Opinion

Israel justifies murdering a Palestinian child by saying its sniper used a “low muzzle velocity”

Not only did the Israeli military use lethal force in murdering Ali Abu Alia, but it was aided and abetted by the United States.

On Friday, Palestinian teenager Ali Abu Alia was killed by Israeli occupation soldiers, shot in the abdomen. It was during a demonstration at his home town of Al Mughayyir, against a nearby Jewish Israeli settlement expansion. According to Defense for Children International Palestine he was on the sideline, merely “observing clashes” .

Now if you read the Israeli military statement on this, as featured in the Haaretz report, it seems to get really complex, as it were:

The Israeli military said that there were riots in the area, but denied using live fire. Rioters used burned tires and tried to block the road, an IDF spokesperson said, and Israeli forces responded with rubber bullets and “Ruger” guns, which have a low muzzle speed.

So the logic, as formulated here, is that the “Ruger” gun is not “live fire”, since it has “low muzzle speed”.

Let’s not be bamboozled by this Israeli military BS. The Ruger 10/22 regularly applied by the Israeli military to “suppress demonstrations” is lethal ammunition, with a bullet speed of about 1.080 feet (330 meters) per second – just about the speed of sound. Alright, it’s not as fast as for example the M-16 which goes at 2.800 FPS, but I’m sure none of us want to be a guinea pig for the testing of what happens when a Ruger bullet hits one’s abdomen.

It is interesting that Haaretz’s piece does not frontally counter the military claim. It does, however, link “Ruger” to its own coverage from 2018, titled “Israel Police Refuse to Reveal Protocol on Use of Controversial Sniper Rifles”:

In response to petition by Israeli Arab law center, police reveal a heavily censored document, redacting parts relating to use of supposedly ‘non-lethal’ Ruger rifle. Several Palestinians, including children, were killed by Ruger fire.

Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem have been on this repeatedly. From a 2015 report:

Military steps up use of live 0.22 inch bullets against Palestinian stone-throwers… Two-Twos are live ammunition whose impact is less severe than that of “ordinary” bullets (5.56 mm caliber), yet even so they can be lethal and inflict serious injuries. Two-Twos are fired with a 10/22 Ruger rifle, which is often equipped with an integral suppressor, or from a specially converted M4 rifle (“a shortened M16”). Use of this weapon has elicited controversy even within the Israeli military: in 2001, the head of the security department in the Operations Directorate wrote that the Ruger cannot be considered a non-lethal weapon and may be used only in circumstances that justify live fire. In view of the large number of people hit and even killed by 0.22 bullets early in the second intifada, use of this ammunition was suspended from 2001 to 2008. In the time since use of this ammunition was renewed, B’Tselem has documented the deaths of at least two people from these bullets; however, the real number may be higher, as it is difficult to establish whether a person was killed by these bullets or “ordinary” live ammunition, which is very similar in caliber.

So, let’s summarize.

The Israeli military has reapplied the use of lethal ammunition which it had earlier suspended. The military itself had deemed that the weapon cannot be considered “non-lethal” – in other words, this is lethal ammunition, used against civilian protesters. Like in the Gaza turkey-shootings – or “ducks” as the Israeli snipers call Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

US congresswoman Betty McCollum, who has been a staunch champion of the rights of Palestinian children, condemned the killing as a “grotesque state-sponsored killing”. She added:

I urge the incoming Biden administration to fully investigate and verify to the American people that no US taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel provided material assistance enabling this taking of a child’s life.

Well, of course US taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel was involved. And the Israeli army statement betrayed precisely which ammunition was applied.

Ali Abu Alia, may his beautiful young soul rest in eternal peace, does not care about “muzzle speeds”. That little bullet got him, and it’s over for him. The “only democracy” murdered him, slowly.

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Just a reminder that these guns are manufactured in Newport, NH and proudly exported to Israel by the Sturm, Ruger Co, which is headquartered in Southport, CN:

Sturm, Ruger Corporate Headquarters: Lacey Place, Southport, CT 06890. (Fax: 203-256-3367); Newport Manufacturing Facility : 411 Sunapee Street Newport, NH 03773 (Telephone: 603-863-3300) 603-863-3300; Fax: 603-863-3253).

See Another Made in USA “less-lethal” weapon kills in Palestine

Well and truly stated: “Ali Abu Alia, may his beautiful young soul rest in eternal peace, does not care about ‘muzzle speeds’. That little bullet got him, and it’s over for him. The ‘only democracy’ murdered him, slowly.”

I lack the words to express how I feel when I see the photo of young, so full of life Ali Abu Alia and comprehend that like so many other defenseless Palestinians, young and old, he has been murdered by Zionists who illegally and brutally occupy HIS homeland.

There will be a day of reckoning! The world, including the U.S., is waking up and as ever increasing numbers of enlightened Jews realize, Zionism is doomed!!

This is indeed a slow genocide as described by some. It never ends. When is the rest of the world going to hold Israel responsible for these endless killings of unarmed kids and civilians? They spare no one. The majority of Israelis seems to support these massacres, and they accuse the other side of hating them. This is not only hating the Palestinians, this is hating AND killing with deadly weapons. Damn those in Congress who keep supporting these killing sprees, and the killers.

How the killing of an autistic Palestinian man shone a light on Israeli police brutality”Prosecutors have recommended that the officer who shot Mr al-Hallaq be charged with manslaughter, but a conviction would be as exceptional as the killing was shocking”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/israel-police-brutality-disabled-b1767458.html

Just so that we are crystal clear on this statement from the IDF.

A “Ruger” gun is still a bloody gun. It uses metal tipped ammo like basically all lethal firearms. On just one box of 22 long rifle ammo you can read claims like, “sizzling velocities”, “hollow point”, “dramatic impact energy”.

The rifles themselves are, and I quote from Wikipedia, “…very popular for small-game hunters and those who want an inexpensive rifle for firing inexpensive ammunition for target and plinking use.”

Let that sink in for a minute.

At best the IDF is quite literally saying that they and their elite snipers, have no idea of the difference between a live round and say a rubber bullet. Which should and would be laughed out of a court of law. Basically, the equivalent of a surgeon trying to claim that he/she didn’t know that a scalpel is a sharp instrument that could cut through skin like a hot knife through butter.

At worst, they are intentionally shooting children for sport, whom they regard as “small game” or “plinking”, which is a pastime which objectively falls into the category of “shooting shit for shits ‘n’ giggles”.

This is quite possibly the worst defense I have heard in a long time. They aren’t even trying anymore. I’m almost certain that the soldier didn’t actually intend to kill this poor innocent child, but that still leaves the giant elephant in the room. What exactly WAS his/her intention when targeting this child? Just to intentionally injure, maim, or cripple an innocent child for sport? Because, news flash! That is arguably even more sinister and disgusting behavior from highly trained killers.

FOR CONTEXT SEE:
“A Little Bit Nazi” | by Mitchell Abidor | jewishcurrents.org | Dec. 3, 2020

EXCERPTS:

The image has become a familiar one: A group of young Israelis is visiting Auschwitz, many of them wrapped in the Israeli flag. They chant the Kaddish; they sing songs; together, they are a phoenix that has risen from the literal ashes of the millions of Jews killed by the Nazis. Their mere existence seems to be proclaiming vengeance wrought on Hitler. They are young; they are beautiful; they are noble. 

But in The Memory Monster—a brilliant, challenging, and uncompromising novel by the Israeli writer Yishai Sarid, recently translated from the Hebrew by Yardenne Greenspan—they are something far more sinister. In this grim portrait of an Israeli scholar who makes his living leading tours of the hell of the camps, Sarid, son of the late left-wing politician Yossi Sarid, forces us to question the complacency and moral blindness that accompanies the centrality of the Holocaust in Israeli life. . .

. . . As the young Israelis, mixed groups of Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews, walk through Majdanek, the narrator overhears their disturbing comments: “on the few hundred meters’ walk from the gas chambers to the dirt monument and the crematoriums,” he reports, “I heard them talking about Arabs, wrapped in their flags and whispering, The Arabs, that’s what we should do to the Arabs.” But not only to Arabs: “Ashkenazis, I heard them saying on more than one occasion, are the forefathers of left-wingers. They weren’t able to protect their wives and children, collaborated with their murderers, they weren’t real men, didn’t know how to hit back, cowards, softies, letting the Arabs have their way.” No site is safe from the perverted lessons the students have drawn from the Holocaust. At Auschwitz, he recalls, “this one fat student with mean eyes, cheeks purple with cold, began to scratch the words ‘Death to left-wingers’ onto a wooden wall in the women’s camp.” Sarid skillfully shows how the degradation of Israeli politics, the hatred of Arabs and anyone sympathetic to them, and the cult of masculinity and heartless toughness that drive Israeli society have turned the moral lessons of the Holocaust on their head. . .

ENTIRE ESSAY – https://jewishcurrents.org/a-little-bit-nazi/