Teaching them who's boss

[tinnypriv]

Teaching them who's boss
Ha'aretz, 18 February 2004

During the past three-and-a-half years, S., a veteran ambulance driver, has been evacuating victims injured by Israeli army gunfire and the bodies of those killed on the firing line in Rafah. Early in the morning of February 8, he was summoned to pick up an older man who was suffering an anxiety attack. His house, the family home of the Abu Labada family, had been seized by an Israel Defense Forces unit; his son Ashraf, who was not known in Rafah to be on the army's wanted list, fled from the house, and was shot and killed. The soldiers did not find the tunnel they were looking for. The other sons were arrested. Only the women and children were left in the house, held captive by the soldiers and the tanks that took up positions around the house for the next 15 hours.

Yet the task of evacuating the older man by ambulance was not at all simple. Despite coordination between Israeli and Palestinian liaison officers, the first ambulance that was dispatched turned back on its tracks when gunfire was directed at it from one of the Israeli armored vehicles. S. got into the second ambulance with another medical crewman. They, too, had the benefit of an okay from liaison officers on either side.

The distance between S. and the first tank that he saw near the house was 200 meters. The tank blocked his way to the entrance. On the radio, he was told to advance. He advanced some 20 meters, and then several shots were fired, striking the ground next to the ambulance. S., who has quite a bit of experience at these things, had no trouble getting the message: Stop where you are. He then looked for an alternate path to the house, and found it.

...

Once in the Abu Labada home, an army doctor led him to the father, with the intention of moving him to the ambulance. But at that point an officer called him over, and led him out to the yard, where the officer showed him the body of a dead man (whose identity was as yet unknown to S.). S. refused to transport the dead man and the live patient in the same ambulance. The officer permitted him to call for another ambulance. In the meantime, he relates, the officer had a camera and intended to photograph the body. There was a chicken coop in the yard. Upset by all the tumult, the chickens began flapping their wings. The rustling sounds alarmed the officer, who dropped the camera, leapt in the air, frantically looking in every direction and clutched his rifle. "The Israeli soldier is afraid of a chicken coop," S. thought. This fear is another aspect of Israeli control of the Gaza Strip.

When soldiers in Gaza are not in tanks or other armored vehicles, they hide behind reinforced concrete positions with narrow gun-slits - like the two positions at the Gush Katif roadblock that dictate the movement of thousands of cars and trucks making their way along the main north-south traffic artery of the Gaza Strip. There, sheltered from fear, seeing but unseen, they teach the Palestinians every day exactly who's the boss. There's no one to talk to. The roadblock shuts down for the night at 8 P.M.

...

More: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/395382.html

[DevinDNC]

1. As far as I am concerned the only TRUE Israelis are the Labor party guys

I used to like Yitzak Shamir because he was an admirer of the IRA, and used IRA tactics to drive Britian out of Palestine. However after reading the book "Gideon's Spies" I found out that Shamir is anti-American. Apparently Shamir blames America for not stopping the holocaust sooner. I guess the fact that we crushed the Nazis and the fact that Israel wouldn't last 48 hours without America, is unimportant to a loser like Shamir. The only guy worse then Shamir is a coward by the name of Rafi Eitan, former head of the Mossad. Eitan is also anti-American and he recruited that little dirt bag Johnathon Pollard to spy against America. Eitan was also dumb enough to get involved in Britians war against the IRA, which now means that he is a marked man for the rest of his life. Why a former member of the Jewish Irgun, would want to help England in it's oppression of Northern Ireland, is beyond me. Basically any Israeli who is in the Likud party is a racist nutcase. Ehud Barak...now there is a true warrior, and a credit to his race.

[tinnypriv]

2. If you want to see how much real difference there is between Likud

And Labor, I suggest you check any of the criticism that Yossi Beilin levels at Sharon (way out on the left in Israel).¹

The peace movements in Israel despair at Barak BTW, concluding (accurately) that he probably wrecked the left-wing for at least the next decade with his idiotic plans.

Note that Ehud Barak also kept operational orders secret from the civilian command when he was in the military, and directed operations against civilian targets (though that is not unusual, so it is unfair to single him out for it).²

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1. For a recent example, see Beilin's op-ed in Ma'ariv, 18 Feb 2004. Also, see the Hebrew "explanation" of the Geneva Accords, essentially his creation. Online at: http://www.heskem.org.il/principles.asp (a "hard sell", in the words of myself and others). It's an interesting demonstration of how far to the nationalistic right the political center in Israel has moved over the last few years.

2. See Tanya Reinhart, How to End the War of 1948.