UPDATE. Israelische soldate poseert met Palestijnse gevangenen. 12 artikelen. VIDEO
Reageer (2)Note that the government of Israel did not tell the soldiers to stop mistreating prisoners, only to stop publishing pictures of the maltreatment. (WRH)
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DesertPeace
THE UGLINESS OF ZIONISM EPITOMISED
“I am in favor of a Jewish-Zionist State. I defend what has been rightfully mine for ages. I would even slaughter, not only abuse, the Arabs.”
An epitome of the Israeli Jewish society
By Khalid Amayreh
25-8-2010
An Israeli female soldier, named Eden Abergil, has recently posted photos on Facebook of herself in uniform smiling beside bound and blindfolded Palestinian detainees.
In a certain sense, the Eden’s collections of photos represented a poor mimicry of the pornographic scenes revealed at the Abu Ghreib detention facility in Iraq a few years ago.
The untold message Abegril apparently wanted to communicate sounded like this: “These are my sexual objects, I deal with them as I deem fit. I am the master; their lives are in my hands. They are my playboys.”
When Abegril was criticized for “besmirching the IDF image, she went wild:
“I can’t allow Arab lovers to ruin the perfect life I lead,” wrote. “I am not sorry and I don’t regret it.”
She added “I am in favor of a Jewish-Zionist State. I defend what has been rightfully mine for ages. I would even slaughter, not only abuse, the Arabs.”
Well, I don’t know if the Gestapo behaved similarly with Jewish detainees in the course of the Second World War. What is sufficiently clear to me though is that this woman’s sick behavior, especially her invocation of Zionism as a justification for her brutal sadism, is by no means an isolated case in a society suffering from a deep collective psychosis.
This is why it is safe to assume that this type of behavior represents the modus operandi in the Israeli occupation army as well as throughout the Israeli Jewish society as a whole.
It is a society that has come to view the Palestinians as “objects for abuse” rather than “human beings.” This is what makes Israeli soldiers so callously and so nonchalantly and haphazardly murder innocent Palestinians in the streets, in schools, and playgrounds in Gaza.
This is what makes a prominent Israeli army general boast that he doesn’t feel the slightest feeling of guilt whenever he murders Palestinian kids.
In the final analysis, Israeli killers in Khaki don’t think in their heart of hearts that they are really killing real human beings, but rather infra-humans who are closer to being animals than to being humans. This is how these murderers and child killers are taught amd indoctrinated in their schools, colleges, synagogues and Talmudic colleges, that non-Jews are not real human beings, and that their lives have no sanctity what so ever. Well, try to come to the West Bank and have a conversation with these so-called rabbis about the status of non-Jews according to Halacha. Or Read the King’s Torah!! You will hear wonders.
This is certainly how this so called “soldier” was taught as a child, as a student and later as an adult.
Like all abusers of “goyem, ” Abergil has not been arrested or even detained for questioning by the army. Far from that, she might eventually be granted a citation for good behavior. E.g. For being a good Zionist.
Have we forgotten that Israeli army soldier, codenamed Captain R. who in 2004 murdered in cold blood a Palestinian school girl in Rafah, Iman al Hams, and then shot the 12-year-old dying child 20 more bullets to make sure that she was dead, how he received more than $50,000 as a compensation for having his reputation compromised as a result of international criticism?
Needless to say, the fact that Palestinian rights and dignity are trampled upon by the Israeli state is taken for granted by that evil entity, which mendaciously claims to represent the traditions of the ancient Israelite Prophets, when in fact what it represents has more in common with the ideas of Adolph Hitler than with the teachings of Moses the son of Amram.
Alas, the Palestinians don’t have a powerful state that would press or pressure Israel to uphold their human and legal rights, or at least stop killing them. This is why the Palestinians look very much like Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. They can be killed and abused haphazardly by the Nazis of our time, without any real consequences.
Yes, when cases are publicized by international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, or even Btselem, the Israeli human rights group, the Israeli “justice system” moves swiftly to limit the damage by carrying a usually laconic and belated investigation. Some soldiers are arrested and sentenced to symbolic jail sentences. The soldiers are usually rebuked for doing the dirty act before “hostile cameras.” Interestingly, this problem, filming the dirty deed, has been resolved by having the soldiers’ and settlers’ faces masked. This is how the perpetrators get away with impunity.
The sexual abuse of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers, including female soldiers, is actually widespread.
A few years ago, a group of soldiers took a young Palestinian worker from the village of Khorsa near Hebron to a small bush near Jerusalem. There one female soldier ordered the worker to touch her private parts, telling him that she would kill him if he didn’t heed the orders. The 19-year-old boy refused, risking the soldier’s wrath. Disappointed by the boy’s dignified behavior, the female soldier called in several male soldiers, telling them that the young boy was trying to rape her. Predictably, the soldiers ganged up on the innocent boy until he nearly reached the point of death.
When the soldiers stopped beating and torturing the boy, they warned him that they would kill him next time if he dared tell the police about what happened.
The Israeli occupation army, which is proudly called the Israeli Defense Forces, is indeed the people’s army. Well, it is also a sick and psychotic people’s army, an army without morality, without honor, and without basic human decency.
It is an Gestapo-like army that is inculcated with the spirit of racism, depravity and criminality. Yes, for most Israelis, the Israeli army may be a sacred cow. However, when examined against true moral standards, it is any army of thugs, child-killers and common criminals. It is the kind of army where despicable psychopaths like Abegril fit perfectly.
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CNN Cover-up ; American censorship in high gear
By Gordon Duff
WHISTLEBLOWER OR “KAPO QUEEN,” AMERICAN CENSORSHIP IN HIGH GEAR
“I am in favor of the Zionist state. I would gladly kill Arabs, even slaughter them. I can’t allow Arab lovers to ruin the perfect life I lead.”….Eden Abergil
A “Kapo” was a Jew who served the Nazis, sometimes as administrators, but more often as thuggish camp police, even more brutal than the Nazi’s themselves. Though over a million living in Israel claim to be “holocaust survivors,” in reality only a few thousand survived the camps, many of them “Kapos.” To help understand the absurdity of these ”survivor” claims, we can examine another group from that era, American war veterans. Of the 16 million Americans serving in uniform that survived World War II, there are nearly the same number of survivors as the holocaust though the total Jewish population of countries controlled by Nazi Germany, prior to the holocaust according to the Jewish Virtual Library was only 5, 811, 900. With so many Nobel Prize winners, mathematics is no longer Israel’s strong suit. Neither is truth.
Whether discussing how many Palestinians were expelled, “liquidated” or imprisoned or how many tens of thousands of rockets Hamas has rained on Tel Aviv, with so few casualties, Israeli credibility is at an all time low. Eden Abergil has done as much as any Israeli citizen to bring that fact before the world, a young girl assigned to work as a Kapo in the Israeli “camp system.” Is Abergil a victim, a humanitarian whistle-blower or a sociopathic Kapo torturer?
Oliver Lustig writes, in his Dictionary of the Camps:
“The Häftling (inmate) who was wearing on the left arm a black band on which it was written –KAPO– in Gothic letters of immaculate whiteness, was a chief…he could strike, beat, kill any Häftling who did not belong to the inner hierarchy of the camp…
Kapos were recruited from among sadists, from among the unscrupulous ones, who forgot they belonged to the human species, from among those who, faced with the alternative die or kill, preferred to kill. In order to prove their servility and to maintain their position as chiefs, they tried to surpass the SS-men in ferocity. The Kapos kit, beat, killed out of sadism or envy, out of the desire to assert themselves as chiefs or out fear of losing their function, out of hate of man or out of the mere pleasure to trample underfoot and torment the fellow men.”
When CNN’s Paula Hancocks reported the story, as is so often the case, both sides of the story were Israel.
Hancock never asked why prisoners were blindfolded or about their fate. Hancock never asked what the job of camp “Kapo,” how Eden Abergil and tens of thousands of other Israeli youths spend their national service, was like, the beatings, the humiliation and its obvious dehumanizing effect as was made clear by Abergil.
Was Eden Abergil a whistle-blower?
Was Abergil attempting to focus world attention on the 300,000 Palestinians who have “disappeared” over the past 60 years? Was she exposing the Israeli “gulag” system that may be holding up to 100,000 Palestinians prisoner? If this was her goal, CNN wasn’t having any part of it. Not one question was asked about what her job was in the camps, how she felt about non-Jewish Israeli citizens. That came out later.
Eden Abergil, a 24 year old Israeli who recently finished her national service in the IDF, posted photographs on Facebook of herself with Palestinian torture victims. We have seen things like this before, of course, but last time it was Americans. We don’t know how many photos we have or what acts they portray as CNN chose to show us only one, a depiction of Abergil mugging for the camera before a backdrop of blindfolded and “tie-wrapped” elderly Palestinian civilians.
When questioned by the Haaretz News Service in Israel, Abergail said:
I am in favor of the Zionist state. I would gladly kill Arabs, even slaughter them. I can’t allow Arab lovers to ruin the perfect life I lead.
Abergil told CNN that she has received numerous death threats, many from her neighbors in Israel and has requested police protection. The question is, did Eden Abergil go on worldwide media proclaiming to be a murderous sociopath out of bad judgement or is this a clever attempt at depicting the IDF as torturers and war criminals? Now we have hundreds of similar photos going up from dozens of former IDF “kapos.”
Abergil’s photos are the first to come out of the camp system in Israel, known for its torture, summary executions, starvation and daily brutality. Little is known or has been reported in the west about the 60 year program of ethnic cleansing or the nature of Israel’s apartheid state and system of racial and religious laws that openly discriminate against Christians and Muslims.
Comments by fellow Israeli’s made on Abergil’s Facebook page referred to photographs of the “chunky” former IDF “Kapo Queen” taken with torture victims as “sexy.”
Abergil has raised, not only the ire of fellow Israeli’s but military officials in Israel as well. With Israel’s role in pushing America into a war with Iran coming under increasing attack and their role in falsifying intelligence leading to the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and Britain, the legitimacy of the “Jewish only” Zionist state in Israel has never been under wider pressure around the world.
With Israeli terrorist and serial killer, Elias Abuelazam being pulled off a flight from Atlanta to Tel Aviv and the recent failure by Israel to address the killing of between 9 and 16 unarmed civilians on the Mavi Marmara, the theft of millions in personal items and the illegal detention of up to two dozen peace activists seized in international waters, Israel’s credibility, even while exercising “veto power” over unfavorable stories in the British and American press, is at an all time low.
In Britain, a website has been established, British Propaganda Corporation, not only spoofing the BBC, but highly critical of what is said to be virtual total Israeli control of all media outlets in Britain, including and especially the state run news service, the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Current population estimates put the number of displaced Palestinians at 6 million with those in temporary camps estimated by Israel at 400,000 and by other sources at between 700,000 and 980,000. Each year, new Israeli condominium projects displace thousands more, adding to the figures given. To this mix, we add nearly 1 million “guest workers” who, with their families, are also virtual refugees, “stateless persons” subject to expulsion at any time as with Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Managing this process, the destruction of tens of thousands of homes, a vast camp system, surveillance of not only Muslims in Palestine but the entire Jewish population as well, is a vast bureaucracy largely financed by the United States. Young Jews, many of them Americans, serve in the IDF, some of them as part of this system. Some of the daily tasks performed are not only inhumane and demeaning but, technically, criminal acts subject to punishment according to international convention.
Perhaps what we are told is right, all Muslims are extremists and must be cleansed from Israel in order to maintain the purity of the Jewish race, as touted in recent scientific studies quoted in the New York Times.
“The surveys provide rich data about genetic ancestry that is of great interest to historians. “I’m constantly impressed by the manner in which the geneticists keep moving ahead with new projects and illuminating what we know of history,” said Lawrence H. Schiffman, a professor of Judaic studies at New York University.
One of the surveys was conducted by Gil Atzmon of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Harry Ostrer of New York University and appears in the current American Journal of Human Genetics. The other, led by Doron M. Behar of the Rambam Health Care Campusin Haifa and Richard Villems of the University of Tartu in Estonia, is published in Thursday’s edition of Nature.”
The studies along with extensive and continual mathematical documentary proof of 6 million Jewish deaths during the holocaust are used as justification for Israel’s “junkyard dog” foreign policy, arms dealings with rogue states like Libya, South Africa and North Korea and their policies of ethnic cleansing. Much of the impetus for “revisionist” history, those advocating a reassessment of the holocaust after declassified documents have brought some traditionally accepted dogma into doubt, has been the desire to “disarm” Israels dependence on the holocaust to justify policies against the Palestinians that parallel many aspects of Germany’s persecution of the Jews under Hitler.
Thus, we may have Eden Abergil, not as a Zionist “nutcase” but exposing, perhaps unsuccessfully, what no media organization will speak of. Those men on the bench, those prisoners, so many thousands arrested, detained, questioned, worse, and none ever released.
Where do they go?
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the Guardian
Israeli army's female recruits denounce treatment of Palestinians
By Harriet Sherwood
Israeli servicewomen train to become army instructors Israeli servicewomen train to become army instructors. Some former recruits have spoken out against the military action in the occupied territories. Photograph: IDF/Polaris Images
22-8-2010
It was a single word scrawled on a wall at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that unlocked something deep inside Inbar Michelzon, two years after she had completed compulsory military service in the Israeli Defence Force.
The word was "occupation". "I really felt like someone was speaking the unspoken," she recalled last week in a Tel Aviv cafe. "It was really shocking to me. There was graffiti saying, 'end the occupation'. And I felt like, OK, now I can talk about what I saw."
Michelzon became one of a handful of former Israeli servicewomen who have spoken out about their military experiences, a move that has brought accusations of betrayal and disloyalty. It is impossible to know how representative their testimonies are, but they provide an alternative picture of the "most moral army in the world", as the IDF describes itself.
Concerns about Israeli army culture were raised last week following the publication on Facebook of photographs of a servicewoman posing alongside blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinians. The images were reminiscent of the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq. But the former soldier, Eden Abergil, said she didn't understand what was wrong with the pictures, which were described by the IDF as "ugly and callous".
Israel is unique in enlisting women at the age of 18 into two years of compulsory military service. The experience can be brutalising for the 10% who serve in the occupied territories, as Michelzon did.
"I left the army with a ticking bomb in my belly," she said. "I felt I saw the backyard of Israel. I saw something that people don't speak about. It's almost like I know a dirty secret of a nation and I need to speak out."
Michelzon, now 29, began her military service in September 2000, just when the second intifada was breaking out. "I joined the army with a very idealistic point of view – I really wanted to serve my country." She was posted to Erez, the crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, to work in the radio control room.
"There was a lot of tension, a lot of shootings and suicide bombings," she said. "Little by little you understand the rules of the game. You need to make it hard for the Arabs – that's the main rule – because they are the enemy."
She cited a routine example of a Palestinian woman waiting at the crossing. Michelzon called her officer, asking permission to allow the woman through. She was told to make such a request once the woman had been kept waiting for hours. "I felt very alone in the army. I couldn't talk about the things I felt were misplaced," she said. "I didn't have strong views but I felt uncomfortable about the talk, about soldiers hitting Arabs and laughing. I thought everyone else was normal and I was the one who wasn't. I felt an outsider to the group experience."
At the end of her service, in June 2002, Michelzon said she felt the need to escape and took off to India. "I went through a breakdown little by little," she said. It was only when she returned to enrol in university, and two years of therapy, that she began to consider her "duty" to speak out. She also came across Breaking the Silence, an organisation of army veterans who publish testimonies from former soldiers on life in the occupied territories to stimulate debate about the "moral price" of the occupation.
Michelzon gave evidence to the group and two years ago appeared in a documentary, To See If I'm Smiling, about the experiences of young women in the army. The film, she said, was criticised by all sides. The left focused on "the bad things we did and not on the fact that we wanted to start a discussion. We wanted to put up a mirror and tell Israeli society to look itself in the eyes.
"From the right, the reaction was, why are you doing this to your own people? Do you hate your country? But I did it because I love my country. We had to fight to say we want to talk about the political situation."
The psychological impact of military service on women is undeniable, according to the testimonies of Michelzon and others, particularly those who serve in the occupied territories. "If you want to survive as a woman in the army, you have to be manly," she said. "There is no room for feeling. It's like a competition to see who can be tougher. A lot of the time girls are trying to be more aggressive than the guys."
Her experience is echoed by that of Dana Golan, who served in the West Bank city of Hebron in 2001-02 as one of about 25 women among 300 male soldiers. Like Michelzon, Golan only spoke out after finishing her service. "If I had raised my anxieties, it would have been seen as a weakness," she said.
Golan, now 27, said the "most shaky moment" of her military service came during a search for weapons in a Palestinian home. The family were awoken at 2am by soldiers who "turned their whole house inside out". No weapons were found. The small children of the house were terrified, she recalled. "I thought, what would I feel if I was this four-year-old kid? How would I grow up? At that moment it occurred to me that sometimes we're doing things that just create victims. To be a good occupier, we have to create conflict."
On a separate occasion she witnessed soldiers stealing from a Palestinian electronics shop. She tried to report it, only to be told "there were things I shouldn't interfere with".
She said that she also saw elderly Palestinians being humiliated on the streets, "and I thought these could be my parents or grandparents".
Israel is discomfited by these testimonies, she said, partly because of the universality of military service. "We grew up believing the IDF is the most moral army in the world. Everyone knows people serving in the army. Now when I say we are doing immoral things, I am talking about your sister or your daughter. People do not want to hear."
The IDF is proud that 90% of its roles are open equally to men and women. "Serving in a combat unit where you have daily contact with people who might do you harm is not easy – you have to be tough," said Captain Arye Shalicar, an army spokesman. "It's not only a female thing, it's the same for everyone. In the end, a combat unit is a combat unit. Sometimes things happen, not every deed is 100% correct or fair." The army, he said, has procedures for reporting misdeeds which soldiers are encouraged to follow.
Both Michelzon and Golan have no regrets about speaking out. "For two years I saw people suffering and I didn't do anything – and that's really scary," said Michelzon. "At the end, it felt like the army betrayed me – they used me, I couldn't recognise myself. What we call protecting our country is destroying lives."
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Mondoweiss
Eden Abergil responds to critics: ‘I can’t afford Arab-lovers to ruin the perfect life I live! I’ve got no remorse and no regrets.’
by Adam Horowitz
19-8-2010
Dimi Reider reports on the Eden Abergil meme sweeping the internet, which includes the image above. Evidently all the attention is getting to Abergil, and Reider translates a Facebook debate where she takes on one of the creators of the doctored images:
Eden Abergil: Tell me, you think that this pic on the side is funny? There’s a limit!
Eden Abergil: No, honey…
Shay Atik: To be honest, it’s kinda funny.
Eden Abergil: Oh yeah? And what’s so funny? I’m dying for laughs I haven’t laughed a week
Shay Atik: Maybe you haven’t watched the new enough.
Eden Abergil: Aaaaa no? You wanna tell me what was funny? Cause I really didn’t watch
Gal Ivon Cohen: Shay, it really isn’t funny. They ruined her life for such a simple and innocent picture and turned this girl into something that she’s not.
Eden Abergil: No honey they didn’t ruin my life I can’t afford Arab-lovers to ruin the perfect life I live!!! I’ve got no remorse and no regrettttttttttts.
[...]
Shay Atik: Eden, I guess you still didn’t get the meaning and implications of these pictures. It’s not about someone loving Arabs or not. It’s called humanity.
Eden Abergil: I’m not humane to murderers!
Shay Atik: Hmm… so you could equally kill those detainees you posed next to. If you’re being inhuman, go all the way! No?
Eden Abergil: I’m for a Zionist Jewish state! I’m protecting what was mine since forever!! I won’t get with you into religious statements etc but I’m declared and defined as a proud Jew and as a proud Jew it’s my duty to fight for everything that belongs to me there’s a picture of me they published that says it all in my opinion “if it wasn’t for her they’d murder your mother” and I’m not talking just about me but about all the soldiers guarding and protecting us!!! There are no laws in war!! I hate Arabs and wish them all the worst and it would be fun for me to kill them or even massacre them you can’t forget what they’re doing nevermind the reason I’m just on the side of the Jewish people!!! And this will last forever.
Abergil has been alerted that she is being dismissed from her IDF reserve service and stripped of her rank. Guess they agree with LOlcats on this one:
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the Only Democracy
by Sydney Levy
A few days ago we learned about Eden Aberjil, an Israeli woman who posted pictures on her Facebook account of her abusing bound Palestinian prisoners at the time of her military service. The picture is captioned ‘Army service, the most wonderful time of my life!’
The controversy reached the New York Times, where Aberjil defended herself. She said that the “pictures were taken in good will, there was no statement in them.” According to the Times, she added that they were not intended to humiliate the prisoners but merely to document her “military experience,” and that she had no idea they “would be problematic.”
The IDF response is what you would expect. According to Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli veterans that collects testimonies:
"Unsurprisingly, the I.D.F. spokesman released a ’shocked’ statement saying that this is the “shameless and ugly behavior of one soldier.” This picture is not the ugly behavior of one person, but a norm throughout the army… that is a result of military rule over a civilian population over a long time."
Today Ynet reveals how “ugly” Aberjil’s behavior really is. This is what she is really thinking, according to her own posts in Facebook following the controversy:
"I am in favor of of Zionist Jewish state!! I am defending what belongs to me from the beginning of time!!… In war there are no laws!! I hate Arabs and wish them all manner of evil and gladly I would kill them and even massacre them. We cannot forget what they do. Does not matter the reason. I am simply on the side of the Jewish people!!"
To Aberjil I say, I am one of many Jews who do not consider you on “our side.” Not one bit.
To the IDF I say, stop hiding behind excuses. Pay attention to Breaking the Silence’s documentation of how these humiliating pictures are the norm, not the exception. Oh, and teach your soldiers a thing or two about the Geneva Conventions, will you? Would you explain how they can do years of military service and still believe that there are no laws of war?
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de Israel Lobby
Schijnheilige "ophef", Trouw misselijkmakend (2)
"Op een foto zit Aberjil naast een geboeide en geblinddoekte Palestijne gevangene en kijkt hem glimlachend aan." (Trouw)
"Kijkt hem glimlachend aan"? Dat zie je helemaal niet op de door Trouw omschreven foto. Ze heft haar kin op, en tuit haar lippen iets, alsof ze de Palestijn een kus wil geven. Vernedering op vernedering. Dat glimlachen zuigt Trouw dus uit de duim (de Volkskrant overigens ook), ik neem aan om de dader sympathieker over te laten komen. Geen wonder dat de foto ontbreekt. Het zou al met al de lezer wel eens 'het oncomfortabele verhaal' over Israël kunnen laten zien.
Ook het 'aankijken' van de Palestijn is relatief omdat iedereen kan zien dat de andere partij geblinddoekt is, en dus zijn ogen bedekt zijn. De soldate kijkt naar hem. Hij zou haar nabijheid hebben gehoord, haar misschien wel hebben geroken, maar hij heeft geen idee wat zij met hem uitspookt. En dat is ook de bedoeling, want dat draagt bij aan de vernedering.
"Klein bier"
Enkele reacties in de media:
Joods Actueel: "deze foto’s ... tonen enkel een niet al te slimme en tactloze vrouw" en "klein bier"
CIDI: (zwijgt traditioneel)
Telegraaf: "Het is de tweede keer in korte tijd dat het Israëlische leger in verlegenheid is gebracht. Onlangs verscheen er op YouTube een video waarop te zien is hoe een paar militairen dansen op een patrouille op de Westoever."
1. Het probleem is volgens de Telegraaf niet de vernedering en mensenrechtenschending, maar dat Israël "in verlegenheid" is gebracht;
2. Het bloedbad op de Middelandse Zee is blijkbaar alweer vergeten.
NOS meldt net als de Telegraaf: "Een aantal Israëlische militairen kwam onlangs in de problemen nadat op YouTube een filmpje opdook waarop te zien is hoe de militairen dansen op een patrouille op de Westoever."
Wie fluistert toch de Nederlandse media het 'nieuws' in? Dat het uit één bron komt is duidelijk. Dat die soldaten "in problemen" zijn gekomen: o ja? Is er soms iemand veroordeeld? Slechts 6% van dit soort incidenten wordt onderzocht. En van die 6% wordt slechts 4% (licht) gestrafd.
RTL Nieuws heeft er een jolig artikeltje over geschreven waarin zelfs de uitroep "Oei!" niet ontbreekt. De vraag is natuurlijk of ze net zo jolig zouden schrijven wanneer het de foto van een nazi en zijn arrestant in het getto van Warschau zou betreffen. Of een Amerikaanse soldaat in Abu Ghraib.
Het pro-Israël Parool ook weer lekker op dreef door er een mysterie van te maken: "Ze wekt de indruk hen te beschouwen als trofeeën." Ze wekt de indruk? De lezer zou dus best eens niet kunnen zien wat hij ziet. De lezer zou zich wel eens kunnen vergissen in het motief van de soldate. Misschien wilde ze wel een sociaal bewogen foto maken! Of een kunstfoto!
De NRC confabuleert al in haar titel: 'Woede over Facebook-foto's Israëlische soldaat'. Andere kranten zijn nog voorzichtig, met hun "ophef". Welke "woede"? Ik heb nog geen woede gezien van woordvoerders, die een standaardverhaaltje afdraaien, of van de Israëlische burgers. Geen schreeuwende mensen op tv, of woedende meute die straat op gaat. Op Haaretz na schrijven de Israëlische kranten dat er eigenlijk niets aan de hand is, in de trant van "klein bier". De NRC schrijft ook over "een gebonden Palestijnse gevangene" terwijl iedereen met functionerende ogen (en hersenen) kan zien dat de man ook nog geblinddoekt is.
Laten we wel wezen: dit is geen incident. Dus laat u niet gek maken door de hype in de massamedia. Dit is slechts een symptoom. De Palestijnen gaan al generaties lang dagelijks gebukt onder nog veel ergere terreur van de Israëlische bezetters. Maar daar is geen aandacht voor.
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de Israel Lobby
Schijnheilige "ophef", Trouw misselijkmakend
"Op een foto zit Aberjil naast een geboeide en geblinddoekte Palestijne gevangene en kijkt hem glimlachend aan." (Trouw)
Het is werkelijk misselijkmakend, de schijnheiligheid van het Israëlsche leger dat weer uitgebreid wordt verspreid in onze commerciële massamedia onder het mom van "ophef in Israël", in plaats van "Israëlische leger schendt weer mensenrechten". Jezelf op de foto zetten met een gevangene als trofee is een ernstige mensenrechtenschending, maar onze pro-Israël media is op dit gebied weer helemaal niet uitgesproken.
Over de gefotografeerde Palestijnen (en hun lot) geen woord. Zelfs de dader mag uitgebreid haar woordje doen. Maar ja, dat is dan ook een Israëlische, dus is haar mening wat waard. Niet de mening van de Palestijn op de foto. Verassend is dat niet, want Palestijnen zijn ook voor onze 'journalisten' zulke minderwaardige mensen dat ze niet eens een naam hebben. Nee, 'het brengt Israël in grote verlegenheid', is de trend. Het arme, kleine en kwetsbare Israël - veel is er niet veranderd.
Eden Abergil poses for a photograph near Palestinian detainees in this picture taken in 2008, as seen from this screen shot of the Sachim Tumblr blog taken August 17, 2010.
Niet het eerste zogenaamd "beschamende" voorval...
http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/07/the-summer-camp-of-destruction-israeli-high-schoolers-join-in-the-destruction-of-a-bedouin-town/
Nog geen maand geleden: Israëlische scholieren bekijken de persoonlijke bezittingen van bedoeinen die hun huis uit werden gezet en wiens woningen werden platgewalst om plaats te maken voor joden.
En hier rusten de jonge helden uit op de meubels van de slachtoffers.
IDF-soldaat "kijkt hem glimlachend aan"
Een kiekje voor het thuisfront
Een kiekje voor de familie: lach eens naar het vogeltje!
Kijk eens mam, hoe flink ik ben!
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Intifada Palestine
The IDF’s sociopathic mentality towards Palestinians: a reflection of the Israeli “state of mind”
In a news item reminiscent of the shocking and disturbing photos that came out of Iraq’s notorious Abu-Ghraib prison a few years ago, now ex-IDF soldier Eden Aberjil has posted images of herself on Facebook in which she is seen posing in front of bound and blindfolded Palestinian detainees.
There has been widespread condemnation of this in the media and even Israeli military sources have called the pictures “shameful, base and crude”. Miss Aberjil herself thinks that the matter has “been blown out of proportion” and called the army’s response “ungrateful”.
These are photographs but it does not take a huge stretch of the imagination to imagine that while these pictures were being taken things were being said to, or about, the men in custody which would not have been anything less than humiliating. The head of the Israeli Committee Against Torture, Yishai Menuchim, has criticised the images, saying that this incident “reflects an attitude which has become the norm and consists of treating Palestinians like objects, not like human beings”.
The IDF's sociopathic mentality towards Palestinians: a reflection the Israeli "state of mind"The response from Eden Aberjil’s Facebook friends is equally worrying. One comment posted on her page said, “That looks very sexy for you”, to which Aberjil responded, “I wonder if he is on Facebook too – I’ll have to tag him in the photo, ha ha”.While there is no overt act of abuse taking place here, as there was in the Abu Ghraib photos, it nevertheless begs the question, why do things like this? What makes a young soldier choose to humiliate elderly Palestinians in this way? What motivated this soldier, not only to take these photos, but then to post them online, for all to see, with the caption “IDF – the best time of my life”?
While it certainly says a lot about the sick mentality of the woman in question it is also indicative of a wider callous mentality towards Palestinians which has been displayed by the Israeli Occupation Forces time and time again. A culture of sociopathic behaviour directed towards Palestinians has been allowed to fester and grow in Israeli society over the years, especially within the IDF. Even a layman can recognise some of the standard traits which are used to profile sociopaths and which can apply here including: callousness and lack of empathy (check); lack of remorse, shame or guilt (check); authoritarianism (check); the goal to enslave their victims (check); a grandiose sense of self (check); exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim’s life (check); the list goes on.
The IDF's sociopathic mentality towards Palestinians: a reflection the Israeli "state of mind"These characteristics are made manifest on a daily basis in a seemingly never-ending string of humiliations that the IDF have been inflicting systematically on the Palestinian people for years now. The incident in question is most certainly not a one-off occurrence. Children (often as young as 12, if not younger) are humiliated frequently when arrested by the IDF (usually for nothing more than throwing stones). They are often so terrified by IDF dawn raids and the treatment they get when arrested that they defecate or urinate on themselves before being paraded down the street to an IDF army jeep. All too often such young people report instances of torture, including severe physical, verbal, emotional and sexual abuse (to which some Israeli officers have admitted). Earlier this year it was reported by the Prisoners’ Study Centre that nearly 400 children are being subjected to extreme levels of abuse in Israeli prisons.
One set of photographs circulated on the internet showed some IDF soldiers standing proudly behind their “trophy kill”, a dead Palestinian man.Other standard opportunities for the soldiers to humiliate Palestinian men and women occur at military checkpoints where they wield ultimate authority over who passes through and who does not; a power that the often young Israeli men and women revel in. Every single day Palestinians are forced to walk, like cattle, through fences and barbed wire lanes before being corralled into a waiting area where they can wait for hours on end in the heat of the Middle Eastern sun or in the bitter cold of the night until a soldier is bothered enough to let them through so that they can reach the other side of the road.
It is also common for Israeli soldiers to stand by and encourage Jewish settlers to spit at, swear at and throw things at Palestinians who are going about their daily business.
Such acts directed, as they so often are, against children, women and the elderly people of Palestine raise serious questions about the training and mentality of IDF soldiers and personnel. To do the things that an Israeli soldier is required to do every day undoubtedly requires a system of indoctrination to be put into place which makes them see Palestinians as less than human. It is the only way that they can do their job “successfully”. IDF soldiers are most often recruited straight out of high school. Much of the time they are in their teens and early twenties but by the time they are on active duty they have already been trained to see Palestinians as not worthy of respect, dignity or compassion. From the earliest age Israeli children are taught that Palestinians are the enemy, and of less intrinsic value than Israelis. This is something that is drilled into them time and time again by their government; the policies of the state of Israel; the words of their ministers and the acts of their leaders.
It is the duty of the Israeli government and the IDF to ensure that their soldiers act with decency towards those living under the Israeli occupation of which they are integral. Even in times of war there are certain universally accepted norms of behaviour that must apply. These norms are governed by international laws and treaties such as the Geneva Convention on Human Rights. However, officially, Israel is not at war with the Palestinians, or so we are told. If that is really the case, then how much more should standards of decency, humanity and dignity apply towards Palestinian civilians and prisoners during times of relative calm?In this particular case it seems that the woman in question may very well get away with acting unprofessionally and insensitively. While the IDF has issued a statement saying: “These actions are ugly and callous; details of the incident have been forwarded up the chain of command”, it is also acknowledged that, as she was discharged from the IDF over a year ago, there is not necessarily much that can be done to discipline her.
It is essential that the Israeli authorities begin to take this and all of the other acts of IDF mistreatment of Palestinians as symptomatic of a larger problem and start to ensure that dignity and respect is shown towards the Palestinian people, something admittedly hard to achieve as long as the illegal occupation of Palestinian land continues. However, raising generation after generation of Israelis to believe that they are superior to the people whose land they are occupying will implode at some stage at the cost of the humanity of every Israeli citizen who stands by, sees such actions as those in the photographs and does nothing.
Source: Middle East Monitor
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Mondoweiss
More evidence that Israel’s image has dramatically shifted
by Philip Weiss
17-8-2010
Robert Mackey of the Times did a good piece today about the former Israeli soldier's facebook photos of humiliated Palestinian prisoners.
He mentions Breaking the Silence's collection of similar photos, he quotes a Palestinian on routine humiliation. He leads with the former soldier's statement that she feels like she did nothing wrong.
A commenter named M. Junaid from New York wrote:
In a pathetic but very real sense, this woman is right - within the context of a society such as Israel, there is indeed "nothing wrong" about humiliating and oppressing another people. That deterioration of any moral sense is exactly what happens in any colonizing country, whether it was France in Algeria or the British in Kenya.
The difference, of course, is that the Israeli colonial project has no interest in pulling back to pre-1967 borders. For that, we can thank AIPAC and the American public that foolishly subsidizes Israeli colonialism, no matter how wrong it is or how much it alienates the entire Muslim world.
187 readers then recommended this comment. More than any other by far. Oh wait, Fizzy in Philadelphia comes close at 111:
As a result of their "Ethno-Centric" consciousness, they [the Jewish people] have become like those who persecuted them for generations. Ultra nationalistic, egomaniacal, and militaristic. They have gained world power status at the expense of their soul as a people.
Something is stirring in the American elite consciousness... (Thanks to Peter Voskamp)
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Palestine Monitor
The behavior and actions of the Israeli female soldier posing with Palestinian prisoners reflects the prejudice, racism and hatred of the Israeli army
17-8-2010
Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi said that the cruel and painful images that were published by one of the Israeli soldiers during the arrest of Palestinian citizens at a checkpoint in the West Bank reflects the inhumane behavior of the Israeli soldiers towards the Palestinian people. These actions, which disregard the most basic of human rights and tramples on International Law and the Geneva Conventions which primarily serve to protect civilians in times of war.
Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi said that the cruel and painful images that were published by one of the Israeli soldiers during the arrest of Palestinian citizens at a checkpoint in the West Bank reflects the inhumane behavior of the Israeli soldiers towards the Palestinian people. These actions, which disregard the most basic of human rights and tramples on International Law and the Geneva Conventions which primarily serve to protect civilians in times of war.
Dr. Barghouthi stated that this incident is a result of the hatred and racism that Israeli policy instills and is represented by the thousands of crimes that the Israeli Occupying Forces commit daily against the Palestinian people whether it be at the 600 military checkpoints that are scattered throughout the Palestinian Territory, the constant raids and arrests of Palestinian citizens, the brutality against Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and the truth of the Israeli policies that are yet to be unraveled.
This horrible crime reminds Dr. Barghouthi when Israeli soldiers released canine military dogs on a Palestinian women resident from Al-Abadiya in Bethlehem in 2007. She was left for the dogs to attack and prey on the flesh of her arm. Another incident in which 19 year old, Mohammad Al-Jabali was beaten and kicked profusely by 3 Israeli soldiers at Huwara checkpoint near Nablus. These reports have been documented and reported, however are a brief glimpse of the endless crimes that have yet to be documented.
Dr. Barghouthi stressed that the pictures of the Israeli soldier confirms that criminal violence against unarmed civilians that are weak, shackled and blindfolded, is the behavior that is practiced by the Israeli army without any type of supervision. This demonstrates that these practices are routine and that there should be investigations to bring them to justice for their crimes against humanity.
He also expressed his deep concern of the extreme settlers who uprooted hundreds of olive trees between the areas of Qasra and Jalout in Nablus. Dr. Barghouthi said that, “The settlers uprooted 250 olive seedlings under the protections of the Israeli Occupying Forces, which confirms that peace will not be possible without removing the settlements and settlers that are storming the Occupied Territories.”
Dr. Barghouthi called for a wider mobilization of international solidarity with the Palestinian people who are constantly subjected to repeated attacks by settlers and the Israeli Occupation Forces though settlement activities, arrests, and the practice of the Apartheid regime.
Barghouthi said that the actions of the Israeli Occupation Forces and settlers are truly obscene crimes that are illustrated through the daily attacks on the Palestinian people, their property, and land.
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Telegraaf
16-8-2010
JERUZALEM - In Isräel is ophef ontstaan over een vrouwelijke militair die op haar Facebook-profiel foto's heeft geplaatst waarop ze poseert met geblinddoekte en geboeide Palestijnse gevangenen.
"Een walgelijke actie", zo reageert het Israëlische leger op de foto's, die inmiddels van internet zijn verwijderd. Boven de afbeeldingen stond 'Het leger, de beste tijd van mijn leven.'
Of de vrouw voor een militaire rechtbank moet verschijnen, is onduidelijk. De soldate is inmiddels uit dienst.
Het is de tweede keer in korte tijd dat het Israëlische leger in verlegenheid is gebracht. Onlangs verscheen er op YouTube een video waarop te zien is hoe een paar militairen dansen op een patrouille op de Westoever.
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Mondoweiss
Israeli soldier mocks Palestinian prisoners in Facebook photos
Two photos from Eden Abergil's Facebook profile. (Photo credit: Dimi's Notes)
by Mya Guarnieri
16-8-2010
Highlighting the cold indifference and cruelty that has come to characterize the Israeli occupation, a recently discharged soldier has posted photos of herself smiling as she sits besides blindfolded Palestinian prisoners.
Eden, the young Israeli woman, posted the pictures on Facebook and titled the album "Army... the most beautiful time of my life. :)" One shows her squatting before a group of bound Palestinians, presumably at or near a West Bank checkpoint, a smirk playing on her face. In another, Eden sits on a cement block next to a prisoner, whose eyes are covered with a strip of cloth. Her head titled upwards, she looks down her nose imperiously towards him.
Speaking to the Israeli daily Ynet, an Israeli army spokesman commented, "This is shameless behavior by the soldier. In light of the fact that she was discharged last year, all of the details have been turned over to the commanders for further attention."
Yishai Menuhin, the director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, a local NGO, commented to Ynet, "These types of pictures reflect the customary norms of IDF soldiers... and the treatment given to Palestinian detainees."
The comments on the photos left by Eden and her friends are equally disturbing as they, at best, show utter disregard for the Palestinian prisoners, and at worst, downright mock them.
One friend commented that Eden was "sexiest like that." Eden responded, "Yes, I know. LOL... What a day it was, look how he completes my pictures. I wonder if he's got Facebook. I have to tag him the picture. LOL."
First exposed by the blog Sachim, other Israelis expressed shock and disgust with both the photos and the responses left by Eden and her friends.
Journalist and blogger Dimi Reider wrote:
"These pictures really do speak for themselves; of course, [Eden] is no better or worse than thousands of other Israeli soldiers, and I'd like to hope a few years from now she'll be appalled, rather than amused by the memories. We may and should cut slack to the effect of conflict on a young person's sensitivity and moral standards - [Eden] by no means should be scapegoated for all excesses of the IDF - and remember efforts by separate individuals, even in uniform, to make an intolerable situation more bearable."
The picture I see in Eden's photos? An army that has forgotten the other's humanity--and has lost its own humanity in the process.
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Reactie van Paul Lamp | datum: 2010-08-19 16:09:32 |
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Glimlachend? Met een gemene grijns vol machtswellust poseert de Israëlische bewaakster voor de fotograaf met haar slachtoffers.
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