One Shot, 2 Kills - Israeli Snipers Celebrate Shooting Pregnant Women

There is a good article in today's Toronto Star about the extent to which Israelis and Palestinians have so totally dehumanized one another - that on both sides there is a sense the people on the other side are not human beings. and I agree that the dehumanization of Palestinians by Israelis merits as much publicity as the dehumanization of Israelis by Palestianians - which is well known.

...and you point is what? That we should excuse these vile t-shirts that Israeli soldiers get printed ion the grounds that Palestinians are comparable to the Nazis that members of the White Rose were fighting against?

You mean like how the families of victims of suicide bombings in Israel unfortunataly probably think that Palestinians are less than human? and conversely, many Palestinians obviously think that all Israelis are sub-human - that's what happens in war.

BTW: here is the link to the article in the star http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/606064

"

Psychologists have at least a couple of terms for the tendency of humans to view their adversaries as springing from a lower order of being.

Known either as pseudo-speciation or dehumanization, the phenomenon is as ancient as the Bible and as common nowadays as olive trees in the Holy Land.

It enables both Arabs and Jews to behave in ways that would be nearly impossible if their victims were acknowledged to be human beings.

"We know from professional studies this happens in just about every conflict," said Gabriel Ben-Dor, who heads the school of politics at the University of Haifa. "The more protracted the conflict, the more likely it is to occur."

Dating back to at least 1948, the feud between Jews and Arabs has had more than six decades to fester and weep, and by now the process of dehumanization is practically complete. It is also mutual.

"Certainly on the Arab side and particularly the Islamist side, Israelis and Jews are totally dehumanized," said Yossi Alpher, co-editor of the bitterlemons.org Internet site.

"In Friday sermons in mosques, they say we are descendants of pigs and monkeys.

"We are totally dehumanized in the militant Islamist narrative."

If there is one man in this country who has explored the dark side of Israel's heart, it is Yehuda Shaul, director of Breaking the Silence, an organization that collects and publishes accounts by Israeli soldiers about their sometimes brutal behaviour while on duty in the Palestinian territories.

Shaul says the reports in Haaretz and Maariv – tales of widespread vandalism and at least some cases of unprovoked killing of civilians – are consistent with the war stories he has so far collected on his own about the January offensive, and he finds them unusually troubling.

"It's a very, very different situation," he said. "The soldiers say: `Everyone is an enemy. Everyone here is a legitimate target.' That was the notion.""

It IS a war - there is no other word for it. and in war, people dehumanize their opponents. During World War Two we dehumanized Japanese-Canadians and the British dehumanized Germans and Italians as well - and vice-versa.

From what I can tell the only difference between the how the Israelis dehumanize Palestinians and how Palestinians dehumanize Israelis is that when Israelis do it - we tend to find out about it thanks to the courageous efforts of Israelis who are critical of their own government and its policies and hate what they see happening in their own society. I hope that there are also Palestinians who publicly object to imams giving sermons that say that Jews are descended from pigs and monkeys (note that they seem to prefer to make about JEWS as opposed to ISRAELIS - I wonder why)

Quote:

It IS a war - there is no other word for it.

No it's not and there are many other words for it: colonization, theft, thuggery, banditry, racism, ethnic cleansing, etc ...

What you don't seem to grasp, Stock, is that Palestinians hate Israelis for good reason. Because the Israelis have stolen their land, forced them into bantus, refugee camps, and concentration camps, they brutalize them, humiliate them, kill them, and celebrate murdering pregnant women and humilating their husbands and sons.

Israelis hate Palestinians just because they resist.

"What you don't seem to grasp, Stock, is that Palestinians hate Israelis for good reason."

What you don't seem to grasp is that there can never, ever be a "good reason" to hate an entire people or an entire nationality. There is a word for hating an entire people - its called being a racist. Racists always claim that in their particular case, their feeling of hate is somehow justified. NO! Its never justified. Never ever ever!

That's the problem with associating your state with your people. You confuse people into thinking its the people, not the state that is the problem. Reap what you sow. Hamas invented by Israel for all intents a purposes, repalced the PLO, which believed that religion was not a nationality. Right there in their constitution. Plaing for all to see.

 Too bad.

Israelis hate Palestinians just because they resist.

   A lot of Israelis do see themselves as victims, though,  and for generation after generation they have been fed a line of anti arab bullshit, which makes it seem as though every arab is a nazi and every arab leader is hitler.

-------------------------

Takes more than combat gear to make a man Takes more than license for a gun Confront your enemies, avoid them when you can A gentleman will walk but never run -Sting, an englishman in new york

"That's the problem with associating your state with your people."

What is "my state" and what is "my people"??? The only state I belong to is Canada.

Stock, if every single Israeli a Palestinian sees is a soldier whose sole purpose is to harm humiliate and expel them, they will assume that every Israeli is a brute, a pig and a thief.  The Israeli government has given the Palestinians no reason to doubt that assumption.     

-------------------------

Takes more than combat gear to make a man Takes more than license for a gun Confront your enemies, avoid them when you can A gentleman will walk but never run -Sting, an englishman in new york

"Actually, not at all. Hating Germans would be a perfectly normal response for a Holocaust survivor just as hating Israelis would be a perfectly normal response for a mother who lost her children when a UN school was bombed in Gaza."

Sorry, but I will never agree. It is NOT "perfectly normal" to hate an entire nationality of people and blame everyone for the sins of a few. Its not "perfectly normal" for spouses of people who died on 9/11 to hate all 1 billion Muslims in the world. Its not "perfectly normal" for Israelis who lost family to suicide bombers to hate all Arabs. and its certainly not "perfectly normal for people in Gaza to believe that Jews are descended from monkeys and pigs". What makes us human is SUPPOSED to be that we have some capacity to reason.

"if every single Israeli a Palestinian sees is a soldier whose sole purpose is to harm humiliate and expel them, they will assume that every Israeli is a brute, a pig and a thief. "

if every single Palestinian an Israeli sees is a suicide bomber whose sole purpose is to murder them, they will assume that every Palestinian is a brute, a pig and a thief etc...

 I guess we need to start an exchange program between Israelis and Palestinians where they have sleepovers at each other houses and learn that they are all people and that they might actually have a lot in common were it not for their pig-headed leaders.. 

 I guess we need to start an exchange program between Israelis and Palestinians where they have sleepovers at each other houses and learn that they are all people and that they might actually have a lot in common were it not for their pig-headed leaders.. 

How will West bankers and Gazans get out of the territories in order to visit Israelis?

-------------------------

 Takes more than combat gear to make a man Takes more than license for a gun Confront your enemies, avoid them when you can A gentleman will walk but never run -Sting, an englishman in new york

"

Yes it is because we are governed first by our emotions and later our heads. The US in the wake of 9/11 invaded Afghanistan with support of the American people, and I believe at the time your support, and after killing untold thousands and subjecting many thousands more to unspeakable cruelty, are still there.

Logically, the US people should have recognized that neither the people of Afghanistan nor Islam was responsible for 9/11, but anger and vengeance comes before logic. "

...and I think that's a bad thing - but i guess you think that feelings of hate among Amerticans were justified. who knew?

I find it incredible that everyone here seems to swallow hook, line and sinker an unsupported, vile slur against Palestinians, i.e. their alleged collective hatred of Israelis, a simplistic no-hands-ma reversal of the original news account.

You all rise to discussing in earnest the justification of this allegedly universal hatred like starving fish to a luscious bit of bait, allowing Stalkholm to play Mr. Morality and deplore this "fact" which he pulled out of a hat, never mind decades of Palestinian advocacy for peace.

Babble - the progressive forum where you can find the Palestinians being shat on with immunity every other day. Talk about enabling...

Go, go, go Iggy - there is no one to stop you in this crowd!

Maybe you should ask me when I stopped beating my wife.

I condemn Israeli AND Palestinan atrocities and I condemn racist sentiments that are growing like a cancer among Israelis AND Palestinians. That should be the progressive perspective - condemn violence and racism on both sides, recognize everyone's right to exist and push for ceasefire and peace negotiations followed by programs to encourage people who have been enemies for generations to make friends again. 

A few years ago i met some people from Belfast who ran a program that brought Protestant and Catholic youth from the worst areas of Belfast together at a summer camp in Canada where they learned to get along with each other (believe it or not if you think the level of hate and racism is bad in Israel/Palestine - you ain't seen nothin' until you've seen the intense hate that Catholic and Protestants had for each other until very recently in Northern Ireland). Something similar has to happen in the Middle East. One way or the other Israelis and Palestinians are going to have to learn to live alongside each other - so they better learn to humanize each other. Its a critical step that has to happen to build the level of trust that needs to happen before there can be peace.  

Aside from your notions about opposing violence "on all sides" does the issue of Palestinians having any "rights"fit into your picture.

Your parable takes on the form of a parallel universe, when you consider for example that Irish Catholics were never stripped of their fundamental rights, exposed to roadblocks and blockades outside of the region of direct British jurisdictino nor did the British make a habit doing search and destroy mission in the south, or blow up Catholic churches on the premise that they were organizing centers of reistance to the British, even though they most likely were.

Well not recently in anycase.

Quote:

I find it incredible that everyone here seems to swallow hook, line and sinker an unsupported, vile slur against Palestinians, i.e. their alleged collective hatred of Israelis, a simplistic no-hands-ma reversal of the original news account.

No one made that argument. The argument is that Palestinians, as individuals, will hate Israelis, justifiably, for their murder of and brutality against themselves and thier families. To argue otherwise is to deny their humanity. Consider, for a moment, the argument of Stockholm and supported by many others.

He argues a Palestinian who has seen his family murdered by the IDF should rise above his humanity and justified hatred and accept the outcome and move on. Likewise, the Palestinian people, as a whole, should accept their dispossession of property, rights, and dignity, without hate or lust for revenge like decent, civilized victims.

Israel, however, is perfectly justified in engaging in violence and acts of retribution against Palestinians for the acts of those Palestinians who haven't accepted their individual and collective fates.

It is the same argument that makes the agressor the victim when his victim finally strikes back. Think of the slave being lashed for interfering with the slave boss beating another slave. Or the child being beating for intervening on behalf of his mother.

Quote:

so why don't you tell us about all the different entire races, ethnicities and nationalities of people that you "hate" across the board - and we will assume that you don't ever act on those feelings.

Like you, I am privileged to live inside the walls of the empire where I live in safety and surrounded by relative wealth. Unlike you, I don't judge those who are daily victimized by institutionalized hatred and violence.

Why don't you walk a mile in the shoes of a Palestinian who lost his pregnant wife in the interests of one shot - two kills, and let me know if you are still able to retain your smug superiority over those who live the daily reality of such institutionalized hatred. 

Hate is a perfectly normal human response to being a victim. To deny it is to deny the victim their human emotions.

That doesn't mean hate should become the defining emotion of being a victim, but it is a necessary part of the healing process and it must occur before there can be forgiveness or a true ability to move on.

What a horrible, disgusting, and racist T-shirt.  Especially in relation to [url=http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LK939777.htm] this news story [/url] from Reuters:

Quote:

Rabbis in the Israeli army told battlefield troops in January's Gaza offensive they were fighting a "religious war" against gentiles, according to one army commander's account published on Friday.

"Their message was very clear: we are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land," he said. The account by Ram, a pseudonym to shield the soldier's identity, was published by the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper in the second day of revelations that have rocked the Israeli military. (www.haaretz.com "Shooting and Crying, 2009"). They were leaked from a Feb 13 meeting of armed forces members to share their Gaza experiences. Some veterans, alumni of an Israel Defence Force (IDF) military academy, told of the killing of civilians and their impression that deep contempt for Palestinians pervaded the ranks of the Israeli forces. Haaretz and the daily Maariv, which also published the accounts, quoted over half a dozen soldiers and airmen. The institution's director, Danny Zamir, confirmed that Thursday's published accounts were authentic. In longer excerpts in its Friday "Week's End" edition, the daily quoted 'Ram' as saying his impression of the 22-day operation was "the feeling of an almost religious mission".

Truly frightening.

(Perhaps the first part of the thread title should be put in quotation marks, as it is not considered two kills [url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/feminism/c-484-part-4-or-5] as per babble policy [/url].)

Quote:

No that's not what I argue at all. People have a right to "hate" (much as I hate the word "hate") the individuals who acted against them, but they don't have the right to extrapolate that to hating an entire of nationality made up of millions of people - many of whom are perfectly nice people.

Whether it is a right or not, that is what people do. It is clearly known and understood. War, for example, is only possible through hate. Look at war time cartoons and propaganda to appreciate how hate is stoked. Look at the way Israel promotes hate of Palestinians and how they have successfully exported it as a hatred of so-called "militant Islam" or "Islamists".

Quote:

Once of the first things we learn growing up is never to prejudge an entire people because of the actions of a few.

Who is "we"?

Quote:

and "hating" is not part of any "healing process" I know of. As long as people hate - there can be no healing and no reconciliation.

Yes it is. And to deny it is to deny one's humanity. It is as much a part of healing as is anger and reconciliation is only possible when both subside.

Quote:

I wonder why everyone's so quick to assume that Palestinians universally hate Israelis.

Who is everyone?

"Whether it is a right or not, that is what people do. It is clearly known and understood. War, for example, is only possible through hate. Look at war time cartoons and propaganda to appreciate how hate is stoked."

That's exactly right and my point from the start was to say the samw thing - how war brings out the worst in  people. Just because people do something doesn't make it right.

[img]http://www.atomic-playground.com/images/offtopic.gif[/img]

Its rational for them to hate Nazism. Its NOT rational for them to hate every single solitary person who walks this earth who is of German ethnicity.

Stockholm, that attempt at moral equivalence was very insensitive. The two sides are not equivalent. It is because they are not equivalent that a lot of these problems persist.

Attempting to equivocate between the Israelis and the Palestinians is crude obscurantism.

Quote:

Its rational for them to hate Nazism. Its NOT rational for them to hate every single solitary person who walks this earth who is of German ethnicity.

Fair enough. What about every person who describes himself/herself as a NAZI?