The situation in Israel and Palestine continues to grow worse on both sides. First you had the savage murder of three Israeli teens. Then you had the retaliation burning of a Palestinian teenager. Now protests are erupting all over Israel and the world on both sides. Some of the coverage is focusing on statements made by Israeli lawmaker Ayelet Shaked on Facebook that day before three Israeli men went out and picked up Muhammad Abu Khdeir, 16, at random and burned him alive. Shaked’s post calls Palestinians “little snakes” and declares that “the entire Palestinian people is the enemy.” Now comments by Israeli Knesset member Ayelet Shaked has caused an international outcry including contributing to a continuing rift with Turkey. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denounced the remarks and denounced Israel in an analogy to the Nazi regime. The situation is clearly getting worse by the day in the region.
Ayelet Shaked is a member of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party, which is part of the ruling coalition. She is quoted as calling for the slaughter of Palestinian mothers who give birth to “little snakes.” Shaked posted a screed on Facebook that various critics are denouncing as a call for genocide. Shaked reportedly stated: “They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists . . . are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands. This also applies to the mothers of the dead terrorists.”
The Facebook posting stated:
“Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”
Her comments have become the focus of the rising protests over Israel’s response to the killing of the teenagers and later rockets attacks. Turkey’s Prime Minister responded with to the comments and later Israeli retaliatory strikes with a charge that Israel is now engaging state terrorism. He drew an analogy that itself is likely to enrage many Israelis: “An Israeli woman said Palestinian mothers should be killed, too. And she’s a member of the Israeli parliament. What is the difference between this mentality and Hitler’s?”
Shaked holds degree in electrical engineering and computer sciences and she worked in marketing for Texas Instruments. She has past ties to Benjamin Netanyahu. From 2006-2008, she was the office director for the office of Netanyahu. She then established “My Israel” with Naftali Bennet, but in January 2012 she was elected to serve as the coordinator of Likud. She later became a Knesset member for the Jewish Home Party, a successor party to the National Religious Party. The party is committed to a nation governed by Jewish law under the belief that Jews are divinely ordained to rule over the Land of Israel. The party has been active in supporting the expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestinian terrorizes and largely represents Orthodox Jews according to news report.
Here is what has been posted as a full translation of Shaked’s statement:
The Palestinian people has declared war on us, and we must respond with war. Not an operation, not a slow-moving one, not low-intensity, not controlled escalation, no destruction of terror infrastructure, no targeted killings. Enough with the oblique references. This is a war. Words have meanings. This is a war. It is not a war against terror, and not a war against extremists, and not even a war against the Palestinian Authority. These too are forms of avoiding reality. This is a war between two people. Who is the enemy? The Palestinian people. Why? Ask them, they started.
I don’t know why it’s so hard for us to define reality with the simple words that language puts at our disposal. Why do we have to make up a new name for the war every other week, just to avoid calling it by its name. What’s so horrifying about understanding that the entire Palestinian people is the enemy? Every war is between two peoples, and in every war the people who started the war, that whole people, is the enemy. A declaration of war is not a war crime. Responding with war certainly is not. Nor is the use of the word “war”, nor a clear definition who the enemy is. Au contraire: the morality of war (yes, there is such a thing) is founded on the assumption that there are wars in this world, and that war is not the normal state of things, and that in wars the enemy is usually an entire people, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.
And the morality of war knows that it is not possible to refrain from hurting enemy civilians. It does not condemn the British air force, which bombed and totally destroyed the German city of Dresden, or the US planes that destroyed the cities of Poland and wrecked half of Budapest, places whose wretched residents had never done a thing to America, but which had to be destroyed in order to win the war against evil. The morals of war do not require that Russia be brought to trial, though it bombs and destroys towns and neighborhoods in Chechnya. It does not denounce the UN Peacekeeping Forces for killing hundreds of civilians in Angola, nor the NATO forces who bombed Milosevic’s Belgrade, a city with a million civilians, elderly, babies, women, and children. The morals of war accept as correct in principle, not only politically, what America has done in Afghanistan, including the massive bombing of populated places, including the creation of a refugee stream of hundreds of thousands of people who escaped the horrors of war, for thousands of whom there is no home to return to.
And in our war this is sevenfold more correct, because the enemy soldiers hide out among the population, and it is only through its support that they can fight. Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. Actors in the war are those who incite in mosques, who write the murderous curricula for schools, who give shelter, who provide vehicles, and all those who honor and give them their moral support. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.
By the way, there was an interesting interview (here) with the Israeli spokesman (who by they way — regardless of how you feel about the merits of his argument — holds up well under a withering series of questions). The interview covers both views of the ongoing conflict.
UPDATE: Shaked responded by stressing that she was citing and quoting an article written by another individual some 12 years ago:
Let’s start with my July 1 Facebook post. It was written some 12 years ago, but never published, by a dear man, the recently departed journalist Uri Elitzur. The gist of his article was that once one side in a war attacks the other side’s civilians, they can no longer morally claim a special status for their own civilians.
Go ahead, ask a Hebrew speaking friend to translate it for you, they’ll confirm this is what my Facebook post was about. But you’ll find not a trace of that in Resnick’s account. Perhaps it’s his own ignorance of the Hebrew language. After all, he got the text from Electronic Intifada, a website dedicated to daily and hourly vilification of my country.
All Resnick had to do to make Elitzur’s sober, legally minded discussion sound like a speech made by Hitler himself, was to cherry pick words out of context. A call for the indiscriminate killing of children is a terrible thing. But what if the statement was that any time you attack our children, you’re exposing your own people to the same fate? Still unsettling, but rational when you consider their civilian population is actively supporting and participating in their war and terror efforts. It’s not a call for indiscriminate murder.
Randyjet,
Did you catch this interview with Stephen Cohen on Democracy Now?
Excerpt:
STEPHEN COHEN: Sanctions are beside the point. Obviously they’ll cause economic pain, possibly equally to Europe, which doesn’t want them, didn’t want them. Major American corporations took out ads in major American newspapers before Obama did this, asking Obama not to do it. When you resort to sanctions, it means you have no policy. You have an attitude. And the anti-Putin attitude in Washington is driving American policy.
Let me mention, because I think it’s relevant to what you’re covering here, your very, very powerful segments before I came on today about what’s going on in Gaza, the pounding of these cities, the defenselessness of ordinary people. The same thing has been happening in East Ukrainian cities—bombing, shelling, mortaring by the Kiev government—whatever we think of that government. But that government is backed 150 percent by the White House. Every day, the White House and the State Department approve of what Kiev’s been doing. We don’t know how many innocent civilians, women and children, have died. We know there’s probably several hundred thousand refugees that have run from these cities. The cities are Donetsk, Luhansk, Kramatorsk, Slovyansk—a whole series of cities whose names are not familiar to Americans. The fact is, Americans know nothing about this. We know something about what’s happening in Gaza, and there’s a division of opinion in the United States: The Israelis should do this, the Israelis should not do this. But we know there are victims: We see them. Sometimes the mainstream media yanks a reporter, as you just showed, who shows it too vividly, because it offends the perception of what’s right or wrong. But we are not shown anything about what’s happened in these Ukrainian cities, these eastern Ukrainian cities.
Why is that important? Because this airliner, this shootdown, took place in that context. The American media says it must have been the bad guys—that is, the rebels—because they’ve shot down other airplanes. This is true, but the airplanes they’ve been shooting down are Ukraine’s military warplanes that have come to bomb the women and children of these cities. We don’t know that.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/18/stephen_cohen_downed_malaysian_plane_raises
I’m just learning about the Odessa Massacre now.
Since this is all first impression for me, I was wondering what your take is on all this.
Bob, I have been a big fan of Prof Cohen since I first saw him on TV as a commentator back during Reagan;s time. Whatever he says about Russia, and eastern Europe is my opinion as well since he has the intimate knowledge and concern for the truth that I trust without reservation. I have driven around eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1984, so I am somewhat familiar with the area, but I am not fluent in Russian but I do know how to get information. I also had some friends who were experts in the area and who did speak the languages.
The list of aviation shoot downs omits the time in 2001 when the Ukrainians shot down a Russian airliner and killed 78 Russian civilians. According to some here, that is an act of war. If so, I think the Russians should have invaded the Ukraine in retaliation if these people are serious. Of course, in the western media, Serbs, Russians, Iranians,Libyans and Cubans are legal targets and killing them is of no great consequence when they die as a result of military actions and shooting down their aircraft.
ANY RATIONAL POSITIVE RESOLUTION COMMENTS……..
The Gazans should just unconditionally surrender, like the Japanese did.
UD,
There is no context in the reference to the singular, unfortunate event of the bombing deaths of 241 Beirut Marines. Reagan was historically, globally successful despite your miniscule gnat. Your frivolous antics have no credibility.
Mes,
Please edify me. When is hegemony destabilizing?
mespo & Bob, Esq.
knock it off you two. can’t have intelligent, on topic conversation going on around here.
Mark,
The Liberty had a much more intentional flavor to it.
No, this is a true accident seeking the moral cover the world affords Israel for its ‘accidental’ casualties.
Not to mention that Russia sees Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians the same way Jimmy Carter does; i.e. as apartheid.
Talk about must see tv.
mespo727272,
**My analysis of all things foreign:**
Where have we been & where are we going, that’s the question.
Here is some reading I think one would be wise to consider.
Where we were:
http://books.google.com/books?id=yH95QgAACAAJ&dq=inauthor:steven+inauthor:emerson&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&num=100&as_brr=0&ei=BoVhS8aPAZXuzATT1vUm&cd=5
Plus
Where we are:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard
Bob, Esq.
I expect that very argument. Recall the Liberty
People need to remember that Israel DID shoot down a Libyan jetliner over the Sinai when Israel still had it. That was a deliberate attack by an Israeli fighter in daylight, and on the order of Moshe Dayan. It was crewed by a French crew that was flying the plane to Saudi for the hajis.
Talk about saving face through checkmate.
Mark,
Can you imagine the separatists, or Russia for that matter, demanding the same moral favoritism that the world shows Israel for such “accidents”?
Bob,esq.
I think the separatists are going to claim accident.
You were saying Mark?
Imagine if the Russian separatists used IDF’s stock excuses for “accidentally” killing innocent civilians as its excuse for the tragedy of MH 17.
It would turn the U.N. on its head.
My analysis of all things foreign:
Unless you have a clear moral actor — or one substantially so — any foreign policy question has to be analyzed from our national interests. It is in our interest to promote peace in that area of the world due to the confluence of natural resources there. If we can’t have peace we must have a “winner.” Internecine warfare benefits no one and especially the civilian casualties. To get a winner, we have to provide assistance of know-how and material. To decide upon whom to bestow our largess we have to project what the “winner” will do with his victory. If he will use it to foster hegemony throughout the region thus destabilizing it, we can’t be on his side. Whom do you think is most likely to destabilize the region — Hamas or Israel? To me the answer is obvious.
Thanks Darren.
BTW, you may want to read those two articles I posted links to.
And then ask yourself who precipitated the breaking of the 2 year old cease fire.
randyjet – from the Palestinians I’ve known, it’s an accent, with some European and Hebrew words mixed in. It is not a separate language, in which other Arabs could not understand them.
No one says, “I speak Palestinian.” It’s, “I speak Arabic.”
Now, yallah, do you understand that Palestine was a region, composed mostly of Jordan? As opposed to, say, Canada, which IS a country? And that prior to the British Mandate of 1913 it was surveyed as sparsely populated?
Karen S I suggest you go to any web site that has anything about Arabic, and you will find that most Arabic speakers cannot understand the local dialects. Palestine was not so sparsely populated either, There were millions of Palestinians in what is now Israel, and the forebears of todays Hamas were living in their own hope Main street teaching .
Po, Netanyahu has the support of Jews in Israel. Those are his constituents. It’s easy to be a liberal Jew on the upper west side of Manhattan. Their opinion means nothing since they don’t live in Israel. I taught high school history. What are your credentials? What’s your profession?
Dr. Joep Lange, considered the best expert in fighting AIDS was on the Malaysian jet shot down yesterday.
And Nick, if you are a student of history, you sure aren’t a good student. Any real student of history will tell you that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is unsustainable. It cannot kill them all, and if it manages to take over all the land, it will thereby blow up its aim to keep its Jewish character.
We are all disturbed by any hatred towards anyone, and it fascinates me that in the process of defending and protecting one, you are demonizing the other, which is exactly what caused the one to be what it is right now. The French have a saying that you cannot me more royalist than the king. In your asking Bob why he hates Israel,you have dismissed all the Jews around the globe who rebel against Zionism, who care for Israel and Know that the safest thing, the better thing for them all individually and communally is to stand up for Palestine. Your whole argument is emotional, so to conclude it with a claim of rationality is pretty funny, or sad, not sure which yet.