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For years now, Israel and its supporters have been calling on Palestinians to find their Gandhi, so to say. It appears that he was found a little over one week ago after local villagers safely delivered a stranded Israeli soldier to his unit during a military incursion near Ramallah in the West Bank. The coverage was overwhelmingly positive — after all, the soldier came out of his debacle unscathed — but we must not allow this supposed PR win to dehumanize the Palestinian people or to mask or outweigh their values and principles.
Naturally, I, like many, hold mixed views over what took place in Budrus. I certainly recognize the humanistic gesture undertaken by the locals when they escorted the frightened soldier through the village but I stand at odds with the idea of voluntarily assisting an occupying force and normalizing its presence, especially as it storms through Palestinian towns and arbitrarily detains men and children. My contention, however, isn’t nearly as troubling as the perceived sense that after six and a half decades of failed opportunities, Palestinians have finally done the “right thing”, that this act of courage, as I’m hearing it said, has shown the world the human face of an otherwise ugly and brutish people. [Read more...]







Israeli military commends itself for saving, not taking, lives
After reading the Israeli military’s latest report on its service to humanity, one might actually be compelled to believe that the Israeli military “is always ready to leave everything behind and save lives”. But unless you are a seal trained to clap at the clowns behind such a deceptive report, this should instead lead you to question the morality of Israel’s armed forces and how their mission to save lives ends just outside of Palestine’s borders.
The report features the National Search and Rescue Unit, a collection of volunteer Israeli soldiers, as one component of the Israeli military’s overall dedication to providing humanitarian aid in Israel and abroad. According to the report, this group of individuals was responsible for saving the life of a little girl hidden beneath the rubble of her home after a devastating earthquake hit Turkey in 1999. Admirable, yes, so let us ask Jihan al-Hilu what she thinks about Israel’s altruism. It is likely that she shares the same opinion as Mahdi al-’Athamneh.
Here would be the perfect place to insert quotes by sixteen-year-old Jihan and fifteen-year-old Mahdi but they are not with us to share their thoughts. Jihan and her entire family were killed on January 18, 2009, when armed Israeli forces, not an earthquake, fired a barrage of missiles at her home in Gaza City. Similarly, Mahdi was among the nineteen civilians killed when the Israeli military shelled a residential neighborhood in Beit Hanoun and collapsed his home on his family in 2006. Where was Israel’s altruism then? [Read more...]