A friend shared this video with me from a former IDF soldier (Eran
Efrati) who was so troubled by his experiences in the Territories that
he is now a spokesman for a group
trying to spread the word to Israel proper and the outside world on the
injustices and implications of the Occupation. It's 40 min, but worth
it IMO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Some highlights:
-When
Efrati was a boy, he remembered his grandma crying hysterically at
night from PTSD from her Nazi death camp experience. It jarred him to
the bone when he heard a Palestinian mother crying the same way after
his unit killed her unarmed son.
-In Operation Cast Lead (the first Gaza invasion in
2008-9), the IDF ground troops were surprised with what they saw. They
were pumped up to kick ass and do the urban fighting that they had been
trained for, but by the time they set foot in Gaza, there was nothing
left to fight. The navy and air force had already destroyed everything,
and all they saw were rubble and corpses.
-While the US still gives Israel billions in aid (some of
it military), Israel also has a billions-dollar war export industry.
They have sold/currently sell resistance suppression tools/training to
foreign governments - some of whom are terribly repressive and
undemocratic (Pinochet's Chile, Mobutu's Congo/Zaire, Apartheid SA, the
PRC). So they have a financial incentive to continue the Occupation, and
even use the Territories as a "lab" to try out new innovations.
In the end, I think Efrati presented a good message for the US audience: we might not care about the Palestinians who are so far away, but we could be next - because US police are getting Israeli training to be more brutal and militaristic. If one day we have to protest our gov't, or we become the "enemy of the state", then we will be treated like the new Palestinians. Who in the world is going to help us, if we never bothered to help the Palestinians? I hope our laws and rights will protect us if that dark time comes, but clearly many people have had their rights violated by the cops (and gov't) during the War on Terror, OWS, and just crossing the street.
Bill Maher on the militarization of the US police (which seems to
be enabled by resistance suppression training/tools tested in the
Territories). Ironically, Maher spent the first half of the show
crapping on the Palestinians and praising Israel. In the end, I think Efrati presented a good message for the US audience: we might not care about the Palestinians who are so far away, but we could be next - because US police are getting Israeli training to be more brutal and militaristic. If one day we have to protest our gov't, or we become the "enemy of the state", then we will be treated like the new Palestinians. Who in the world is going to help us, if we never bothered to help the Palestinians? I hope our laws and rights will protect us if that dark time comes, but clearly many people have had their rights violated by the cops (and gov't) during the War on Terror, OWS, and just crossing the street.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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