Israeli Vets on Israeli Treatment of Gaza & Palestinians: “It’s Mostly Punishment”

[Larkspur]

Israeli Vets on Israeli Treatment of Gaza & Palestinians“It’s Mostly Punishment” (Breaking the Silence)
SNIP

“There is no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” President Barack Obama said at a press conference last week. He drew on this general observation in order to justify Operation Pillar of Defense, Israel’s most recent military campaign in the Gaza Strip. In describing the situation this way, he assumes, like many others, that Gaza is a political entity external and independent of Israel. This is not so. It is true that Israel officially disengaged from the Gaza Strip in August 2005, withdrawing its ground troops and evacuating the Israeli settlements there. But despite the absence of a permanent ground presence, Israel has maintained a crushing control over Gaza from that moment until today.

The testimonies of Israeli army veterans expose the truth of that “disengagement.” Before Operation Pillar of Defense, after all, Israel launched Operations Summer Rains and Autumn Clouds in 2006, and Hot Winter and Cast Lead in 2008 — all involving ground invasions. In one testimony, a veteran speaks of “a battalion operation” in Gaza that lasted for five months, where the soldiers were ordered to shoot “to draw out terrorists” so they “could kill a few.”

Israeli naval blockades stop Gazans from fishing, a main source of food in the Strip. Air blockades prevent freedom of movement. Israel does not allow building materials into the area, forbids exports to the West Bank and Israel, and (other than emergency humanitarian cases) prohibits movement between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It controls the Palestinian economy by periodically withholding import taxes. Its restrictions have impeded the expansion and upgrading of the Strip’s woeful sewage infrastructure, which could render life in Gaza untenable within a decade. The blocking of seawater desalination has turned the water supply into a health hazard. Israel has repeatedly demolished small power plants in Gaza, ensuring that the Strip would have to continue to rely on the Israeli electricity supply. Daily power shortages have been the norm for several years now. Israel’s presence is felt everywhere, militarily and otherwise.

By relying on factual misconceptions, political leaders, deliberately or not, conceal information that is critical to our understanding of events. Among the people best qualified to correct those misconceptions are the individuals who have been charged with executing a state’s policies — in this case, Israeli soldiers themselves, an authoritative source of information about their government’s actions. I am a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and I know that our first-hand experiences refute the assumption, accepted by many, including President Obama, that Gaza is an independent political entity that exists wholly outside Israel. If Gaza is outside Israel, how come we were stationed there? If Gaza is outside Israel, how come we control it? Oded Na’aman

SNIP

The subsequent stories by these IDF vets paints an unheroic view of the Israeli treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and confirms my view that Israel views the Palestinians the way the 19th century US Government viewed Native American -- as vermin instead of as humans. If that makes me anti-Semitic, I call all the Israel-is-always-right mob racists and Israel and apartheid nation.

These stories also prove that Gandhi was right, that Israel could not maintain itself as a democracy and a Jewish state. That combination would lead to Israel becoming an oppressor.

[oberliner]

1. Glad they can confirm your view for you

And prove Ghandi was right to boot!

[azurnoir]

2. exactly what was Ghandi right about are you willing to quote that for us?

Last edited Mon Nov 26, 2012, 05:09 PM - Edit history (1)

or are you unwilling for 'some' reason ?