Brutish behavior by order of the general

[Classical_Liberal]

Brutish behavior by order of the general
By Gideon Levy

Samar Abdullah stood pale and helpless on the road. He is a cab driver from the village of Safarin, southeast of Tul Karm, and the father of five children. He was formerly a construction worker, but a ruptured disk in his back forced him to find a different job. He had been on the road for only three months.
Abdullah wasn't familiar with the orders of behavior for the unmanned iron gate that blocks the road between Tul Karm and Nablus, and therefore he crossed the barely visible traces of the blurred yellow line on the road. Within a few minutes an Israel Defense Forces jeep arrived and three soldiers leaped out and started shouting at the stunned driver. They grabbed the keys to the cab roughly and left. By what authority did they do so? When and where will Abdullah get his property back? No one bothered to give him any answers. The next day IDF Spokesperson's Office stated: "There is no order in the IDF to confiscate keys."

That was a few months ago. It's an act that has become routine on the roads of the West Bank. Anyone who goes by checkpoints sees dozens of cars that have been confiscated from Palestinians. Anyone who drives on the dirt roads in the region, which the Palestinians find in a desperate effort to get to school, work or medical clinics, sees soldiers or Border Police who are confiscating cars in the best case, or shooting at their tires and beating the passengers in other cases.

In April of this year, the Haaretz Magazine published photographs of about 100 keys that were confiscated from drivers in the Bethlehem area and collected for display in an exhibition by a soldier who wishes to be identified only by the first letter of his name, Y., a member of the Breaking the Silence group. The IDF continued to deny that the phenomenon existed. Did the army commanders really not know about this widespread custom, or did they lie? And which possibility is worse? ,,,,,

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/464618.html

[papau]

1. Haaretz also printedHamas's new PR on how itwill act post Gaza withdrawal

"Underscoring our people's right to armed struggle against the occupation so long as it exists and rights have not been restored, headed by Jerusalem, the right of return, release of prisoners and removal of settlements."

Haaretz is a great paper. I wish we had a free press in the US.

[comradebillyboy]

2. i expect to see these practices extend to israel's arab

citizens. the theory goes like this-if the idf can make life in the occupied territories hellish enough, then the palestinians will leave. if not, then involuntary transportation elsewhere.

the state of israel will not give back any of the west bank, the occupied territories are little more than a series of concentration camps for the arab population.

mods-i am not advocating ethnic clensing, rather predicting it as the inevitable consequence of the occupation.

the great irony, of course, is that the majority of israeli jews would like nothing more than ending the occupation and evacuating the territories, except for jerusalem and suburbs.

[Gimel]

3. I assume you mean

disengagement rather than "evacuation".

The IDF is not trying to convince the Palestinians to leave, only to stop attacks on Israel. If some naive people get caught violating the rules, they will not be detained. It is a hell of an inconvenience, and life couldn't be worse for anyone, but as long as their is life, injustices can be repaired.

The Intifada is trying to convince Jews not to come to Israel, and the fact is it has only succeeded in diminishing the quality of life for Jews and Palestinians alike, but has not dissuaded Jews from visiting Israel or from making aliyah to Israel.

[Name removed]

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