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.
United Dreamer, I see the reports of dead children killed by Israeli missiles. It sickens my stomach. However, this is the Hamas strategy, use civilians to shield their missiles. Most of the missiles fired by Israel are strictly defensive missiles, destroying Hamas missiles, TARGETED @ Israeli citizens. They destroy the Hamas missiles in the air, no one is killed or injured. The contrast is obvious and stark. Hamas WANTS dead Palestinian children. The propaganda works w/ many people who allow emotion to rule their mind. It’s on display right here.
Annie
I wonder sometimes why in time of war, we don’t recognize that there are no true ‘good guys’. Each side thinks they are the good guys.
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Exactly.
With God on their side always.
And anyone who says different must be silenced.
“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.”
Are they snakes or drugged roaches in a bottle?
Ah, who cares. They’re Jew haters!
Referring to the creation of Israel in 1948, Meir declared: “It was not as if there was a Palestinian people in Palestine and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.” Or: “How can we return the occupied territories? There’s nobody to return them to.”
This is the ultimate in dehumanising people whose identity you have to deny in order to justify your actions towards them. It is a modern adaptation of the doctrine of terra nullius – empty land – which English colonists invoked to rob Australia from those who had lived there for 50,000 years. Meir and Captain Cook are sister and brother under the skin.
Her views are not unrepresentative: deputy Prime Minister Yitzhak Katzir – “We will keep them on their knees. We will follow them all over the world and kill them”; defence minister and chief of staff minister Moshe Dayan – “Jackals”; Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir – “Grasshoppers”; Prime Minister Menahem Begin – “Two-legged vermin”; defence forces chief of staff Rafael Eitan – “We need to keep Palestinians like drugged roaches in a bottle.”
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/eamonn-mccann/the-deeplying-racism-fuelling-the-israeli-onslaught-30433885.html
Glenn Greenwald: Why Did NBC Pull Veteran Reporter After He Witnessed Israeli Killing of Gaza Kids?
“NBC is facing questions over its decision to pull its veteran news correspondent out of Gaza. Ayman Mohyeldin personally witnessed the Israeli military’s killing of four Palestinian boys on a Gaza beach Wednesday. Mohyeldin was kicking a soccer ball around with the boys just minutes before they died. He’s a veteran reporter who has placed the Gaza conflict in the context of the Israeli occupation, sparking criticism from some supporters of the Israeli offensive. Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept has revealed the decision to pull Mohyeldin from Gaza and remove him from reporting on the situation, it came from NBC executive David Verdi.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/18/glenn_greenwald_why_did_nbc_pull
Looking for vague parallels between the Israeli situation and a relatively civilised country. Maybe someone could tell me, when the British government who suffered several devastating bomb attacks by the IRA including on the City and Canary Wharf, not to mention many that killed civilians, soldiers and police alike, didn’t start shelling Catholic areas of Belfast and Derry and routinely pull down houses?
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/jun/10/deaths-in-northern-ireland-conflict-data
And why didn’t they build housing estates in the middle of Catholic areas? And then let the residents throw rocks at people, in fact defend the rock throwers…
NEW YORK — CNN has removed correspondent Diana Magnay from covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after she tweeted that Israelis who were cheering the bombing of Gaza, and who had allegedly threatened her, were “scum.”
“After being threatened and harassed before and during a liveshot, Diana reacted angrily on Twitter,” a CNN spokeswoman said in a statement to The Huffington Post.
…
The spokeswoman said Magnay has been assigned to Moscow.
Magnay appeared on CNN Thursday from a hill overlooking the Israel-Gaza border. While she reported, Israelis could be heard near her cheering as missiles were fired at Gaza.
After the liveshot, Magnay tweeted: “Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land on #gaza; threaten to ‘destroy our car if I say a word wrong’. Scum.” The tweet was quickly removed, but not before it had been retweeted more than 200 times.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/18/cnn-diana-magnay-israel-gaza_n_5598866.html
Apparently the truth can get you transferred.
https://twitter.com/allansorensen72/status/486954506517639170/photo/1
Nick
” The people Israel is fighting wants all Jews dead. The terrorists admit that. It is not debatable.”
Unfortunately they are also killing many innocent people, who whatever they wish for, are not killing anyone. But if you are insinuating it is ok (maybe you’re not, but if you are) that people who wish you dead should be killed, what fate would you advocate Miss Shaked.
John
“Under Reagan, aggressive countries could expect a swift and powerful response.”
I don’t remember his response to 241 US soldiers being killed in the Lebanon bomb attack in 1983. Maybe you could remind me what the swift and powerful response was.
Oh yeah. They left four months later.
po@minutebol
“Fascinating how the lessons of the Holocaust are lost on those who ought to learn most from it.”
The lessons are generally forgotten first by those attempting to make political capital from them.
It’s a shame but there it is. I imagine gypsies are still awaiting the creation of their home state after their slaughter during world war two.
On a broader point, Palestine was a colony in 1920 when Palestinians first started fighting for independence, like so many other colonies. It was a colony in 1947 when the West decided to colonise it afresh to cover up for the sins of the Germans and their allies without actually making them pay for it.
They probably view the incumbents as just more colonists from the West (as most Israelis are at least from the second or third generation).
The Israeli government are continually making political capital out of the sufferings of the Holocaust while spitting on their graves by turning the Gaza strip into their own personal Warsaw ghetto.
Ironic, hypocritical, fascinating – it’s all those things. And it’s also a lesson in the evils of power.
It’s a shame they don’t listen to the only Israelis with sense, and paradoxically the most religious who refuse to take up arms or support this violent approach. After all how powerful is your God when you need a gun to prove it?
I wonder sometimes why in time of war, we don’t recognize that there are no true ‘good guys’. Each side thinks they are the good guys.
@Chuck Stanley
“You can see this is not an operation for amateurs.”
They can be operated in isolation. They have their own local guidance system that targets any target that is in front of them. That is not how they are designed to be used but they have that capability. So it could easily be, and probably was, the rebels not knowing what they were doing.
@squeakyfromm
“They are ululating in glee over every jewish death.”
So once then.
And nothing like
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israelgaza-conflict-sderot-cinema-image-shows-israelis-with-popcorn-and-chairs-cheering-as-missiles-strike-palestinian-targets-9602704.html
Maybe you should be introduced to a mother or father burying their two year old child because a few people in their country are terrorist. Ayelet Shaked is just one more warmongering demon sanctioning indiscriminate violence for indiscriminate violence.
Only someone who has complete lost grip of humanity would sanction that in any way shape or form as reasonable.
Putin shot down an airliner full of innocent civilians.
The highly intelligent, well trained degreed professional airline pilot could not apply all that preparation to the situation and fatally flew into a known hazard –
the same way the super intelligent and highly trained legal industry in America can’t grasp what was known, understood, traditional and customary in the minds of its Framers and Founders and can’t read and apply the simple English words (simple enough so that grade school students can understand it) of its founding documents such as “…shall write no law…”
The exact same scenario of this Flight 17 transpired in the event of Flight 800 as it too was shot down.
Bill Clinton covered up the shooting down of Flight 800 to avoid its ramifications and consequences during an election – he conducted the same cover-up then that Obama did after Benghazi which was to cover-up information that would redound to him negatively in an election.
Can you say Pearl Harbor, Warren Report, Gulf of Tonkin, Sinking of the Maine, Flight 800, 2008 Election Of An Ineligible, Benghazi, IRS…to be continued.
“again, lets get the facts first.” -pete
Ah, some fresh air.
Nick Spinelli
It is concerning to me that Putin took possession of the black box.
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and that’s your idea of facts. not to mention “the fact” i never said anything about shoulder fired missiles so the quotation marks unnecessary at best.
what else was the russian crew thinking about when they fired.
again, lets get the facts first. debating rumors won’t help anything.
Nick Spinelli said,
“You are on my do not read or respond list. Like others here, you’re dead to me now. I should have put you on that list a long time ago. Ciao.”
on 1, July 17, 2014
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“Like others here, you’re dead to me now.” ??????
Most people would just stop responding. What is wrong with you, Nick? Srsly.
I think nick had a few beers under his belt when he was posting those things.
It is concerning to me that Putin took possession of the black box. The plane was carrying 100 AIDS scientists to a conference.