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.
Colonel Igor Strelkov of Moscow, an old buddy of Putin, has been leading the Russian rebels. He has bragged recently of having the capabilities to establish and no fly zone over the eastern Ukraine. Today, he bragged about bringing down a Ukrainian cargo plane. He then got reports from his troops on the ground @ the wreckage that it was a civilian aircraft w/ women and children. Strelkov quickly took down the post.
John, I most certainly do hope the US will stay out of WWIII. Of course, with some nuts running around saying that an act of war has been committed by Russia with shooting down the Malaysia jet, it may be difficult politically. I wonder how this calls for war between the US and Russia. Maybe they will “find” a US citizens body in the wreckage to justify war. Then I love the fact that some call for Putin to pay a steep price for killing all those people. I guess that they mean like Reagan paid a steep price for killing all those Iranians he shot down in INTERNATIONAL airspace. The US did not even court martial the skipper and Reagan gave him a medal. Contrast that with his reaction when the Soviets shot down KAL 007 which was LEGAL under international law and ICAO rules since the plane was over prohibited airspace clearly marked on all charts, and it ignored the tracers fired to alert the crew to follow and land behind the intercepting aircraft.
The President of the Ukraine I have not called a fascist, just the four cabinet ministers who are proud to call themselves that. I suggest you go to the BBC and its interviews with those folks. The fascists have control of the Defense and Interior which controls the police and military. In the Ukrainian military, they have set up separate units that are loyal not to the Ukraine, but to the fascists. THAT is the problem. I doubt the President has any real control over his army or police now.
UPDATE: Russian GRU officers. Found out it was civilian after shoot down.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Megyn Kelly is doing a live show right now, with an audio tape of rebel officers admitting blame.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
John:
Obama’s taking “W”‘s advice on playing golf:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/09/23/george-w-bush-defends-obamas-frequent-golf-outings/
Not to worry.
Under Reagan, aggressive countries could expect a swift and powerful response.
Under the very ineligible Obama, a response can’t be found in D.C., and he wasn’t there and he doesn’t know anything about it anyway.
If this leads to WWIII, it will have to be conducted without the United States, Obama is playing golf.
Ok, I surmise you folks are now doing your homework. Chucky, you let your utter disdain for me, and your sanctimony regarding all things aviation, hurt you here. I made my living having people underestimate me. It takes true self esteem to use that as a tactic. I learned it from Columbo. I got the self esteem from being raised and educated right.
@max1
Yeah, what randyjet said. Israel responded to a missile attack with a missile attack. This is like a Son of Trayvon movie. What’s next, accusing Israel of using a stand your holy ground law???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
PS: Sorry again for delay. Had meds and fell asleep.
Who said or even implied these were shoulder fired missiles? Chucky is still fighting the Soviet Afghan war apparently.
These rebels are trained and include retired Russian military and KGB. Just like we use the same ilk in our covert operations.
From CNN:
“It takes a lot of training and a lot of coordination to fire one of these and hit something,” he said.
Typically, a surface-to-air battery missile consists of a command post vehicle, a radar vehicle, several self-propelled launchers, loader vehicles and even more vehicles to carry new missiles to the batteries as necessary, according to Dan Wasserbly, Americas editor for IHS Jane’s.
Ryan concludes then that if the plane really was shot down, a professional military force — either on purpose or by accident — was responsible.
“This is not the kind of weapon a couple of guys are going to pull out of a garage and fire,” he said.”
AS I said previously, Foreign Policy Magazine reported on this BEFORE this act of war. The Russian company that makes these missiles were put under sanctions by Obama, YESTERDAY, BEFORE this act of war. Liberals do have condescension down perfectly. How would you like your crow prepared, Chucky? How about “w/ some fava beans and a nice chianti.”
Thanks, Chuck. That’s what I thought when I read this missile story. My neighbor was an F-4 (one of my favorite jets) guy in Vietnam. He said the SAMs of that era were powerful but inaccurate at low altitudes, He said hitting an aircraft at above 25K feet was nigh impossible. With the advances in technology I’m sure it’s now possible, but damn hard to do.
These are NOT SHOULDER fired missiles the Russians have provided the rebels. They are BM 21 Grad missiles fired from mobile missile launcher machinery. Have you read ANYTHING about this, old fly boy? Your arrogance is merging w/ your ignorance on this topic, Chucky, and you are looking REAL BAD! First rule of getting out of a hole, STOP DIGGING and start READING.
Putin has equipped and trained these rebels to do his dirty work, just like the scum sucking KGB he is. It has bitten him in the ass now. A strong US President would make him pay for this act of war.
OMFG!
Let me spell this out and not use any big words so as not to confuse.
Big airplane shot down.
Big airplane flying at high altitude.
Shoulder launch missile cannot shoot down big airplane at high altitude.
BIG missile needed to shoot down big airplane at high altitude.
Big missile very expensive.
Big missile very complex and needs highly trained crew to operate.
Big missile and highly trained crew needs ground support and radar.
Big missile, highly trained crew and ground support means government military.
Big missile, highly trained crew and necessary ground support is not a ragtag operation. Professionals needed.
EOM
It’s now being reported there are wiretaps of Russian rebels claiming responsibility for shooting down the Malaysian aircraft. This is one example where maybe the NSA could confirm or deny this information. We KNOW they have it!
USA Today is now reporting the Russian rebels are known to have antiaircraft missiles capable of downing a commercial airline up to 45k feet.
Max-1 From what I have read, the reason for this attack is that Hamas has been shooting rockets into Israel on a long term basis. The murder of the three boys is of little consequence for retaliating against Hamas for the missiles. In fact, Israel arrested about 100 Palestinians in searching for the culprits.
Randyjet
have you also read that right after Israel released the Hamas militants are part of the previous ceasefire, it turned around and re-arrested them all?
The 2 fly boys are now both blowing smoke. It’s obvious neither are up to speed w/ the information available. They could be eating crow soon. Foreign Policy magazine published a report YESTERDAY, BEFORE this act of war, on the antiaircraft weaponry being deployed against the sovereign country of the Ukraine. The missiles being used are quite capable of shooting down an airliner @ 35k feet. It was almost certainly not the Ukraines who did this. It was either Russian supported rebels, or the Russians themselves, I put my money on the former. Either way, Putin is responsible and must be made to pay, DEARLY. It was probably incompetence, but that does not matter to the 295 dead, and their families, now does it!
Squeeky
Dodge is best played in the school yard.
So, why dodge factual events?
Oh, and my straight up question of, why is it OK for Israel to launch a war over three youths being murdered? What prevents Israel from enforcing the LAW?