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.
What principally distinguishes Ms. Shaked from Mr. Goebbels is opportunity.
randy,
I see you are using the same talking points that were generated as part of the Israel Project (http://www.juancole.com/2014/07/jebreal-against-palestinians.html#comment-280632) This is all part of the Zionist propaganda that the weak minded have swallowed hook, line and sinker.
It is always about the rockets that are being fired into poor Israel…what bullshit!
The truth is that Israel had already killed several Palestinians before the rockets ever started. And then when the three illegal settlers were killed, they arrested and tortured hundreds of innocent Palestinians…and that is when the rockets started.
Anyone with a brain already knows that Hamas is not the problem; 7 decades of Israeli brutality and opression is.
And genius….everyone who read my post except you, realized it was sarcasm to make the point that what Israel is doing is illegal, immoral and should not be supported by the US government.
If you want to join the ranks of the informed…check out this FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Miko-Peled/141707482508655
Dear President Obama and Secretary Kerry:
I have a solution for the problem of all those Central American children at the southern border. Since they are escaping gang violence, we should send our military to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and kill all of the gang members.
We should blow up their houses, completely destroy the neighborhoods they live in, kill or arrest everyone in their families and everyone they know and put a blockade completely around their countries.
We will call in air strikes on their hospitals, schools and infrastructure…and we will tell everyone they were “surgical” strikes and the gangs were using the children as human shields. That way they won’t get any food or water or electricity unless we let them have it.
We can destroy their economies and break their will. Sure a lot of innocent people will be killed…collateral damage….and we will just tell the international community it wasn’t us or it was an accident….everyone knows WE don’t target innocent civilians…
Those gang members keep causing children to illegally cross our border and we have every right to protect our country……
While we are at it, this would also be a good protocol for what to do about those school shooters like Adam Lanza who killed all those kids at Sandy Hook Elementary. We should kill all of his family and blow up all of their houses….in fact we should destroy all the towns they live in and then use the land to build high-end homes for immigrants.
Of course we would have to set up military check points to keep the locals under control and away from the new settlements, and we would have to build new roads just for the immigrants and walls to protect them, but we can afford to do that if we stop any municipal funds from going to the locals.
What?
What do you mean we can’t do that?
This is exactly what Israel is doing to the Palestinians with your blessing and encouragement… financed by the American taxpayers….. If it is OK for Israel to do that, why isn’t it OK for us?
You keep saying the Israelis have every right to “defend” their country….
….so do we…..
Jake You have to be kidding me to equate illegals with 2,000 rockets being shot into Israel! I guess you DO agree with some of the rightwing nuts who view the illegals in that light! By the way, Hamas has brought this on itself, and I ask you WHY if Hamas could construct so many smuggling tunnels that they could not build civil defense shelters using a small part of those resources? The answer which Hamas has clearly stated is to use their civilians as shields for their weapons. So your complaint needs to be to Hamas since it is THEY who are committing war crimes by using civilians as protection for their weapons. Sorry, only the ignorant and hopelessly biased will buy your crocodile tears.
@Carlyle Moulton – I’d say ‘exactly.’ There are people saying “what differentiates her from Hitler.” That’s easy. Jews weren’t bombing German stores for 60 years before Hitler initiated the Holocaust. A better question would have been “what makes her any different from Hamas?” And the answer, of course, is; nothing.
“What has been posted” – and you fail to credit or link to said posting because…?
stand by me…..the palastinian style…
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10204417692186531&set=vb.1357836194&type=2&theater
Randyjet,
What struck me about what Cohen was saying on CNN and Democracy Now was a context behind the shoot down that has been completely ignored.
I had no idea that Eastern Ukraine was an air war zone since July 1; I had no idea that Kiev was conducting air-attacks on cities in the area where MH 17 was shot down; I had no idea Putin was facing pressure from within to set up a no-fly zone in the area to protect the civilians being bombed….
None of this information is being discussed in connection with the shoot down of MH 17.
It is not surprising at all since the US media refuses to tell the truth about the fascist coup that ran Yanukovych out of office. They also refuse to acknowledge the fact that the fascists have control of the military, and police. The BBC had a few good interviews with the thugs on the street and they looked, acted, and stated that they are fascists and are quite proud of it. Yet the US media is silent and remains silent about these thugs. Then if you read some other sources, they reveal that the regular Ukrainian army troops have not been as enthusiastic about killing all Russians they encounter, so they have set up new brigades made up of only fascists who DO like murdering innocent people because of their ethnic background. My best guess is that it was one of these new special units that got trained and had access to the BUK anti-aircraft missile battery. I doubt the President of the Ukraine ordered it or even knew about it. I doubt he does much more than sign the paychecks if he has that much control.
Bob, If you have read my posts on this subject here, it turns out that Cohen backs up what I was saying. I rather liked his articles since I had not read them before. Of course, he is banned from mainstream media since he does not join the propaganda team and tells the truth. That is something that the US mass media will not touch. Of course, Nick, and all the rightwing hawks hate him for the same reasons. I am going to have to get and read his latest book too.
randyjet: “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.”
Randyjet,
I was afraid you were going to say something like that; since it was my initial reaction to him, i.e. being truthful, as well.
Thus I have to ask what you thought of his latest article that I posted above.
http://www.thenation.com/article/180466/silence-american-hawks-about-kievs-atrocities#
It left me dumbfounded.
It completely changes the context of the shoot-down. COMPLETELY.
There are times when it is bad to be an isolationist, and there are times when it is imperative. Back in the days when I was working up to 100+ hours a week, a very wise friend said to me, “If you don’t stop looking out for everyone else before you look out for yourself, you are going to die young. You cannot save everyone from themselves.”
We cannot save the world. If someone wants to smoke, you cannot force them to quit. They have to want to stop. If someone wants to drink, you can’t force them to stop…the must want to stop drinking.
I had a friend who was a psychiatrist, and a Muslim. Not the radical kind, but a really laid back guy, originally from Syria. One day my (then teenage) daughter asked him the “Rodney King question.” She asked, “Why do they keep fighting over there, why can’t they sit down and talk it out?”
He patted her on the shoulder and replied, gently, “They have been fighting like that for three thousand years or more. It’s a way of life in that part of the world. No outside country is ever going to go in and make them stop.” He went on to explain to her that cultural habits built over three millennia will not change in a decade of outside intervention.
If you want the real skinny on whether to fight somewhere, the last person to ask is a General, a politician, or a chickenhawk pundit. The ones to ask are the people who actually have been there and done that: the soldier, sailor, Marine or airman who left blood on foreign soil. Here are a few of CWO Wright’s thoughts. He says is far better than I can:
An Eye For An Eye In The Country Of The Blind
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/20/john-kerry-israel_n_5603389.html ” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sounded exasperated during a candid moment between interviews on Sunday as he discussed the ongoing conflict in Gaza with an off-camera aide, apparently unaware he was still being recorded.
“It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation. It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation,” Kerry said to the aide. “We’ve got to get over there … I think, John, we ought to go tonight. I think it’s crazy to be sitting around.” “
Mike Appleton,
I can’t recommend this article strongly enough.
I’m incredibly curious to hear your thoughts on this; since I’m completely dumbfounded.
The Silence of American Hawks About Kiev’s Atrocities
The regime has repeatedly carried out artillery and air attacks on city centers, creating a humanitarian catastrophe—which is all but ignored by the US political-media establishment.
Editor’s note: This article was updated on July 7 and July 17.
For months, the US-backed regime in Kiev has been committing atrocities against its own citizens in southeastern Ukraine, regions heavily populated by Russian-speaking Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. While victimizing a growing number of innocent people, including children, and degrading America’s reputation, these military assaults on cities, captured on video, are generating intense pressure in Russia on President Vladimir Putin to “save our compatriots.” Both the atrocities and the pressure on Putin have increased even more since July 1, when Kiev, after a brief cease-fire, intensified its artillery and air attacks on eastern cities defenseless against such weapons.
The reaction of the Obama administration—as well as the new cold-war hawks in Congress and in the establishment media—has been twofold: silence interrupted only by occasional statements excusing and thus encouraging more atrocities by Kiev. Very few Americans (notably, the scholar Gordon Hahn) have protested this shameful complicity. We may honorably disagree about the causes and resolution of the Ukrainian crisis, the worst US-Russian confrontation in decades, but not about deeds that have risen to the level of war crimes.
* * *
(Continued)
http://www.thenation.com/article/180466/silence-american-hawks-about-kievs-atrocities#