Israeli undercover unit's murder of Palestinian civilian was part of "training exercise" At the beginning of this month, I blogged about the shooting of three brothers in the West Bank village of Rammoun on 27 March that resulted in the death of one and was conducted by undercover Israeli agents, an act tantamount to perfidy and thus a violation of international humanitarian law.
Yesterday, Ynet reported that these undercover agents were actually performing a military training exercise and that the soldier responsible for killing Rashad Shawakha, 28, had been dismissed. No exit, By Uri Blau and Tal Haran (Trans.) From Yamit to the Jordan Valley, the IDF continues to force Arabs from their homes.
Israeli Soldiers’ Brutality at Prison Camp for Palestinians. Juan Cole, 22 April 2011 Israeli television has shown shocking cellphone video of the October, 2007, actions at Ketziot Prison, against unarmed Palestinian prisoners, by Israeli security forces.
The thousand or so prisoners there revolted at a provocative search abruptly conducted by “Control and Restraint” units or Metzada. Far from being menacing, the Palestinian prisoners are shown cringing and obeying orders to come out of their tents with a promise that the shooting would stop. It did not. Israeli soldiers are caught laughing at the helpless Palestinian prisoners during the aggressive action. An interview with an inmate was broadcast by The Real News in 2007 soon after the Israeli attack: B’Tselem was already charging in 2007 that abuse and even torture of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons was all too common.
Rethinking Israel's David-and-Goliath past - Egyptian Protests. At a little after 7 on the morning of June 5, 1967, as Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s commanders were finishing their breakfasts and driving to work, French-built Israeli fighter jets roared out of their bases and flew low, below radar, into Egyptian airspace.
Within three hours, 500 Israeli sorties had destroyed Nasser’s entire air force. Just after midday, the air forces of Jordan and Syria also lay in smoking ruins, and Israel had essentially won the Six-Day War — in six hours. LRB · Yitzhak Laor · You are terrorists, we are virtuous. As soon as the facts of the Bint Jbeil ambush, which ended with relatively high Israeli casualties (eight soldiers died there), became public, the press and television in Israel began marginalising any opinion that was critical of the war. The media also fell back on the kitsch to which Israelis grow accustomed from childhood: the most menacing army in the region is described here as if it is David against an Arab Goliath. Yet the Jewish Goliath has sent Lebanon back 20 years, and Israelis themselves even further: we now appear to be a lynch-mob culture, glued to our televisions, incited by a premier whose ‘leadership’ is being launched and legitimised with rivers of fire and destruction on both sides of the border.
Mass psychology works best when you can pinpoint an institution or a phenomenon with which large numbers of people identify. Israel signs deal to provide Azerbaijan with $1.6 billion in military equipment. IDF resumes use of prohibited tear gas canisters. Soldiers' testimonies on the occupied territories. Israel imprisons youth for refusing army service.
Noam Gur (left) and Alon Gurman at Tel Hashome army base today, April 16, 2012.
(Photo: Yotam Ronen/Activestills) For eighteen year-old Israelis, the threshold of adulthood is marked by a choice: enter the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and willfully serve in an occupying military, or get locked up. Noam Gur, 18 years old from Kiryat Motzkin, decided to get locked up. She is a refusenik and over the next few months she will likely serve multiple stints inside of an Israeli jail for refusing the military service that is required for all young Jewish-Israeli citizens.
Gur’s first 10-day jail term will begin this morning. “It’s feels like that’s the time I supposed to be freaking out, but that doesn’t seem to have happened,” said Gur in her diary on Mondoweiss last week. Gur is a self- identified “feminist, socialist, vegan, activist for Palestine, and a queer.” ‘I first went to prison on September 23 and served 35 days.
Omer Goldman with fellow Shministim, Tamar Katz & Miya Tamrin, 2008. Israeli soldiers talk about the occupied territories - database.
Breaking The Silence - Israeli soldiers talk about the occupied territories. Breaking the Silence › Testimony - Morals and war don't go together. Watch: Former IDF soldiers reveal nature of occupation. Breaking the Silence, the organization of former Israeli soldiers who literally “break their silence” by sharing experiences from their military service and exposing the IDF to criticism, launched a video campaign on YouTube this week in which soldiers are seen identifying themselves for the first time in front of the camera. A formal launch event took place Monday evening in Jaffa, at a highly fitting venue called “Na LaGa’at” (Please Touch) a theater/restaurant space operated by the deaf and blind.