• @loutre
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    The Israeli army’s first commandment
    Amira Hass | Aug. 9, 2021 | 11:29 PM | Haaretz.com
    ▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-israeli-army-s-first-commandment-1.10102377

    https://img.haarets.co.il/img/1.10102407/4139848113.jpg?precrop=772,448,x0,y0&height=698&width=1200

    Stop saying “Soldiers fired for no reason” or “a Palestinian boy was killed for no reason.” First of all, because there is a reason, and second, because this kind of phrasing only entrenches the representation of reality that the government wants people to adopt.

    Let’s start with the second point. When they say “soldiers fired for no reason” on the car in which Muayad al-Alami and his children Mohammed, Anan and Ahmed were riding, it’s like saying that all is normal and there is nothing amiss with armed foreign soldiers being stationed 24/7 in the heart of a civilian population.

    This is what the IDF and the government want us to think, this is what the platoons of settlers tell us and what Jewish Israelis who pop over for a quick visit to Yesha-stan come to think. The phrase “fired on/was killed for no reason” contains within it the premise that it is the behavior of a certain Palestinian or of the Palestinian population as a whole that must be scrutinized, because they must certainly be the ones who deviated from the rules that the soldiers expect them to uphold. And for each new platoon, the Palestinians are like new recruits who have been brought into an Israeli military facility and need to learn its rules.

    This premise means that if Mohammed, not quite 12 years old, did not give the soldiers a reason to kill him, his father Muayad must have given them a reason to kill his son. How did he have the audacity to drive in reverse as the soldiers watched? And when it also turns out that the driving in reverse is not a sufficient reason for killing a child, there are still all the other people killed with all the reasons they gave the soldiers to kill them, and which enable the Israeli people to support the killing: the residents of Beita protesting the theft of their land; the residents of Gaza protesting their life imprisonment; the farmers who have the gall to live for decades alongside brand-new outposts and resist the violence of the thugs who live there.

    But there is nothing normal about a military occupation force controlling a civilian population for 54 years and counting. So it is unfortunate that without even noticing, B’Tselem and the news site Siha Mekomit normalized the army’s presence by writing that surveillance camera footage proves that “there was no reason for the gunfire” that killed Mohammed al-Alami. Words reflect a perception of reality and also shape the way people see reality. Deeply-rooted, consistent leftists should not use words and phrasing that participate in distortion.

    And now back to the first point. The soldiers and police in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) have an ongoing reason to shoot and kill Palestinians, which stems from their role as protectors of the settlements’ well-being. This is the first (and only) commandment that was given to them upon their enlistment. The slightest movement that arouses concern that something might disrupt the continued grab and takeover of the land and water sources – this is a reason to shoot. Every Palestinian man and woman going about their lives in their land and their home is thus found guilty from the start, until it is proven that they did not intend to harm a settler. Or the soldier who protects him.

    The reason soldiers shot the three Al-Alami children and their father is that the soldiers’ immediate job is to defend the Karmei Tzur settlement to the south and the Beit Bracha settlement to the north, and to ensure they continue to prosper at the expense of Beit Umar and Al-Arub. The soldiers’ mission is to guard the upscale suburbs and the roads that connect them, which embody the success of the Israeli policy of bisecting and destroying the Palestinian geography.

    In protecting the settlements and settlers, in keeping with the first and only commandment, the IDF is ensuring that more Jews will move into the West Bank, in violation of international law, and thus expand the number of people directly involved in the governmental and privatized theft. The larger the number of thieves, the stronger the legitimacy, they believe, to continue cramming the Palestinians into cramped, hidden enclaves desperate for land and water.

    Soldiers fired on a pickup carrying a father and three children who were headed for a picnic because their commanders, teachers and parents trained them to see Palestinians’ lives as a footnote to the success story of Jewish colonialism.

    ▻https://seenthis.net/messages/924326

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      After string of fatalities, IDF chief urges: Reduce shooting of Palestinians
      In the past three months over 40 Palestinians have been killed by soldiers, including some non-combatants who were killed by mistake
      Yaniv Kubovich | Aug. 10, 2021 | 6:16 AM | 6

      IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi asked senior Central Command officers to take action to reduce the number of shootings of Palestinians by soldiers in the West Bank, which has risen considerably over the past three months and particularly over the last three weeks. In his meeting Sunday with the Central Command brass he asked that more senior officers be assigned to some military operations to assure that higher-ranking personnel are present to make more of the decisions.

      Meanwhile, politicians and security officials criticized the conduct of Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Yadai and other senior staff, which they said could touch off escalation in the West Bank and hurt efforts the government is making to help the Palestinian Authority recover economically and politically.

      Over the past three months more than 40 Palestinians have been shot to death in clashes with soldiers, some of them non-combatants killed by mistake. This number includes 27 Palestinians killed during Operation Guardian of the Walls in Gaza in May.

      The series of events began in May, when a group of settlers was authorized to establish the outpost of Evyatar a few hours after the murder of Yehuda Guetta at Tapuah Junction in the northern West Bank. The police and the army were at odds over the question of which of them had authorized the establishment of the outpost, and did not evacuate it. Since then the area of the outpost has become a focus of protest in which many Palestinians were killed.

      Last month the commander of the Jordan Valley Brigade, Col. Bezalel Schneid, authorized a group of settlers from the Nahala movement, which was behind the founding of Evyatar, to stay overnight at an abandoned base in the Jordan Valley, although he knew of their intention to establish an outpost there. At the same time, the struggle of the residents of East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood against their eviction also led to escalation.

      On Friday a 38-year-old father of five from the village of Beita, Emad Dweikat, was shot in the chest by soldiers and killed. Since May, four other Palestinians have been killed in protests at Beita, which is near Evyatar. Since the Gaza operation began in May, soldiers in the West Bank began increasing the use of supposedly less lethal Ruger semi-automatic rifles.

      Over the past three weeks a number of Palestinians have been killed in a manner that raises doubts about the soldiers’ adherence to the rules of engagement. Mohammed al-Alami, 12, was killed when struck by 13 bullets fired at the vehicle in which he was sitting with his family near the entrance to the town of Beit Ummar. north of Hebron. One of the bullets struck the boy in the chest. After his funeral, clashes broke out during which IDF soldiers shot and killed Shawkat Awwad, 20.

      In July, 17-year-old Mohammed Munir Tamimi was shot and killed by IDF fire in the village of Nabi Saleh near Ramallah. A few days later, soldiers shot to death a 41-year-old Beita resident, Shadi Shurafi, a plumber. He was shot near a water pipe while holding a wrench.

      Central Command chief Yadai has also been disparaged by security officials over his behavior toward extremist elements among the settlers. Yadai’s meeting with known activists among the hilltop youth from the outpost of Maoz Esther in February, and with the fiancée of settler teen Ahuvia Sandak, who was killed during a police chase, are recalled as aberrant, wrong-headed actions.

      Security officials also criticized Yadai’s visits during that same time to the outposts of Malakhei Hashalom and Kumi Uri. The latter had been evacuated a number of times in recent years; some of its residents are hilltop youth who had more than once assaulted IDF soldiers and officers.

      Sources said that in his meeting with the senior officers, Kochavi also noted a number of cases where settlers in civilian clothes were seen shooting at Palestinians with army-issue weapons, in some instances using the weapon of a solider near the site. In June a settler was photographed using an IDF weapon to shoot at Palestinians in the southern Hebron Hills.

      The shooter, who emerged from a military jeep in which soldiers were sitting, was photographed firing at Palestinians from the village of a-Tuwani near the outpost of Havat Maon, while other settlers at the site threw stones and damaged trees belonging to the Palestinians.

      The IDF Spokesman’s Office was stated that the settler “had taken the soldier’s weapon and fired in the air” and that “procedures were refreshed.” However, the theft of the weapon was not reported at the time, and at no point did the soldiers leave the vehicle to take back the weapon that had been stolen from them, as orders require. After firing, the settler was seen returning the weapon to the soldiers sitting in the jeep and leaving the site. The IDF has yet to provide information about this and other cases in which settlers or masked men are seen alongside soldiers in uniform shooting at Palestinians.

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