Israel doesn't kill stone throwers...not on camera anyway

Here's a turn up in YNET.  Israeli soldiers in the West Bank were confronted by stone-throwers.

A video that surfaced over the weekend shows Palestinians stoning Israeli security forces, eventually forcing them to run for cover - similiar to the incident in Hebron.
Six IDF soldiers equipped with shields and crowd-dispersal means found themselves ambushed by a crowd of stone throwing Palestinians in the West Bank village of Kafr Qaddum. YNET people spoke to "S" and "T":

According to S., orders to open fire address situations of a clear and present danger and only if there is a person with the means and intent to kill. "But what is an angry mob throwing stones and sometimes rocks at you if not a life threatening situation?

I wouldn't order opening fire at a crowd of people but we can't have a situation where you stand in front of a person with a rock and start to ask yourself is this person life threatening. If I shoot at him I go to jail."

T's testimony was a tad more telling:

T., a combatant in an infantry brigade, also claims that soldiers are not equipped to handle the complex situation on the ground. "There's nothing more humiliating for a combatant than to see his friends run," he says.

He criticizes the army for sending such a small group of soldiers to Qaddum on Friday at a particularly volatile time.

T. says the cameras on the ground undermine the forces' efforts. "A commander or an officer sees a camera and becomes a diplomat, calculating every rubber bullet, every step. It's intolerable, we're left utterly exposed. The cameras are our kryptonite."

I see, so cameras are a constraint.  I don't know how Freudian the guy was being regarding kryptonite.  It's the only thing that can kill Superman.  Does this Israeli soldier really think that not being able to kill is the same thing as actually being dead?

Stevie Wonder pulls out of zionist gig in LA

Given his anti-racist credentials he shouldn't have been pulled in in the first place but it is good news that Stevie Wonder will not now be entertaining the Friends of the Israel "Defence" Force (FIDF).  Here's the Jewish Chronicle:

Stevie Wonder has bowed to political pressure and pulled out of a fundraising concert in Los Angeles in support of the Israeli Defence Forces.

The soul singer was due to perform at the annual Friends of the Israel Defense Forces dinner next Thursday, but his involvement with the group made him a target for supporters of a cultural boycott of Israel. A petition on the website Change.org called on him not to sing because the IDF was "an institution which promotes, enables, and protects Israel's Apartheid regime".

"We call on Stevie Wonder, as a conscientious American advocate for human rights and dignity not to support the Israeli Defense Force by performing at their gala fundraiser," wrote the petition organiser. Mr Wonder serves as a UN messenger of peace.

The director of FIDF expressed regret at Mr Wonder's decision to "cancel his performance at an important community event of the FIDF, an American organisation supporting the educational, cultural, and wellbeing needs of Israel's soldiers, their families, and the families of fallen soldiers.

Maj Gen Yitzhak Gershon added: "FIDF is a non-political organisation that provides much-needed humanitarian support regardless of religion, political affiliation, or military activity."

Yeah right.

 The question still has to be asked, are these people who agree to appear for or in Israel ignorant of its racist nature? I don't want to minimise the importance of these victories but anti-racists should be saying no to Israel from the word go, not simply after pressure is brought to bear.

Remember the Dalou family from Gaza

Up to 14 members of a single family, al-dalou, in Gaza city were murdered by Israeli bombs,
(but with the Obama administrations's approval, and the acquiesence of the whole world) .



http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=538794

 I look forward to the day I can post photos of the dead bodies of the generals and politicians responsible for this massacre.

Never forgive. Never forget.


UPDATE: The original post carried a "wrong" picture apparently from Syria's children murdered by the Assad regime. Quotation narks because there is a brotherhood of mass murderers. Replaced above with photos more "authentic".























Also, the person who sponsored these images regularly gets himself photo-oped with children, so please you too should note the difference between children who deserve to die and children who deserve to live

Divest from Caterpillar call follows bogus verdict in Rachel Corrie case

Just got this email from We Divest:

August 28, 2012

Press Contact:
Alissa Wise, National Coordinator, We Divest Campaign
info@wedivest.org
267-357-4314

Human Rights Advocates Intensify Call for Divestment as Israeli Court Fails to Provide Justice in Killing of American Peace Activist 

The We Divest Campaign, a national coalition demanding pension fund giant TIAA-CREF divest from companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, is intensifying its call for divestment from Caterpillar Inc. in the wake of an Israeli court ruling today siding with the government in the civil court case brought by the Corrie family. The case alleged that the State of Israel was responsible for the killing of 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death by a Caterpillar bulldozer as she attempted to use nonviolent civil disobedience to stop the destruction of Palestinian homes by the Israeli army in Gaza in March 2003. The court’s decision followed an Israeli investigation that the US ambassador to Israel recently criticized as lacking credibility.

In a series of actions timed to coincide with the issuing of the verdict, human rights advocates in cities across the US will protest in front of local TIAA-CREF offices this week and deliver a letter urging trustees to divest fully from Caterpillar and other companies that profit from Israeli human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories. The We Divest Campaign is supported by the Corrie family and the Rachel Corrie Foundation.

“At the time of her death, Rachel was trying to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes by Caterpillar bulldozers,” said Riham Barghouti, a member of the We Divest National Coordinating Committee. “Israel’s illegal policy of destroying Palestinian homes in the occupied territories, sometimes extending to entire villages, remains as urgent an issue today as it was when Rachel was killed. In Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and Hebron Hills, Palestinians continue to live with the daily threat of their homes and property being confiscated or demolished by Israeli authorities. If TIAA-CREF trustees want to live up to their motto of investing ‘for the greater good,’ they must stop profiting from companies such as Caterpillar that are enabling Israel to carry out such gross human rights violations.”

While TIAA-CREF recently dropped $72 million worth of Caterpillar shares from its social choice funds, following the lead of ethical investment ratings agency MSCI, which downgraded Caterpillar in February in part over concerns about the use of the company’s products by the Israeli military, it continues to invest over $1 billion in Caterpillar through its general fund. 

_______________________________________________________________________

The We Divest Campaign is a national coalition initiated byJewish Voice for Peace in July 2010 and includes the American Friends Service Committee, Adalah-NY,Grassroots International, the US Palestinian Community Network, and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

 Nothing to add

Rotten sardines caught in Turkish facebook dragnet

Names of the small criminals who followed the criminal orders of the big criminals and committed piracy (actually, that is unfair to real pirates) and murder on the high seas, while taking over the Mavi Marmara.

Agai Yehezkel, Aharon Haliwa, Alex Shakliar, Amir Ulo, Amir Abste, Amir Shimon Ashel, Anna Strelski, Anton Siomin, Aram Zehavi, Ariel Brickman, Ariel Karo, Ariel Rifkin, Ariel Yochanan, Arnon Avital, Assaf Bryt, Avi Balut, Avi Bnayahu, Avi Mizrakhi, Avi Peled, Aviad Perri, Aviel Siman, Avihay Wizman, Avihu Ben Zahar, Avishay Levi, Avishay Shasha, Aviv Edri, Aviv Kochavi, Aviv Mendelowitz, Baruch (Barry) Berlinsky, Basam Alian, Ben-Zion (Benzi) Gruver, Bnaya Sarel, Boaz Dabush, Boaz Rubin, Boris Schuster, Dado Bar- Kalifa, Dan Dolberg, Dan Harel, Daniel Kotler, David Shapira, David Slovozkoi, David Zini, Eden Atias, Eden Atias, Efraim Aviad Tehila, Efraim Avni, Eitan Ben-Gad, Elad Chachkis, Elad Itzik, Elad Shoshan, Elad Yakobson, Eli Fadida, Eli Yafe, Eliezer Shkedi, Elik Sror, Eran Karisi, Erez Sa'adon, Eyal Eizenberg, Eyal Handelman, Eyal Zukowsky, Gil Shen, Gur Rozenblat, Gur Schreibmann, Guy Givoni, Guy Hazut, Haggai Amar, Hanan Schwart, Harel Naaman, Hila Yafe, Ido Nechushtan, Ilan Malka, Itay Virob, Liran Nachman, Michelle Ben-Baruch, Miki Ohayon, Moshe Tamir, Nadav Musa, Nathan Be'eri, Nezah Rubin, Nimrod Schefer, Nir Ben-David, Nir Dupet, Nir Ohayon, Niv Samban, Noam Keshwisky, Ofek Gal, Ofer Lahad, Ofer Levi, Ofer Winter, Ofer Zafrir, Ofir Edri, Ohad Girhish, Ohad Najme, Omer Dori, Omri Dover, Or Nelkenbaum, Oren Bersano, Oren Cohen, Oren Kupitz, Oren Zini, Pinkhas Buchris, Raz Sarig, Ron Asherov, Ron Levinger, Ron Shirto, Ronen Dan, Ronen Dogmi, Roi Elkabetz, Roi Oppenheimer, Roi Weinberger, Sahar Abargel, Shai Belaich, Shaked Galin, Sharon Itach, Shaul Badusa, Shay Unger, Shimon Siso, Shiran Mussa, Shlomit Tako, Tal Alkobi, Tal Bendel, Tal Kommemi, Tal Ruso, Tamir Oren, Tamir Yadai, Tom Cohen, Tomer Meltzmann, Geva Rapp, Tslil Birbir, Udi Sagie, Uri Ron, Yair Keinan, Yair Palay, Ya'akov(Yaki) Dolf, Yaniv Zolicha, Yaron,Finkelman, Yaron Simsulo, Yehosua (Shuki) Ribak, Yehu Ofer, Yehuda Fuchs, Yehuda Hacohen, Yigal Slovik, Yigal Sudri, Yizhar Yona, Yoav Galant, Yoav Gertner, Yoav Mordechai, Yochai Siemann, Yochanan Locker, Yom-Tov Samia, Yonathan Barenski, Yonathan Felman, Yoni Weitzner, Yossi Abuzaglo, Yossi Bahar, Yossi Beidaz, Yotam Dadon, Yishai Ankri, Yishai Green, Yuval Halamish, Zion Bramli, Zion Shankour, Ziv Danieli, Ziv Trabelsi, Zuf Salomon, Zvi Fogel, Zvi Yehuda Kelner.

The list of the big criminals is easier to compile, beginning with Obama, Netanyahu, and Ashkenazi. For some reasons, the Turkish government doesn't list Obama, although no Israel crime is possible without his approval.

If the people on this list think twice before landing in any airport other than the one is ethnically cleansed Lydda, that's already the beginning of accountability.

Now, this list, compiled by the Turkish government, mostly based on facebook, may or may not be accurate. Of course, Israel could provide the accurate list.

IDFistan: the mini-me of the Military-Industrial-Complex

The penny drops in Haaretz. The IDF junta runs the country for all intent and purpose.

The defense establishment is, for all intents and purposes, a distinct sector. From the defense minister to the army, its senior officers who serve in the standing army to those who leave the service, to the Shin Bet security service and the Mossad; all of these entities comprise a group which operates with full autonomy.

The defense establishment has a hierarchy, institutions, services, media outlets and its own legal system. It has nearly unlimited resources in the form of real estate (close to half of the land in the state is in the hands of the army and is managed exclusively by the army), personnel (Israeli citizens within a wide range of ages stand at its disposal without pay and are used as the army sees fit), and the largest budget in the state, a budget of which no one outside of the defense establishment really knows the details.

This is a community of the privileged, a vast majority of whom are men enjoying bloated salaries, pensions and generous employment benefits in addition to unblemished reputations as individuals who "risk their lives for the security of the state."

They also enjoy immunity from criticism and others meddling in their affairs because, after all, they protect our very existence. There is no more symbolic indication of this group's superior status than the fact that the chief of staff earns a salary nearly twice that of the prime minister.

Those who truly risk their lives are in the minority, and most of them do not belong to the highest strata of the group. The clique itself - like every clique - is preoccupied with first and foremost preserving its own security: its interests, its standing, its benefits and those of the individuals comprising it.

As the benefits improve, the interest to preserve them grows further. The power wielded by the security establishment grows whenever Israel finds itself in a situation where it faces "an existential threat" and "a security danger."

It is then that it pours money, its best people, its energies and its skills into defense. This is what happens when the interests of the defense sector diverge from the interests of the state which subsidizes it and which it purports to defend.

... without threats and wars, the defense establishment loses the rationale for its existence and the individuals comprising it lose their substantial clout, which is also worth a great deal of money. (Merav Michaeli, Haaretz)

Haaretz, especially through the growing importance of its business section "The Marker", which has grown into both a supplement, a chromo magazine, and even a women magazine, is the newspaper of the businessman. In this is continues its long tradition as a voice of Israel's bourgeoisie, especially attuned to the concerns of its middle managers and its intelligentsia. The conflict between this sector and the growing shifts in power in Israel (with the rise of nationalist right, the religious sector and the settlers) has been growing progressively since the eighties. It is also an ethnic tension, with the paper a bastion of Israeli Ashkenazi whiteness. At the same time, the conflict is muted by the ubiquity of the army and the importance of the army as both a consumer of business and career path. We need these contradictions to grow further, and the best way to do it is BDS. The Haaretz reader, with his or her global aspiration and consciousness, her stake in Israel's globally networked economy and her claim of enlightenment, is the most vulnerable to the pressure of BDS.

Keep pushin, folks!

UK law amendments intended to shield Israeli war criminals

From the London-based Arab-language newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi, as translated by BBC, July 11:

Al-Quds al-Arabi editorial: "British Law Amendments Aim To Shield Israeli War Criminals"

British Justice Minister Jack Straw, who was one of the closest aides of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, the main ally of the United States in their wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, is preparing to introduce serious amendments to British law that would repeal the rules that allow trials of war criminals passing through Britain and confine British jurisdiction to trials of British nationals or foreign residents living in the UK and suspected of committing war crimes.

The aim of these amendments is to prevent human rights organizations from suing Israeli officials and military officers suspected of committing war crimes against the Palestinians and the Lebanese in the war on Gaza early this year and the war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006.

These amendments, scheduled to be passed by the British parliament next autumn, conflict with international law which requires all states to try war criminals wherever they may be. Moreover, these amendments also constitute an insult to Western values of justice as well as human rights organizations.

Trying British nationals and foreign residents in the UK suspected of committing war crimes is certainly a good thing. Britain was one of the main participants in formulating rules of international law for the trial of Nazi war criminals who committed crimes against Jews, and therefore it is required today to stick to those laws and to tighten them so as to include people suspected of committing war crimes against Arabs and Muslims or against any other nationality or ethnic minority, and to let them know that there is no safe haven for them in the free world.

It was because of the British strict laws that many Israeli generals accused of committing war crimes used to avoid the UK, lest they be apprehended and tried for war crimes they committed in Qana in south Lebanon, and in Gaza in south Palestine, where thousands of civilians were killed or wounded.

It does seem that the Israeli lobby has succeeded in pressurizing the British Labour government to change these laws, so as to allow Israeli war criminals to visit the UK and pass through British territory without fear or anxiety, just as they succeeded in bringing about similar amendments in the laws of other countries such as Spain. Such amendments make it clear that the UK and Europe would only amend their criminal laws for two main reasons: the first is to tighten the noose on Muslims and target them on the pretext of combating terrorism; the second is to shield Israeli war criminals and to prevent trials for the massacres they have committed.

The British emergency laws which allow the detention without trial, of any person who in the opinion of the security forces constitutes a threat to British national security, and for as long as possible, only came into being after 11 September 2001, with a view to applying them to Muslim personalities, or using them to threaten and terrorize the British Muslim community, scores of whom are now in detention without trial.

We are calling on human rights organizations in the UK to launch a campaign objecting to these amendments and to prevent their adoption by the British parliament, as their adoption will tarnish Britain's reputation, British law, British democracy, and respect for the rules of international law.

War criminals and those of the children and grandchildren of the holocaust survivors who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity should not escape justice, whether in Britain, or any other European state. And the same should apply to British war criminals who caused the death of a million Iraqis in the second war against Iraq.

Gaza invasion: Israeli troops claim ‘shoot first, worry later’ order

Breaking the Silence has compiled testimony from soldiers who participated in the "Cast Lead" Gaza invasion which suggests they were told "when in doubt, shoot." From Reuters:

Gaza invasion: Some Israeli troops claim ‘shoot first, worry later’ order

JERUSALEM, July 15 — Israel rejects charges by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and UN agencies that its January invasion of the Gaza Strip inflicted civilian death and destruction on an unjustifiable scale.

Now, some of the Israeli soldiers who took part say they were urged by commanders to shoot first and worry later about sorting out civilians from combatants. Accordingly, they say, the force went into Gaza with guns blazing. In print and video testimony published tomorrow by the activist group Breaking the Silence, the 30 soldiers say the Israeli army’s imperative was to minimise its own casualties to ensure Israeli public support for the operation.

“Better hit an innocent than hesitate to target an enemy,” is a typical description by one unidentified soldier of his understanding of instructions repeated at pre-invasion briefings and during the 22-day operation, from December 27 to January 18.

“If you’re not sure, kill. Fire power was insane. We went in and the booms were just mad,” says another. “The minute we got to our starting line, we simply began to fire at suspect places.

“In urban warfare, anyone is your enemy. No innocents.”

[...]

Their narratives “are enough to bring into question the credibility of the official IDF versions”.


USE OF CIVILIANS

Except for a sergeant named Amir, the soldiers are anonymous and their faces digitally blurred. Transcribed statements can be viewed at www.breakingthesilence.org.il. The group said it had funding from Israeli human rights groups and the governments of Britain, the Netherlands and Spain, and from the European Union.

“We believe that the existence of a moral society clearly requires a profound, honest discussion, of which the voice of soldiers on the ground is an inseparable part,” the group says.

Soldiers describe a “Neighbour Procedure” in which civilians were forced to enter suspect buildings ahead of troops. They cite cases of civilians advancing in front of a soldier resting his rifle on their shoulder.

The report repeats charges – denied by Israel – that white phosphorus was fired indiscriminately into Gaza streets. It cites “massive destruction was unrelated to any direct threat to Israeli forces” and “permissive” rules of engagement.

“We did not get instructions to shoot at anything that moved,” says one soldier. “But we were generally instructed: if you feel threatened, shoot. They kept repeating to us that this is war and in war opening fire is not restricted.”

To strip away cover for Hamas fighters, aerial bombardment, artillery, demolition charges and armoured bulldozers razed whole areas including gardens, and olive and orange groves.

“We didn’t see a single house that was intact . . . that was not hit. The entire infrastructure, tracks, fields, roads, was in total ruin. The D-9 (bulldozer) had gone over everything,” the report quoted a soldier as saying.

“There was a clear feeling, and this was repeated whenever others spoke to us, that no humanitarian consideration played any role in the army at present. The goal was to carry out an operation with the least possible casualties for the army.”

[...]

The testimony suggests that “the massive and unprecedented blow to the infrastructure and civilians of the Gaza Strip was a direct result of IDF policy”.

UPDATE: Breaking the Silence: 30 testimonies on Cast Lead

Vignettes from an enlightened regime

While everybody is really angry at those thuggish basij militiamen (and be sure not to think that this is an endorsement of any kind), Gideon Levy reminisces. An IDF officer was caught lying. He misrepresented the events that led to an accident with an off-road army vehicle, and was demoted one rank. That infuriates a lot of Israelis who think the poor soldier was wrongly done in by his excessively harsh commanders. This is a good occasion for a Gideon Levy episode for "lies that my army told me". Enjoy!

We can go back all the way to 1948 and dredge up no few episodes in which the truth was not exactly our guiding light. It all began then. With lies, concealment, obfuscation, forgetting, repression. With massacres covered up by fairy tales and forests planted by the Jewish National Fund covering the ruins of villages. But why go back that far, if recent examples are readily at hand, even from the period following the Tamir case?

A few days earlier, soldiers abused six Palestinian youngsters from the village of Wadi al-Shajneh for 14 hours nonstop, imprisoning and beating them until finally dumping them onto the road from a jeep at first light. One of the victims reported that his money had been taken, too. These young people were also innocent of any wrongdoing. The fact is that they were not officially arrested, and were not even interrogated. What did the IDF spokesman say in response? "Two Molotov cocktails were thrown at an IDF force ... Six Palestinians who were identified in the vicinity were arrested by the force." Say that again: "identified in the vicinity." Again the question arises: If they threw Molotov cocktails, why were they released after their "Clockwork Orange" night? And if they did not throw anything, why were they detained, and above all, what is the spokesman protecting, and why?

Let's go back another few weeks. In March, an IDF sniper fired a bullet into the head of Mahdi Abu Ayash, a 16-year-old boy, in front of his father. The marksman used a Ruger 0.22 caliber rifle, which the military advocate general has banned for use in crowd dispersal events. What were we told by the IDF spokesman? "During activity by an IDF force in the village of Beit Omar, a violent disturbance developed ... The force retaliated with crowd dispersal measures." Bingo.

In January 2008 Kifah Sider, then 23, was in labor at her home in Hebron's Tel Rumeida neighborhood, which is dominated by Jewish settlers and barred to Palestinian vehicles, including ambulances. According to her husband, when she set out for the hospital, soldiers at the checkpoint held her up for 20 minutes, until she eventually had to lie down on the road in the freezing January weather to give birth.

What did the IDF spokesman say about this? "The Palestinian woman passed through the checkpoint with no delay whatsoever ... The IDF employed all means possible in order to assist the mother in labor." It's one account versus another, but why should we think that the husband and the eyewitnesses would lie? In another case, Fauziyah al-Darek, a 66-year-old woman who had a serious heart attack, was being rushed to the hospital in Tul Karm in March 2008. That's Tul Karm, not Kfar Sava. Unfortunately for her, she had to go through a checkpoint. The soldiers would not allow her to pass and told her husband - now a widower - "We don't care if your wife dies." Yes, Darek died at the checkpoint.

The IDF spokesman offered the following response: "The IDF does not prevent the passage of ambulances even if there is an encirclement operation, subject to a security check."

Week after week, the stories published here about the Israeli occupation are accompanied by a response from the IDF spokesman, and almost every week, the response is a lie. Nor are these white lies: they are blacker than black, even though they whitewash the wrongs and the injustices. Hundreds of cold-blooded assassinations have been carried out under the lying cover of the "rules of engagement," including shooting at innocent and unarmed demonstrators under the false pretext of "mortal danger" to soldiers. Hundreds of other cases are buried under the category of "Military Police investigations" and never reach the indictment stage.

In January 2009, soldiers forced Yasser Temeizi to get off his mule in front of his young son and abducted him from their small olive grove. Temeizi was a devoted employee of the Harash company in Ashdod, but during January's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza his employers asked him not to come to work. So he started to work the family's olive grove. At the end of the day he was found shot to death from point-blank range, with signs of binding on his hands. This time, the IDF made do with a laconic statement: "The matter is under investigation by the criminal investigations division [of the Military Police]." This is the same Military Police whose appalling methods were exposed and severely criticized this week by the court that sentenced Brig. Gen. Tamir. The court termed its findings about the Military Police investigation "an earthquake," although this aspect of the affair was of course concealed from the public by Tamir-Dreyfus, our victim. If this is how the Military Police investigations unit behaved with regard to a brigadier general, it's not hard to imagine how it deals with the killing of a bound Palestinian. How do we know? It is an incontrovertible fact that some 4,800 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF in the past nine years, about 950 of them children (according to B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories). How many indictments have been handed down in the IDF? Thirty, no more. That's less than one percent of the number of killings. How many soldiers have been convicted? Five. How many have been sentenced to a significant prison term? One. One soldier out of 4,800 cases of killing. No more need be said.

Nor is there any need to elaborate on the lie about "the most moral army in the world," certainly not after Operation Cast Lead. The soldiers in the Rabin Pre-Army Preparatory Course lied, the foreign correspondents who visited Gaza lied, Amira Hass lied in her reports, the international human-rights organizations lied, the United Nations relief agency lied. Only the IDF, which buried all those reports and protests, told the truth and nothing but the truth.

Israel has just prevented another official UN commission of inquiry, headed by Judge Richard Goldstone, a South African Jew and a Zionist, from entering the country in order to investigate the Gaza war - as though we were North Korea or Myanmar. If all the accounts were truthful, what is there to hide? All the lies of daddy Tamir pale into insignificance in the face of the lies of that war, with its horrific flechette shells that scatter their lethal steel projectiles every which way; the white phosphorus, which burns living flesh; the shelling of schools; the bombing of residential neighborhoods;0 and the annihilation of whole families who did nothing wrong. The IDF covered up all these actions with its lies, multiple versions and half-truths. Even calling such a brutal attack on a helpless, besieged population, almost without any manifestations of combat and resistance, a "war," is a lie. (Haaretz, June 25 2009)

And by the way, who is that persecuted officer whose career was so damaged by a silly lie about an accident, and whom Levy acerbically likens to Dreyfus?

From his stint as commander of the Golani infantry brigade - when his troops twice shelled the Jenin market (2002), killing several children, including two small brothers - to Operation Autumn Clouds in Gaza (2006) which he commanded, he has been responsible for wanton bloodshed, with at least half the 80 Palestinians killed on his watch being civilians. Nor should we forget the notorious shelling of the Gaza town of Beit Hanun under his command and responsibility (also in 2006), in which a volley of 11 unnecessary shells were fired at a residential neighborhood, in the wake of which the Israel Defense Forces of course blamed the cannon's computer chip instead of the division commander, Chico Tamir.

Martyrs persecuted beyond death

Death doesn't end the persecution by the state.

The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were circulated around the world.

Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said.

"We just know that they [the family] were forced to leave their flat," a neighbour said. The Guardian was unable to contact the family directly to confirm if they had been forced to leave.

The government is also accusing protesters of killing Soltan, describing her as a martyr of the Basij militia. Javan, a pro-government newspaper, has gone so far as to blame the recently expelled BBC correspondent, Jon Leyne, of hiring "thugs" to shoot her so he could make a documentary film. ...

In accordance with Persian tradition, the family had put up a mourning announcement and attached a black banner to the building.

But the police took them down, refusing to allow the family to show any signs of mourning. The next day they were ordered to move out. Since then, neighbours have received suspicious calls warning them not to discuss her death with anyone and not to make any protest. (The Guardian)

To readers of JSF all this should sound awfully familiar, the persecution of the families of martyrs, the disruption of funerals, and of course the fabrications, all standard operating procedures of the IDF. Let's refresh our memories with just a few stories. Click on the links to read the full account. Of course these stories would never get the amount of publicity that oppression in Iran gets.

First a recent one from Bil'in

Hundreds of mourners, including several Palestinian leaders, clergy and political activists, left the Ramallah hospital with Yosef A'qel Srur's body. They took to the streets to accompany the man, who was shot in the chest with a live bullet by Israeli soldiers on Friday, to his grave.

The procession chanted slogans affirming their belief in non-violent resistance and dedication to the struggle against the wall....

When the funeral procession arrived to the entrance to the village, four Israeli military checkpoints were set up. Mourners were forced out of their vehicles and walked the rest of the way to the village, said Salah Al-Khawaja, coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Ni'lin. (IMEU)

And an old one from the first intifada:

At 10 pm the word spreads that the army has finally brought Salem's body back. We follow Firas' fiery but warm-hearted mother through the dark streets to the church where the funeral is to be held. There, soldiers block the entrance to prevent anyone, even relatives, from entering. Since only 30 persons are allowed in, and they are all coming by bus, everyone else must go home. With our foreign identity still protected by darkness, we hurry to join the dozens of other young men defying the army by hiding in the cemetery. "It is not Israel's right to tell me I can't bury my cousin," Issa Musleh says angrily, as men stand around waiting for the body to be handed over.(WRMEA)

And this one from Gaza recently, also the parents not even notified of the murder of their child.

If you watch the video below, which was taken by an ISM Gaza, you will notice that despite the soldiers knowing that we are UNARMED CIVILIANS and “searching for a body,” they shot at us directly and close, particularly once the body was found. They went out of their jeeps and hummers, thus, knowing that we pose not threat to them, shooting was whimsical. They shoot according to their moods and whims. “They [Israelis] knew that they shot an unarmed boy. They knew they killed him. They said no word of it!” (Intifada Palestine)

As for the lies and the horrible stories invented about the victims and how they died, there are legion: remember James Miller, Muhammad al-Dura, Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall ... (click on these links only on an empty stomach)

The Khameini regime is happy to flatter itself with its defense of Palestine and everybody notes that is one of the pillars of its legitimity. But they behave in the same despiccable way when their power is questioned. Power has its own built in universality. Not only do thugs and their masters learn from each other, but they also often come to the same "solutions" to their problems independently.

Of course, most of the hypocrites who are so shocked with the behavior of the Iranian government during this crisis don't even blink at the fact that this is normal behavior in Israel for decades. Obama criticized Palestinians in Cairo for not following the ways of Martin Luther King, but passed in silence Israel's routine murder of protesters like Martin Luther King. Those Iranians who justifiably resent the Western politicians' and media hypocritical attention need only carry signs "Free Palestine" to their next protest to see Gordon Brown and the BBC losing all their feigned sympathy.

Hey ma, look what I did to an Arab & loaded onto You Tube

From Ha'aretz:

Border Policemen have filmed themselves abusing and humiliating Palestinians in videos they have posted on YouTube over the past year.

In one clip uploaded to the video sharing website an Arab youth is shown in arid terrain, slapping himself, while a voice is heard instructing him to say "I love you, Border Police," and "I will f**k you, Palestine," in Arabic. The victim is forced to respond to everything he is ordered to do, to the raucous laughter of the cameraman and his friends, all Border Policemen.

And they wonder why Ronaldo won't play Tel Aviv?

UPDATE: You Tube removed the video, but not before someone downloaded it. It's now reposted on Blip.tv.

Also: Ha'aretz Friday Magazine has published a longer article.

Herrenvolk humor

I bet you noticed this article. The obscene jokes mentioned in it are listed at MondoWeiss.



On the right, shirt ordered by the demolition unit of the Regiment 13 from the Golani Brigade, depicting the demolition of a mosque and the punch line (or shall we say 'the dynamite line'?), "Only God forgives." On the left is a shirt made for the "graduates" of a sharpshooting course. It shows a child holding a gun in the crosshair with the text, "Smaller is harder."

Of course, the official spokesperson of the Herrenvolk Army says that

The designs are printed at the soldiers' private initiative, and on civilian shirts. The examples raised by Haaretz are not in keeping with the values of the IDF spirit, not representative of IDF life, and are in poor taste.

And Ethan Bronner from the NY Times, says that the horrible death and destruction in Gaza

seem like the painful but inevitable outcome of a modern army bringing war to an urban space.

But the makers of the designs, being trained to kill but not (yet) to prostitute their mind (first army, then university), disagree:

Some of the people who saw it told me, 'Is that what you've got to show for the IDF? That it destroys homes?' I can understand people who look at this from outside and see it that way, but I was in Gaza and they kept emphasizing that the object of the operation was to wreak destruction on the infrastructure, so that the price the Palestinians and the leadership pay will make them realize that it isn't worth it for them to go on shooting. So that's the idea of 'we're coming to destroy' in the drawing." (my emphasis)

But what do soldiers know? If Ethan Bronner and Marc Regev say Israel tries to limit damage to civilians, surely this soldier simply misunderstood the orders, didn't he?

And this one did too:

At first the specified action was to go into a house. We were supposed to go in with an armored personnel carrier called an Achzarit [literally, Cruel] to burst through the lower door, to start shooting inside and then ... I call this murder ... in effect, we were supposed to go up floor by floor, and any person we identified - we were supposed to shoot. I initially asked myself: Where is the logic in this? (Haaretz)

And the guy who tells this story, what does he know, not being a New York Times journalist and all?

One of our officers, a company commander, saw someone coming on some road, a woman, an old woman. She was walking along pretty far away, but close enough so you could take out someone you saw there. If she were suspicious, not suspicious - I don't know. In the end, he sent people up to the roof, to take her out with their weapons. From the description of this story, I simply felt it was murder in cold blood.

Now when you come to think about the birth control advert that another sharpshooting unit ordered for their T-shirts:

This is the legacy of Meretz and the rest of the "Zionist left", and its very original idea of combatting racism with...racism, a.k.a. "the demographic threat," which is Meretz's best argument in favor of "peace."

The "Palestinian State" that the Israeli "left" advocates and the bullets of the sharpshooters are two solutions for the same "problem": Palestinian children.

But as Israel proves, widespread use of prophylactics does not make for better people.

Turkey and Israel mud wrestle

Following up on the surprisingly tough performance of Turkish PM Erdogan at Davos, Zionist apologists finally hit argument no 4, everybody suck.

Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi is a veteran professional officer, graduate of the Reali military academy, the Golani reconnaissance unit and the Shin Bet security service, who returned to the career army and moved up the ranks of the Armored Corps to command the 36th Division in the Golan Heights. On election day, Mizrahi gave a talk at the Tactical Command College, at the Glilot base, where he blasted a new adversary: Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister.

Mizrahi - who formerly served as the Army Headquarters' (the IDF ground forces) representative to the U.S. armed forces and frequently met with other army commanders who had been involved in the fighting in Kosovo and Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan - chose the platform of the international conference to deliver a sharp message. He attacked Erdogan for what the Turkish leader imputed to President Shimon Peres at another international conference, the World Economic Forum in Davos. He did not leave it at a clear allusion to the massacre of the Armenians and the suppression of the Kurds, but mentioned the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus as well. In response to Erdogan's call for Israel to be expelled from the United Nations, Mizrahi suggested that Turkey should be paired with Israel on such an occasion. ( Haaretz ).

Not a bad idea at all!

Mizrahi, however, is not the sharpest pencil in the box. Up until now, the row between Turkey and Israel was symbolic. Both Turkey and Israel are countries with an oversize military, and a generals' junta that considers civilian rule (and civilians in general), an annoyance. The ties between the Israeli military and the Turkish military are much more important to both sides than the barbs exchanged between politicians.

Mizrahi's tirade was noted immediately by the Turkish generals, who warned that this wasn't Davos. This time it was serious:

The Turkish military also denounced Mizrahi's remarks, saying they "distort the realities and are excessive, unfortunate and unacceptable."

Such comments "can harm national interests in relations between the two countries," the statement said.

"We expect the Israeli general staff, which we believe places importance on relations with the Turkish armed forces, to clarify the issue," it added. (AFP)

Israel and its apologists cannot win this. They can either not respond to the harsh (and fully justified) criticism of the popular and moderately Islamic Turkish government, thus allowing Turkey to take the lead in representing regional public opinion and applying pressure on Israel. Or they can follow Mizrahi and shove in Turkey's face the (fully justified) accusations about the thuggish history of the Turkish military, destroying the military ties between the countries.

The best Israel can do is contain the damage, muzzle Mizrahi, apologize, and hope that the Turkish generals will put pressure on Erdogan to reciprocate with moderation. The IDF already distanced itself from Mizrahi's remarks.

The best we can hope is that the pressure on Erdogan to continue to speak bluntly will have the upper hand.

---

The deteriorating relations are already having an economic impact.

Industry insiders have admitted that the main export lines to Turkey – agriculture and chemicals – have already begun suffering the consequences, as the Turkish government body which subsidizes their contracts declared an embargo on Israeli-made equipment.

Another field of commerce bracing for a blow is that of defense exports. Turkey has one of the largest armies in the world and Israel's Elbit Systems Ltd. and Aerospace Industries (IAI) signed a $141 million deal with its air force just days before the diplomatic crisis erupted.

"They wouldn’t have won the bid today," said a source in the defense establishment. "Elbit and IAI are lucky to have signed it prior to the war in Gaza. Still, it may take Turkey longer to materialize it." (Ynet)

I bet the Turkish army is not happy about the boycott pressure. But it cannot say it.