[Schwartz] Is/Pal - an eye for an eye shall make Israel blind

The BBC Online and the has a startling report of revenge attacks by elements of the Israel Defense Forces:

Two Israeli soldiers have alleged that they were ordered to carry out revenge attacks on Palestinian police after six of their comrades were killed.

At least 15 Palestinians were killed in response to the troops' deaths.

The Israeli army said it had targeted policemen who actively assisted militants in carrying out killings.

But it is not clear whether the Palestinians killed had actually aided militants.

The report notes, "Correspondents say the report is a challenge to Israel's insistence that it abides by a strict code of ethics and has avoided tit-for-tat killings." That's an understatement. While I was in Israel during the late 2004 IDF campaign in Gaza, there was the incident of the Israeli sergeant executing a wounded Palestinian 14-year-old-girl (he claimed it was because he wasn't sure if her backpack contained explosives or not. Why then did the soldiers in his own unit try to stop him, and then went so far as to telephone the Israeli media about what happened?)

The first soldier's story:

The first soldier, who describes himself as a sergeant in a reconnaissance unit, was quoted on the website of Breaking the Silence, a group set up by former soldiers to document evidence of abuses by the Israeli Defence Force.

He said his squad was summoned by their commander after the killings of six Israelis at a checkpoint near Ramallah in the West Bank.

He told them their task was to kill six Palestinians in revenge.

"I really enjoyed it," he said. "It was the first time that we were in an 'advance storm' situation, like in our training exercises. And we acted flawlessly. We performed superbly."

The soldier added that several of his comrades kept shooting at one of the bodies, "punching holes in it".

The second soldier's story:

A second soldier, from paratroop reconnaissance, was quoted by the UK Guardian newspaper as saying that he was told to attack three checkpoints in the Nablus area and simply shoot at police.

It was clearly a revenge attack, he said.

At least two Palestinians were killed in the raid.

No mention of this yet in the Israeli media.

This report reminds me all too much of the countless everyday Israeli young men I encountered who displayed a strong bloodthirst. Take for example the Russian oleh hadesh and the Sepharadi I met in the Beer Sheva train station. Believe me, the bloodthirst is just as virulent on the other side of the Green Line.

When a highly trained and organized military such as the IDF has repeated incidents of this tit-for-tat madness, just how deteriorated is the moral and spiritual character of Israeli society? Are the monsters beginning to strip away their camouflage of human flesh and tears?

Of interest:
א Breaking the Silence: Israeli Soldiers Reflect on Patrolling Hebron
בּ Parting shots Ari Shavit's interview with retiring IDF Chief of Staff Moshe ("Bogey") Ya'alon's retirement, who (in)famously remarked, ""the Palestinian threat harbors cancer-like attributes that have to be severed. There are all kinds of solutions to cancer. Some say it's necessary to amputate organs but at the moment I am applying chemotherapy," that Israelis "could leave the Golan," and numerous statements critical of Israel state and defense policy.

If you are an Israeli or Palestinian university student or youth activist in the age-range 18-28 and would like to correspond for Thinking-East, please contact me: te.schwartz at gmail.com

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Meanwhile, Haaretz has two important reports:
גּ Quoting a New York Times report (how did they get the scoop on Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post?) Syria test-fires three Scud missiles, Israelis say

Syria test-fired three Scud missiles last Friday, including one that broke up over Turkish territory and showered missile parts down onto unsuspecting Turkish farmers, The New York Times quoted Israeli military officials as saying.

These were the first such Syrian missile tests since 2001, the paper's Web site quoted the Israelis as saying, and were part of a Syrian missile development project using North Korean technology and designed, the Israelis contend, to deliver air-burst chemical weapons.

All the missiles were launched from northern Syria, near Minakh, north of Aleppo, the Times quoted the Israeli officials as saying. One was sent about 400 kilometers to southernmost Syria, near the Jordanian border. The one that broke up was fired southwest toward the Mediterranean, over the Turkish province of Hatay, the ancient Antioch, and shed debris over two villages there. The Israelis said they had film of the launching and breakup.

דּ Census: Arabs form largest constituency in Labor Party

For the first time in the history of the Labor [Avoda] Party, its Arab members have become the largest constituency.

It emerged last night that the Arab constituency made up approximately 22 percent of Labor Party members, according to party membership poll data. The rate of kibbutz members, traditionally a prominent Labor constituency, dropped from 16 to 10 percent.

Contrary to the Arab sector, the constituency of the kibbutz sector [the heart and soul of Avoda] diminished significantly. This was probably the result of massive efforts by Ben-Eliezer and Amir Peretz, a chairmanship candidate and the Histadrut chief, to sign up Arab members in the census.

So far, only 9,972 members signed up in the kibbutz sector, compared with 17,629 in 2002, when they formed approximately 16 percent of the total number of party members.

Now this is surprising!

Unfortunately, this isn't: Arab Israelis are still waiting to be accepted by the big leagues of Israeli civil society.

[Arab-Israeli/Palestinian citizen of Israel athlete Bnei] Sakhnin's drive to be accepted in the league, in society, to survive in the league of acceptance, is the challenge they have thrown into the national arena. It's no easy challenge for Israel. When the challenge is overtly political, demanding, it's so easy for the majority to fob it off: Old-style challenges arouse fear, create resistance to change. The Sakhnin soccer challenge creates a level playing-ground for the majority to grapple with the minority's quest to belong.

And despite high levels of education, the Falashim aren't doing so well in the Israeli job market.