IDF troops film themselves humiliating bound Palestinian

[shaayecanaan]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035088.html

The footage shows the Palestinian kneeling and repeating sentences given to him to say by the soldiers, who belong to the Golani infantry brigade.

One of the lines is: "Golani will bring you a log to stick up your ass." As the detainee repeats the words, the soldiers are heard laughing raucously in the background.

The talkback comments are full of the usual drivel, but one comment in particular sticks out:-

"I have been in the IDF and belive me neither me or my friends I was with had any love for palestinians and unless it was something really serious I am not sure any of us would have reported one of our own if it was just simple humiliation

This stuff goes on, remember the only reason those checkpoints are there and manned by soilders is to stop palestinians who want to try kill Israelis.
Working checkpoints is very boring most the time, neither us or the palestinians like each other so sometimes soilders do taunt them for kicks."

NB, The Golani Brigade is what passes for an elite special force in Israel, although the level of discipline and professionalism is far less than what would be tolerated in the British SAS, for example.

[LeftishBrit]

1. Absolutely disgusting; hope they are severely punished for that.

[azurnoir]

2. Monkey see, monkey do

apparently these guys didn't learn anything from what happened to American soldiers who did something similar.

[eyl]

3. Golani isn't he equivalent of the SAS

that would be Sayeret Matkal.

101st Airborne would be a closer equivalent, IMO

[bemildred]

4. Damn, why are these evil Muslins filled with hate?

:sarcasm:

But seriously, if these were my troops, I would be concerned about morale and discipline. This is way stupid.

[Kurska]

5. This is terrible

They really need to discipline those soldiers, not only is this horrible, it's just plain stupid. Say what you will about the discipline of the golani's, they are damn fine soldiers and the fact these idiots would tarnish their reputation with this behavior is a true tragedy.

[shaayecanaan]

6. Yes...

Its unbelievably thick, whatever you think of the ethics of it.

Both the British and the French had their different approaches to colonisation. When the French were in charge of Lebanon they set about basically making Lebanese into little Frenchmen, by inculcating them with a love of French language, culture and all that guff. By some standards they were very successful, even today many Lebanese people refer to themselves as "French-Lebanese", which generally always makes me cringe and ask where exactly is French-Lebanon and if it is anywhere in the vicinity of Arab-Lebanon.

Still, they had an empire for a significant length of time and it obviously worked for them. The recent problems for the British in Iraq/Afghanistan probably indicates they have lost any talent for colonisation, although it may simply be that the Americans fucked it up for them and that things may have gone better had Britain been running the show.

The Israelis on the other hand are quite inept. The British and French were able to run an empire that covered 1/4 of the terrestrial Earth by generally securing the acquiescence of those over who they ruled, whereas the Israelis despite their resources struggle with an area the size of Lichtenstein.

True, the last two thousand years have not equipped Jews very well for ruling themselves, let alone lording over Arabs. But the Palestinians are not inherently very nationalistic. They suffered the British and the Turks in broad silence. Even the Arab Israelis have been the very picture of quiescence, despite being denuded of most of their land under the Absentee Property Laws. It wouldnt have taken all that much to keep them quiet. You really have to wonder whether they have any idea at all.

[Kurska]

7. Please no one tell his poor man israel doesn't have colonies and isn't a empire

It'd be like telling a child there is no Santa Claus.
Israel is barely the size of New Jersey, the west bank is ruled by the PA under israeli watch and israel doesn't have any say in gaza politics besides what goes in and out of it's border.
Where you get either empire or colonies is beyond me.

[bemildred]

8. Maybe it's the settlers and the settlements.

That sort of thing could mislead anyone.

[Kurska]

9. Which would make sense

If the gaza pullout hadn't proved that israel needs settlements to act as buffers between itself and any possible future arab state. Why dismantle your own border cities only to watch the enemy fire rockets from it into your heartland?

What good would dismantling those settlements do israel?

[bemildred]

10. I was just pointing out where the idea of empire or colonies could come from.

I wasn't offering to debate about the dismantling of the settlements, or why one ought to do it, or any of that stuff; that is a much messier subject, and leads to all sorts of convoluted arguments about how many states to have and whether you can really have "separate but equal" and so on. Not a pleasant prospect, especially when you have seen the arguments many times already.

[Kurska]

11. I'd imagine the reference was less toward the settlements

And more toward the idea of israel itself being a colony, I can only guess at the less then all there logic behind that idea. Not that I haven't see that argument presented before, by any means.

Given that he or she hasn't popped back in to defend his/her statements, we can only speculate.

[shaayecanaan]

12. Was referring to the West Bank

so in effect, yes.

[Kurska]

13. Do you think the west bank settlements are colonies?

And with the disaster that was the pull out of gaza, what could israel possibly gain by removing them?

[shaayecanaan]

14. Snappy answers...

to stupid questions.

1) Yes, the West Bank settlements amount to colonisation. They are an attempt to transfer a civilian population to militarily occupied land and therefore amount to a breach of the fourth Geneva convention.

2) And with the disaster that was the pull out of gaza, what could israel possibly gain by removing them?

The question is both factually incorrect and a non-sequitur, as the question of settlements is a separate issue from that of the military occupation.

163 Israelis were killed in the Gaza Strip from the end of the First Intifada in 1993 to the disengagement in 2005, an average of almost 14 per year. Since the August 2005 disengagement, 14 Israelis have been killed by Qassam rockets, an average of just under four per year. I suppose your opinion is a tenable one if you consider a reduction of 10 Israeli deaths a year to be disastrous, otherwise I'm not sure on what basis your opinion rests.

[Kurska]

15. On the matter of qassam rockets

With the strategic shift of hamas moving from local attacks to qassam rockets, now all of israel is (based on the quality of the rocket) within range of hamas attacks, as opposed to tens of thousands.
The greater message of this is now, atleast, all southern israelis have to live under threat of rocket attack. This strategic shift was indisputably caused by israel removing their local presence and ending the "Occupation" of gaza.

The strategy that the palestinians employed in gaza is when israelis leave the occupied territories, they should use the land to launch rocket attacks into israel itself. Why then should israel leave the occupied territories in the west bank? What would they have to gain by placing their entire country under even greater threat of attack?

Once bitten twice shy.

[shaayecanaan]

16. Again...

your reasoning is suspect.

This strategic shift was indisputably caused by israel removing their local presence and ending the "Occupation" of gaza.

Hamas started firing rockets at Sderot well before the occupation of Gaza ended. The "strategic shift" was a result of the Gaza separation fence, which has existed for much longer than the West Bank fence. Whereas West Bank insurgents could easily infiltrate Israel with suicide bombers during the 2nd intifada, the fence prevented the same from happening in Gaza, so Hamas devised the rockets which could of course be fired over the fence.

The main requirement for Qassam rockets is the potassium nitrate fertiliser which is combined with sugar to make rocket candy, the solid propellant which is used to power the rockets. To get a rocket to travel 8-10 kilometres requires quite a bit of the stuff. That's achievable in Gaza, trickier in the West Bank without smuggling tunnels.

Why then should israel leave the occupied territories in the west bank?

Because eventually, if they do not, at some stage the occupied territories will become part of Israel.

[eyl]

17. Bear in mind, though

that from the WB you don't need as much propelant, since it runs closer to major Israeli towns than Gaza (Jerusalem in particular).

Also, while the number of Israeli deaths has been reduced since the Gaza disengagement, the number of Israelis at threat considerably increased, which has significant economic and political importance. And if they come up with Qassams which can reach Ashdod, we may have a really serious situation; not only is it a larger town (5th largest in Israel, IIRC) and contains a port, if the chemical plants there are hit, the effects could be.....bad.

[bemildred]

18. Maybe not having them able to threaten you is just not a realistic goal?

I mean, what about Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, all of which are much bigger threats than the people in Gaza or the West Bank, who are at least under military occupation and thus limited in the means available to them.

[Vegasaurus]

19. What about Arabs and other Muslims

learning to live with Jews in their midst?

They haven't done so well with this for 100 years, long before Israel existed.

We could only hope that they will one day be able to accept Jews.

Until that time, Israel must protect itself by whatever means possible.

[bemildred]

21. Notice they have not had much luck getting Israel not to threaten them either?

It's like all that belligerence just doesn't have the desired effect.

[shaayecanaan]

22. Ashdod...

would be just about impossible. When you consider the amount of fuel needed to get that far (more than double the fuel in the Qassam-3) the problem is the enormous weight difference that you would get between a fully fueled rocket and a spent rocket and the effect it would have on its ballistic performance.

A Katyusha M-13 rocket weights about 8 kilos and can travel about 7 or 8 kilometres. A Grad rocket can travel up to twenty-five kilometres, but weights 14 tonnes, nearly 500 times as much weight. You need enourmous amounts of fuel to travel the distance, but you also need an even bigger rocket to even out the ballistics of the rocket as it spends fuel, and these are machined rockets, not the home-made ones that Hamas uses.

The other problem with unguided rockets at that range is accuracy, I would imagine the chemical plants at Ashdod would stand more chance of being hit by a meteor than a Qassam.

[Vegasaurus]

20. At what stage do you expect that this will happen? nt

[shaayecanaan]

23. About fifteen years...

There's a lot that could happen in that time, but certainly one thing that will happen is that Arabs will go from about 20% of the population to more like 30%.

There are very few countries that can tolerate a sharp demographic split of 70%/30% and remain stable. For example, New Zealand has a white population of roughly 70% and an islander/Maori population of roughly 30% but NZ Maoris and Pakehas get on a lot better than Arabs and Jews in Israel.

Currently, there is an unwritten rule in Israeli politics that Jewish parties will not rely on the votes of Arab MKs to pass any law in the face of Jewish opposition. That is made easier by the fact that Arabs tend to boycott elections. From a self-preservation point of view, it may be wiser for the Arabs to continue on that path rather than vote in Arab MKs and invite a backlash from Jews. Nevertheless it will be very difficult for Jewish parties to form any workable coalition as long as 30% of the voting populace is Arab.

The demographic change will also have a significant effect as far as white flight is concerned. Due to the policy of there being no new Arab towns, existing Jewish areas are being increasingly displaced by encroaching Arab populations in the North.

Lieberman has proposed redrawing the borders between Israel and Palestine to give Palestine much of the Galilee in exchange for the West Bank settlements. Something like that may end up being tenable, ultimately. I dare say the lines will have to be a bit more attractive to the Palestinians for it to be accepted.

Certainly, some of the settlements may be withdrawn and their people relocated in order to try and shore up the Jewish majority in Jerusalem, which is looking potentially shaky at this stage.

Another option may well be for the Europe or Australia or Canada to agree to offer citizenship to 100,000 to 200,000 Arab Israelis in exchange for Israel agreeing to a two-state solution. That would make the Western countries look magnanimous and liberal, as well as snatching a big foreign policy triumph from the United States, which is obviously a big draw card for them. After all, the US is still pissed that the Norwegians were the first to get the two sides talking.

[Scurrilous]

24. IDF soldiers filmed humiliating bound Palestinian face court martial

<snip>

"The Israel Defense Forces ruled on Thursday it will court-martial four infantrymen who were filmed verbally abusing a bound and blindfolded Palestinian at what is believed to be a checkpoint in the West Bank, Channel 10 reported.

According to the report, IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi ordered an investigation into the incident, tapping GOC Northern Command Gadi Eizencot to oversee the probe.

Last week, soldiers from the Golani infantry brigade posted a video on YouTube depicting a blindfolded Palestinian being forced to repeat phrases in Hebrew as the soldiers manning the checkpoint laugh in the background."

<snip>

"The clip has drawn the attention of both domestic and international media outlets, sparking public outrage at the soldiers' behavior.

Last week, the army issued a harsh condemnation of the troops' actions.

"The IDF views this incident gravely and condemns it. Behavior of this kind goes against IDF values and its soldiers' expected norms of behavior," the IDF Spokesman's Unit said in a statement it released."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1037217.html