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.
https://twitter.com/lisang/statuses/489871360202915840
3 Israeli youths murdered…
… Instead of Law and prosecution, Israel calls for “COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT” against a group of people seeking their own country.
Who does the “LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD” support?
Rules of Law be damned, Liberty has died.
nick The original post said that it was pro-Russians who shot the plane down. You did not take any exception to that and went further by saying that I made up things like the Ukrainian military having shot down a Russian airliner before. I gave you a source you can read to verify that FACT. I seriously doubt the pro-Russians did it since it would hurt their cause, but there are fools on all sides so one cannot absolutely rule that out. I also pointed out that my speculation was just that. The Ukrainians have a LOT to gain by doing such a thing and accusing the pro-Russians. There is no question it was shot down, but the trick will be WHO had the missile capability to do it, and who did it? Black boxes will not provide those answers.
Squeeky, I meant to say US liberals have done a quick 180 degree turn on Israel. Liberal Jews can defend themselves against terrorists and be heroes. But, once Israeli’s elected conservatives. well then the terrorists became the victims. Liberal and conservative Americans would have voted to wipe Hamas and Hesbollah off the face of the earth if we were having suicide bombers and missile attacks killing our citizens. With this administration allowing ISIS to get so powerful, that may be something the next US administration will be dealing w/.
It happens and it is NEVER right…
Squeeky
Oh yeah those Israelis are big bad racists compared to the muzzies.
= = =
What’s a muzzies?
Why use derogatory remarks about a people of Faith to make your point?
Who does this dehumanizing talk remind you of?
Link to those “American lefties” here who dehumanize ‘others’ so as to cement their logic in?
randy, You are, as is often the case, talking out of your ass. We always know for whom your sympathies are w/ by your willingness to make up “facts” out of thin air! Will you eat these words you just wrote w/ some crow if the REAL facts show otherwise. I am w/ the Ukrainians but I just don’t have the stomach for making up stuff. I’m a PI and revere the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
randyjet
I have no sympathy for Hamas and think and hope Israel will go in and kill them off. Then there might be a chance of peace once they are eliminated.
= = =
You could have stopped after the first four words…
… Yet you continued on with the ‘elimination’ rhetoric.
Nazi talk, indeed!
randyjet
Of course, Gaza is not an open air prison at all…
= = =
Derailed by propaganda…
So, Palestinians can come and go, FREELY?
They can if Egypt will let them out. By the way, the situation is more like a siege of a city than that of a prison. Hamas has basically declared war on Israel, and they are losing. Tough! You declare and act on war, the little guy usually loses. Think Grant committed a war crime when he starved Vicksburg into submission? Think Lincoln was wrong to order the blockade of Southern ports. Did that make them open air prisons where the Union Army blasted them with artillery? You go to war, you lose people and arms. Tough!
Squeeky, I have seen a on US liberals in a very short time frame. Couldn’t be that it’s now conservative Israeli’s calling the military shots?? Begin was pretty tough on Palestinians!
Bob, Esq., Did you forget to include the fact that your alleged victims refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and vows to kill all Jews living on “their land.” If the US were in Israel’s shoes we would have been EXPONENTIALLY more aggressive. Indeed, the problem would have been solved decades ago, if you get my drift.
It’s going to be a busy news day for tonight.
With Israel launching a ground operation AND Pro Russian rebels shooting down a Malaysian Boeing 777. 295 dead, and some were US citizens.
These are crazy times. What else could possibly go wrong? Be happy if you live to see the sun rise.
I doubt the pro-Russians shot down the airliners since they don’t have the missile system to reach that altitude. The suspects are that the Ukrainian military did that since they have already shot down an airliner before. Of course, it is turns out it was the pro-Russians, it will be banner headlines, and if the Ukrainians did it, there will be no reporting of that in the West.
nick, You have as little regards for truth and investigating things as Palin. If you would read the Hufpo article it mentions the FACT that the Ukraine admitted it shot down a Russian airliner in 2001, killing 78 Russians. I know that you do not regard Russians as people, but the rest of us, the world other than Poles and Ukrainians DO.
Also the idea that the pro-Russians would shoot down a foreign airliners over their airspace is absurd since they know that would be a provocation that will really get things going badly for them. Since the Ukrainian military is being run by the fascists parties, the best guess that I would make is that the Ukrainians did it to pressure the West to join them in killing off ethnic Russians. My bet is that the fascists in the Ukraine did since they have the most to gain from such a thing. I guess in your investigative career you never bothered to ask who profits from an act. Try it. You might improve your game.
It looks to me like American lefties are creating and latching on to “apartheid” and “racism” in the Middle East to justify their own agenda here. Oh yeah those Israelis are big bad racists compared to the muzzies. What a laughable position so that they can continue to play Freedom Riders.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reportef
Spinelli,
You mean that Israel doesn’t look bad occupying part of Palestine?
There’s Palestine, then, suddenly in 1948, it morphs into Israel?
That dudn’t make any sense.
That looks bad to objective global observers without interest or bias. It only looks good to people with a pro-Israel agenda. How many of those are there in the world?
How did the Israelites conduct relations with established states in the Middle East for millennia? Assimilation? So there is a way for Israelis to exist peacefully in the region – assimilation, right? But then they would be required to quit Palestinian land which they do not own, with the only related record being the illegal confiscation and adverse possession of 1948, right?
That could be a problem, huh?
Nick,
You left out the part of your hypothetical where the U.S. is occupying the land of said country and imposing a system of apartheid while fostering racist propaganda justifying the indiscriminate murdering of said population under the guise of “self defense.”
Any American with a high school understanding of physics would be able to explain the rocket attacks via Newton’s third law.
Max-1 We already know the answer to your question, only it was not millions of Jews who were in a REAL prison, but the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto during WWII. The world did nothing, as did the Polish Home Army who did not come to their aid in any meaningful way. Of course, Gaza is not an open air prison at all since Hamas runs the place, can get thousands of rockets that they shoot into Israel, and in fact is a semi-nation state under blockade and siege. All Hamas needs to do is stop shooting rockets into Israel. Simple. But of course, you forget that Hamas denounced the cease fire proposed and AGEED TO BY ISRAEL.
Then you forget that Israel does NOT control the other Gaza border. Egypt does, and they are the ones who have closed it because Hamas is not the legal or legitimate government of the PA. So you will have to denounce Egypt too for closing the borders. I have no sympathy for Hamas and think and hope Israel will go in and kill them off. Then there might be a chance of peace once they are eliminated.
We did have a similar situation with Canada in NY with the War of 1812. Both sides chose to resolve it eventually and move on.
https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/statuses/489840696195821569
Hamas uses it’s own family members as shield, sacrificing them to make Israel look bad. Unfortunately, it works w/ weak minded people. If we had terrorists lobbing missiles @ Buffalo, Rochester, NY from just over the Canadian border, most all US citizens would be calling for carpet bombing.
The FACT is that the PA has accepted the two state solution as laid out in the Oslo accords. Hamas is the one which seized power illegally in Gaza and instituted a reign of terror against those who supported Al Fatah. At the beginning of the Hamas coup, there were two poor Fatah supporters who were released by the Israelis to their home in Gaza. Hamas gunmen shot them down. So it is an outright lie that the PA or most Palestinians support Hamas.
It is also true that Netanyahu has no desire to have any kind of peace or follow Israel’s obligations under that same accord. Thus the PA is stuck in the middle with no prospect for peace or a full state, and Netanyahu and Hamas shooting it out with each other. This will only end when the hardliners are forced to make peace. One step needs to be cutting off US aid to Israel. If they want to have endless war, let them pay for it, NOT ME or US taxpayers. That will sober them up.
I am appalled that there are some people here who are outright Nazis when discussing the Palestinians. It is like the slogan during the Vietnam war, Kill them all and let God sort them out. These people would have no problem pushing Palestinians into concentration camps and the gas chambers. Simply murdering all of one people or race is called genocide, and I am proud that the UN executed those types after WWII. Unfortunately, there were folks like Pope Pius XII who helped such criminals escape. As for those who think that the Palestinians need to go to other countries, I would ask them if it would be OK with them if Mexico rounded up all the refugees from Latin America within Mexico, and pushed them across our border and told us to take care of them since we have plenty of room for them.
Israel just invaded Gaza.