RANT: THE MOST MORAL ARMY IN THE WORLD DOES THIS?

 

IN MY PREVIOUS POST I mentioned in a “FUN FACT” the episode of Israeli settlers in the West Bank vandalizing a neighbouring Palestinian farm and killing dozens of lambs (baby sheep). Their egregious behaviour was captured on CCTV video for all to see. But, instead of provoking condemnation from Israeli society, it was (and is) deemed acceptable, even admirable behaviour* by the majority of Jewish-Israelis. What kind of upside-down bizarro-world are we witnessing here? Something’s wrong. This cruel mistreatment of animals scarcely raises an eyebrow with most Jewish-Israelis; the lambs were Palestinian lambs, after all.

   

THIS PAST WEEK brought to the fore another video, this one recorded in July of last year and which went viral when the CCTV footage was made public. It depicts the sodomizing, using various objects, and gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner, at the infamous Sde Teiman prison camp in southern Israel where many Palestinian prisoners were sent following the October 7/2023 Hamas attacks. It is a disturbing and disgusting display of wanton cruelty that is a war crime in anyone’s books and should be considered a criminal act of the highest order by any sane government finding such abuse in its institutions. Not so in Israel.

IIRC, five IDF prison guards were remanded into custody pending charges. Early in the investigation they were to be questioned by the military police, but protestors at the Sde Teiman prison forced their release, complaining not about the despicable nature of their crime, caught red-handed on video, but rather the ‘injustice’ of holding IDF troops in custody, let alone charging them with what many in Israeli society do not consider a criminal act; abusers of Palestinian prisoners get an free pass by most Israelis. Meanwhile the trial of the five soldiers—on a lesser charge of “severely abusing” a Palestinian detainee—continues.👉NOTE: They were not charged with the more serious and consequential offence of rape.  

IN THE MOST RECENT turn of events in this sordid affair, two of the accused, wearing masks to conceal their identities, attended a procedural matter brought by their lawyers before the Israeli Supreme Court as part of their case. In the anteroom of the SC, groups of supporters applauded them vociferously, lauding them as heroes of the state. Also, this week came to notice the conclusion of the investigation into who had leaked the CCTV footage of the sexual attack to Israel’s Channel 12 television station. It turns out the leaker was Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Advocate General Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the head of the military’s criminal prosecutions department. She admitted her guilt in the matter and resigned her post. She then went missing for two days until she was found, in good health, remanded and charged with “obstruction of justice, unauthorised publication of classified material, and misleading senior officials during the investigation.” (Siasat) They are preparing to throw the book at the disgraced whistleblower. 

 

👉NOTE: Far more outrage (PM "Bibi" Netanyahu blew his stack!) was expressed against the leaker and the harm she did to the reputation of what Israeli officials call the “world’s most moral army”, than about the clear-cut facts of sexual violence and brutality perpetrated by soldiers of said moral army. Tomer-Yerushalmi is no radical. She fully subscribes to IDF goals and operations. She acted, she says, to demonstrate her service has agency with respect to bringing to justice wrong-doings committed by IDF personnel; leaking the video ensured proper attention to the case. This was her rationale for the leak and to ensure the CCTV video was not overlooked or lost. Surely, such a cut-and-dried case against these rapists warranted prosecution to the fullest extent of military law, and would put to rest complaints about their being relatively few guilty verdicts achieved by her agency, along with most prosecutions being stayed (not acted upon) with respect to IDF troops accused of crimes. In fact, according to studies:

 

 “Nearly nine out of 10 Israeli military investigations into allegations of war crimes or abuses by its soldiers since the start of the war in Gaza have been closed without finding fault or left without resolution, according to a conflict monitor.” (Guardian)

 

The British NGO Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said the low prosecution figures “suggested Israel was seeking to create a ‘pattern of impunity’ by failing to conclude or find no fault in the vast majority of cases involving ‘the most severe or public accusations of wrongdoing by their forces’”.

 

WANT TO BET the perps walk? Stay tuned for more news about the "world’s most moral army" from the world’s most moral country.

  

Cheers, Jake. __________________________________________

 

* IN A RECENT POST, Catlin Johnstone examines Israeli cultural norms and notes there is a word in Yiddish, “shitat matzliach” (shee-taht mahtz-lee-ach "the method that succeeds"), which is a common expression in Israel, describing how Israelis “test boundaries” in their social interactions. The word suggests they will push boundaries to see “how much they can get away with”, withdrawing for the time when they meet resistance, until they can once more “push the envelope” as we say in English. Phrases in English that are similar, such as: “putting one over”, “pulling the wool over their eyes”, “testing the waters”, let the buyer beware”, etc., are seen in specific instances of business transactions, for example. Other phrases might indicate advances in science or technology gleaned from 'pushing' the boundaries of experimental science. In other cases, such English phrases suggest an interaction that is deceitful and improper. Shitat Matzliach seems to suggest a way of interacting that is more commonplace in Jewish-Israeli life, and I’ll make the case it is also present in Israeli diplomacy and how Israel conducts its international relations. 

We’ve seen, time and again over these two painful years how Israel forcefully attacks another country (Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, in addition to Gaza and the West Bank), eventually bows to pressure from the international community (primarily the United States), then  inks a ceasefire deal, only to immediately break it and begin bombing once more with the excuse of “security issues” or whatever. They push forward with their attacks, stop when they hit significant resistance, (say the Trump White House complaining there were too many deaths in Gaza) but ‘ratcheting up’ their efforts and never quite returning to pre-pause levels. Shitat Matzliach writ large.

👉A comment by ret. U.S. Army Colonel Larry Wilkerson comes to mind. In looking at the international community’s laggardly response to the Gazan genocide, he said we have, as a collective, become “inured to bestiality.” By this he means we have grown accustomed to the mass murder conducted by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), and what we once would have found shocking, immoral, illegal and unacceptable, we now acquiese as the new norm. How else to explain Western governments continued relations with an apartheid, genocidal state?¹ Wilkerson suggests we are being ‘groomed’ to accept the unacceptable, one step (one massacre) at a time.

 

THERE IS ANOTHER word in Yiddish (Catlin notes) that describes those who let ‘boundary pushers’ have their way with them, that don’t push back or not at all. They’re called “freiers” (fry-er “suckers”, “patsies”). Until recently, I think many in Israel looked upon the international community as a bunch of freiers. [I like the words: putzes or schmucks. Ed.]

 

1. Recall that in the 1980’s the international community increasingly turned against South Africa’s apartheid rule that created a ‘two-tiered’ society of minority white rule over its majority black population. Along with imposing onerous sanctions on South Africa, in 1985 the UN General Assembly voted to revoke South Africa’s participation in the GA’s legislative work. It was restored to full UN membership in 1994 when Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) came to power. I personally think Israel’s membership in the United Nations should be revoked until there is a just and lasting peace in the Levant.

 

 

 

RANT: FROM THE RUINS, WHAT WILL COME?

 

“The humanitarian initiatives that you have that you and others have taken…they are not what is needed to take the Palestinians out of the genocide, out of the apartheid, out of the unlawful occupation. Many of you continue to treat Palestine as a humanitarian crisis to manage in perpetuity and I stand firmly against it in name of the name of justice and humanity” (Francesca Albanese: United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories)*

 

IT'S BEEN A BUSY FEW WEEKS on the current events calendar in West Asia (Middle East), hasn’t it? The shaky ceasefire in Gaza is holding—if you don’t count the 242 Palestinians killed by IDF forces (including 85 children) since the Trump-brokered ‘ceasefire’ began between Israel and Hamas on October10. It’s hardly a ceasefire when the Israelis repeatedly bomb and shell Gazans and continue demolishing housing and infrastructure in Gaza City, which had been left relatively intact since the start of the war. Israel can say, “Oops, my bad” only so often before everyone realizes they have no intention of stopping their goal of clearing Palestine of Palestinians, by whatever means necessary. Since October 10:

"An average of eight Palestinians are killed daily under the ongoing comprehensive blockade on the Gaza Strip, alongside a policy of deliberate starvation ... denial of medical treatment for the wounded and sick, and the deliberate hindrance of humanitarian aid." (Anadolu)

 

ISRAEL'S Satan spawn PM, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, along with his BFF Donald Trump have been busy devising plans for what some are calling “New Gaza”. The U.S. announced earlier in the week that a contingent of American soldiers would be stationed in Kiryat Gat, southern Israel, ostensively tasked with “coordinating and overseeing humanitarian aid into Gaza,” and replacing Israel’s Civil-Military Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) agency that did such a bang-up job earlier. I say “ostensively” because what appears to be happening is the recolonizing of the Gaza Strip, with the United States acting as the senior partner in the deal.

 

I’M NOT SURE if Bibi was forced to swallow this American initiative or if it is part of a long-term plan the two concocted to manage Gaza and leverage the maximum advantage for each country (to the detriment of the Palestinian people, of course). There have been recent discussions around watercoolers in the White House and Foggy Bottom about the United States establishing a military base beyond the “yellow line” of contact, as part of the U.S. president’s “Twenty-Point Peace Plan, that is to house up to ten-thousand non-NATO troops made up of cohorts from yet another “coalition of the willing” tasked with supervising the local authorities and keeping the peace in the occupied Palestinian enclave. The temporary force is to eventually cede their authority to a Palestinian police force free from any influence by Hamas. Overall authority in Gaza, under the Trump plan, is given to a temporary, transitions governance:

 

“…of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza, supervised by a "Board of Peace," which will be headed and chaired by Trump, with other members and heads of state to be announced, including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair.” [The same Tony Blair, British PM from 1997-2007, that promoted the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) hoax that kicked off the Iraq conflict in 2003.] The “board” will remain in place until such time the Palestinian Authority can take control. If ever.(BBC)

 

👉FUN FACT: To destabilize Gaza and keep its population fragmented and powerless, Israel funds local criminal gangs and jihadi terrorists. The al-Quwat al-Shaabiya (“Popular Forces”) is a criminal gang in Rafah that is responsible for dozens of hijackings of humanitarian aid entering Gaza, selling food to starving Palestinians at exorbitant black market prices. Other gangs and criminals are supported by Israel including ISIS-linked militia fighters from Syria and Egypt. The more damage Israel can inflict upon Gazan civil society, the more disorder it promotes keeping Gaza dysfunctional and dependant, the easier it will be to control the population and shape its fate to their will.

 

👉FUN FACT: I just had to put in this story from the West Bank. A couple of weeks ago, Israeli settlers raided a Palestinian farm where they tortured and butchered lambs. Some had their eyes gouged out or were crushed by heavy rocks or beaten with sticks. And all this was captured by security cameras. Blogger extraordinaire Catlin Johnstone says it best here. That such disgusting behaviour is condoned, even applauded as just another tool used to intimidate West Bank Palestinians into giving up their farms and orchards, their homes, and to move is emblematic of a deeply troubled and psychological ill society. Killing lambs!? Baaaad!

  

IT IS TOO SOON to tell how all this will shake out. Will Trump and Netanyahu achieve their aim of expelling (or exterminating) the Palestinian population of Gaza?¹ (Will settlers in the West Bank likewise evict Palestinians from their homeland?) Will the Trump/Netanyahu plan succeed in creating a dysfunctional Gazan ‘colony’, dependent on foreign elites for governance, like Trump’s Orwellian “Board of Peace”, and serviced by corrupt and compromised humanitarian aid agencies, like the Gazan Humanitarian Foundation, whose failings I posted about, here and here.

 

THE QUOTE by Francesca Albanese at the start of this post is instructive. She asks what kind of Gaza do we want to see at the end of all the bloodshed and pain—is it to be a colony of the West, with a permanent underclass and people living in a state of constant crisis, “managed in perpetuity”, as objects to be forever pitied, or, rather, do we want to see the people of the Occupied Palestinian lands (especially those living in the moonscape that is Gaza) as subjects in their own right, as independent actors free to form their own administrative structures, their own economies and social institutions expressive of their own culture?² I think most of us who have watched this horror show for the last two years would want the later status for the Palestinian people. What choice do we have?

 

CHEERS, JAKE.

_______________________________________________________

 

* RECALL that in early July, Ms. Albanese had sanctions put on her by the U.S. government, displeased as it was by her muckraking efforts to expose crimes against humanity committed by Israel against the Palestinian people, and the shameful complicity many in the international community find themselves, especially the United States. In her July report, “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide”, Albanese rebukes in the strongest terms the international community for its commercial and highly lucrative ties to the genocidal, apartheid state. Her report seems to have gotten under the skin of U.S. elites in government and business because she was denied a visa to attend the opening session of the United Nations in New York this past September. (She is a member of the UN’s Human Rights Council and has just begun her second, three-year mandate as a Special Rapporteur) However, she attended virtually and gave a further, equally blistering, report: “Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime”.  

AS ONE human rights group said of Albanese’s ban from travelling to New York to deliver her latest Gaza missive:

 

“Following the recent sanctions against the International Criminal Court, the measures announced today [Albanese’s visa ban] are a continuation of the Trump administration’s assault on international law and its efforts to protect the Israeli government from accountability at all costs. They are the latest in a series of Trump administration policies seeking to intimidate and silence those that dare speak out for Palestinians’ human rights. Instead of attacking the Special Rapporteur and further undermining the rule-based order, the US government should focus on putting an end to its unconditional support to Israel, enabling total impunity for its crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” (Amnesty International)

 

1. And don’t forget the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In the WB, in the last twenty years 1001 Palestinians have been killed in settler attacks, including one-hundred and seventy seven children. Killings since October 2023, represent over 40% of that total. Palestinians have been killed by fanatical Israeli settlers, aided and abbeted by state actors, such as right-wing, nut-bar extraordinaire Itmar Ben-Gviv who, as Israel’s security minister, provided arms to the settlers. There are 3.4 million Palestinians living in the West Bank along with six-hundred-and-seventy-thousand Israeli settlers illegally occupying Palestinian territory.

 

2. I personally feel the “two-state” solution is dead on arrival. The West Bank has been so divided by illegal Israeli settlements over the years that the chance of a viable Palestinian state is hard to imagine. And Gaza, for the last two decades until 7 October 2023, known as the “world’s largest open-air prison”³, is now a moonscape of rubble, destroyed  by a fuselage of Israelis shells and missiles, with tens of thousands killed and still more wounded and maimed for life. A single state of Palestine-Israel, SECULAR, with equal rights under the law for all its citizens, with reparations and justice meted out to genocidaires, could grow and thrive like a normal country. [I know. Jake’s being naïve, of course. How can Palestine-Israel become a ‘normal’ country after all this? Especially when there's nuclear weapons on the premises that allow Israel to act (along with the slavish support of the Unitied States) with impunity, ignoring the constraints (moral, ethical, legal, political) that most countries live with in dealing with their neighbours. Ed.]

 

3. The label is from David Cameron, former British PM, upon his visit to the Palestinian enclave in 2010.

 

                                   Since the ceasefire on October 10, Israel has killed at least 242 Palestinians, wounding 622.