Opinion

After Israeli snipers killed 40 Palestinians in 3 months, army chief said, ‘This is not right, relax’

After Israeli soldiers killed more than 40 Palestinians 'easily' in 2 months, the army chief of staff said, "This is not right" and ordered snipers to "relax." But when reporter Ohad Hemo related this incident to the Israel Policy Forum, chair Susie Gelman just raised her concerns about the Palestinian prisoners escaping an Israeli prison.

A pro-Israel group held a discussion three days ago that showcased its utter indifference to Palestinian lives. Israeli reporter Ohad Hemo told the Israel Policy Forum, an American Israel lobby organization, that after Israeli soldiers “easily” killed more than 40 Palestinians in the West Bank in two months, the army chief said, “This is not right,’ and ordered snipers to “relax.”

Susie Gelman, the chair of the Israel Policy Forum, had no response to the shocking report, but turned the discussion back to her “cause for concern” — Palestinian prisoners escaping an Israeli prison.

Here is Hemo’s description of the killing spree:

Something happened in the last few weeks in the West Bank. I can tell you that during the last two months, there were over 40 Palestinians who were shot dead by Israel. And we reached a point that the chief of the army, he called all the commanders working in the West Bank and told them, Wait a minute, This is not right. I mean People are being killed easily in rallies, in demonstrations or whatever. So please talk to your snipers. Talk to your people in the IDF. Just to, Relax them.

Hemo, the Palestinian affairs reporter for Israel’s Channel 12, was expanding on a news report of August 10. After Israeli soldiers had killed more than 40 Palestinians in three months, including “non-combatants… killed by mistake,” Aviv Kochavi, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, demanded changes.

The Israel Policy Forum plainly doesn’t care about these killings. It was holding a discussion about the Sept. 6 prison break in which six Palestinians tunneled out of Gilboa prison, and Gelman, who was interviewing Hemo, repeatedly expressed concern about the “ramifications of this significant security breach.”

“Tell us about these six prisoners,” Gelman said. “I mean, this kind of thing just shouldn’t happen. There are obviously a lot of questions and clearly there is going to be an investigation of what went wrong… How is this even possible? … It’s likely people will lose their jobs because of this.”

Hemo said, “Four of them are convicted to life sentence, for killing Israelis or taking part of terror attacks… Mahmoud al-Arda is a killer, believe me, he is a real terrorist from the Islamic Jihad.” (al-Arda and three other escapees were recaptured. Two remain free.)

Hemo repeatedly described Palestinians as terrorists. None of the 4500 Palestinians prisoners held by Israel are political prisoners, Hemo said, they are all “terrorists.”

“We are talking about right now 4500 prisoners sitting in Israeli prisons. I wouldn’t say political prisoners, I would say terrorists.”

Gelman and Hemo never addressed the obvious question: Have there been any consequences for the Israeli killers of the 40-plus Palestinians. The answer is surely No. The human rights group B’Tselem has documented that only “in very rare instances” are Israeli soldiers charged criminally for killing or injuring Palestinians. And when charged, they are rarely convicted. By contrast Palestinians in the West Bank face a conviction rate of nearly 100 percent in military courts– which is one reason that Human Rights Watch said in April of this year that Israel practices apartheid.

Hemo will appear next month at another pro-Israel organization.

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It is a slow genocide. These stats keep proving that whether “mowing the lawn” which usually results in hundreds of unarmed civilians being brutally killed, families being wiped out, and more civilians massacred than militants, snipers killing unarmed protesters, or the almost daily killing of youth by the IDF, there is a systematic pattern of Palestinians being killed carelessly, deliberately, and viciously. Who holds these killer accountable? Certainly not the greatest democracy in the world, we have been their enablers, complicit by sending billions of dollars, and those weapons that are used on these unarmed victims.

Those who keep citing a holocaust to justify an occupation, land theft, and war crimes, keep getting away with murder and war crimes. Every US leader knows it, but pretend they don’t.

Good news!! Congratulations to Muna and Muhammed El-Kurd. “The times, they are a’changing.”

Sheikh Jarrah’s Activists Muna, Muhammed El-Kurd Make TIME Top 100 List – Palestine Chronicle

“Sheikh Jarrah’s Activists Muna, Muhammed El-Kurd Make TIME Top 100 List” Palestine Chronicle, Sept. 16/21

“Time magazine has named Palestinian twins and activists, Muna and Muhammed El-Kurd of Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem in its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

“The magazine said Muna and her twin brother Muhammed have become symbols of the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation’s attempts to evict Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah.

“’Through online posts and media appearances, sibling activists Muhammed and Muna El-Kurd provided the world with a window into living under occupation in East Jerusalem this spring—helping to prompt an international shift in rhetoric in regard to Israel and Palestine,’ the magazine wrote.

“’For more than a decade, the El-Kurd family, along with dozens of their neighbors in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, have been fighting against the possibility of forced removal from their homes by Israeli settlers,’ it added.

“In response to the announcement, Muhammed El-Kurd wrote: ‘My sister and my selection as part of the ‘100 most influential people in the world’ may be a positive indicator of the centralization of the Palestinian cause in the global public sphere. However, the creation of symbols – which reduces the struggle of a whole people to a single face – is not enough.'”

.

From the late, great Uri Avnery ( http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1275739480/ ):

It is impossible not to be reminded of the classic Jewish joke about the Jewish mother in Russia taking leave of her son, who has been called up to serve the Czar in the war against Turkey. “Don’t overexert yourself’” she implores him, “Kill a Turk and rest. Kill another Turk and rest again…”

“But mother,” the son interrupts, “What if the Turk kills me?”

“You?” exclaims the mother, “But why? What have you done to him?”

For a long time it’s seemed the slow dribble of killing could have been ordered from on high. For sure they all had the benefit of top rate scopes. Probably not one was killed mistakenly. Homicidal impulses exist on both sides. When state policy, it cannot be overlooked.