• Size, Ownership, and Profit Orientation: The dominant mass-media outlets are large firms which are run for profit. Therefore they must cater to the financial interest of their owners – often corporations or particular controlling investors. The size of the firms is a necessary consequence of the capital requirements for the technology to reach a mass audience.
• The Advertising License to Do Business: Since the majority of the revenue of major media outlets derives from advertising (not from sales or subscriptions), advertisers have acquired a “de-facto licensing authority”.[4] Media outlets are not commercially viable without the support of advertisers. News media must therefore cater to the political prejudices and economic desires of their advertisers. This has weakened the working-class press, for example, and also helps explain the attrition in the number of newspapers.
• Sourcing Mass Media News: Herman and Chomsky argue that “the large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidize the mass media, and gain special access [to the news], by their contribution to reducing the media’s costs of acquiring […] and producing, news. The large entities that provide this subsidy become ‘routine’ news sources and have privileged access to the gates. Non-routine sources must struggle for access, and may be ignored by the arbitrary decision of the gatekeepers.”[5]
• Flak and the Enforcers: “Flak” refers to negative responses to a media statement or program (e.g. letters, complaints, lawsuits, or legislative actions). Flak can be expensive to the media, either due to loss of advertising revenue, or due to the costs of legal defense or defense of the media outlet’s public image. Flak can be organized by powerful, private influence groups (e.g. think tanks). The prospect of eliciting flak can be a deterrent to the reporting of certain kinds of facts or opinions.[5]
• Anti-Communism: This was included as a filter in the original 1988 edition of the book, but Chomsky argues that since the end of the Cold War (1945–91), anticommunism was replaced by the “War on Terror”, as the major social control mechanism.[6][7] . . .

SOURCE – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_The_Political_Economy_of_the_Mass_Media

P.S. SOMETHING ELSE YOU WILL NOT SEE IN THE MAINSTREAM/CORPORATE MEDIA:
• “IDF Unit 8200 Cyberwar Veterans Developed NSA Snooping Technology”, By Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam, 6/07/13
LINK – http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2013/06/09/top-secret-iaf-unit-exposed/

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