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The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil,    but because of the people who don't do anything about it

Occupation magazine - Commentary Home page  back Print  Send To friend Red Rag column: What is a terrorist organization? Letter to Alshaikh and Yaalon. Donald Trump. By: Gideon Spiro 17 March 2016 (English translation 27 March 2016) What is a terrorist organization? Hadash and Balad, the two main components of the Joint List, have issued a statement in condemnation of the Arab League’s resolution declaring Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization. This provoked an outcry along nearly the entire Jewish political spectrum, and again we see the scenario of Israel’s Palestinian citizens against Israel’s Jewish citizens. Is Hezbollah indeed a terrorist organization? If I were in the place of the two parties, I would say the following: Hezbollah is sometimes a terrorist organization and sometimes a legitimate political organization that is part of the Lebanese government. When Hezbollah fought the Israeli invasion army in the First Lebanon War, Hezbollah fighters were freedom fighters repelling the Israeli invaders. On the other hand, when Hezbollah fighters stand alongside the Assad government in Syria as it slaughters its people, then it is a terrorist organization. It should be added that Israel, which has been a terrorist state for fifty years, is the last one who can complain about terrorism. The same can be said about the Arab League states, which are all terrorist states, starting with the initiator of the resolution declaring Hezbollah a terrorist organization, Saudi Arabia. Before they label others terrorists they should carry out a democratic cleaning in their own houses. Indeed Hezbollah is not composed of saints who respect human rights; it is a religious fundamentalist organization (a Lebanese version of the `Jewish Home` political party). Heaven preserve us from its long arm. Education in democracy, Israeli style The `Tel Nordau` School in Tel Aviv held a community-policing day in which Border Guard police demonstrated crowd-dispersal techniques to Grade 2 pupils. Instead of educating children on democracy, one of the basic rights of which is the right to demonstrate, children as young as 7 are getting lessons on regimes of oppression, where demonstrations are dispersed with tear gas and live ammunition. This is the next generation of Occupation soldiers. Even if this is merely a local initiative, not handed down from the Ministry of Education itself, it is in alignment with the winds that blow from Jerusalem. Israel is ensuring that the next generation of soldiers will be harnessed to the wagon of crowd-dispersal and Occupation. Bereavement in the service of Racism A letter I sent to Alshaikh and Yaalon 16 March 2016 To Roni Alshaikh, General Commander of the Israel Police, and Moshe Yaalon, Minister of Defence You have both committed the offence of blatant racism when you stated that Palestinian bereavement is inferior to Jewish bereavement. You have thereby moved a step closer to the scenario envisioned by Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz in which control over another people would lead us to an ISA state. [1] Your words were a message to soldiers and police of the Occupation that the killing of Palestinians is no terrible thing. Your words, Alshaikh, that the Palestinians sanctify death whereas Israel sanctifies life (Haaretz 23 February 2016), and your words, Yaalon, that Israel educates its children to seek peace (Haaretz 24 February 2016) are a mendacious pose for the purpose of brainwashing. In fact one of the defining characteristics of Israeli society – clearly since the beginning of the Occupation, but even before then, is the cult of death and the cult of the military. These are mainly expressed in events such as Remembrance Day for fallen IDF soldiers, which is characterized by clichés about “the best of our sons” who fell “in defence of the Homeland”, when the bitter reality is that about 80% of the fallen died in wars and military operations that were groundless and superfluous. Young people in Israel are educated not for peace but to hate Gentiles, and especially Arabs. One of the cynical expressions of that is the practice of sending delegations of youths about to be inducted into the IDF on trips to the Nazi extermination camps in Europe, especially Auschwitz. A Tel Aviv University study has shown that these expeditions motivate youths to enlist in combat units. The most cynical mind could not have come up with the idea of using Auschwitz as a marketing tool in that way. In your official roles you have educated youths on the joys of pulling the trigger, of killing and being killed as part of the Israeli culture of death, to convert the army into a repressive police force and the police into a branch of the ISA. Beyond the lofty-sounding rhetoric at ceremonies of various types that are generally mendacious from top to bottom, you hide behind dozens of defensive walls. No one can get to you. From within your fortified compounds you send 18-year-old women, who have not even completed their basic training, to their deaths as emissaries of the regime of Occupation and oppression. Under the Rome Statute, you are nothing but a couple of war-criminals who should make an accounting of yourselves before the International Court in The Hague. Academic shame Blessings on my friend Prof. Uri Ram, the Chairman of the Israeli Sociology Association, for the decision to boycott the apartheid college in the settlement of Ariel, which has dressed up as a “university” under the aegis of the military administration. That shameful institution should be pulled up by the roots, and meanwhile its walls should be coated with posters declaring, “Here lives a relative of the Nazi academy in its early years.” Trump To US citizens: there is still time to extricate this malignant tumour. Here in Israel we waited too long, metastases are in the government and the cancer is spreading. Chemotherapy is useless. Translator’s note 1. ISA: Israel Security Agency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Bet Translated from Hebrew for Occupation Magazine by George Malent Links to the latest articles in this section Three weeks into the Gaza War - a somber and sober assessment, with some historical perspectives Israelis, Palestinians, Gaza, Hamas - trying to preserve sanity Gush Shalom: The UN decision is a very necessary message to Israel’s extreme right-wing government