Hypocrites. A powerful word. What would the US Congress do and say if IRGC snipers had gunned down some Friday-anti-government protesters in Kazeroun last week? How about if the incident was in Moscow? Or even Venezuela? Or in any country on the enemy’s list of either the neo-conservatives or the “humanitarian interventionist” mafia (the two of which are, by the way, nearly indistinguishable in their list of desired regime changes). But in Gaza, Palestinians are being killed and wounded with impunity. And US institutions are silent.
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said, “The IDF is the most moral army in the world.” Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials repeat the meme over and over.
Maybe some of SST’s readers personally know the IDF. This writer does, and I know that some peace advocates in Israel, including Uri Avnery, are veterans of the IDF, air force, IC, border guard and the like. But the regime in Israel is celebrating the “hunting of humans”, and continues through yesterday to gun down protesters. Actually, according to Palestinian legislator and leader, Hanan Ashrawi, Israeli regimes have been shooting down Palestinians who have protested the seizure of their land for 42 years
Enough. Two articles excerpted below speak for themselves.
CNN (April 11 2018) - With international criticism of Israel's response to the Gaza protests growing, video emerged on Monday appearing to show an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) sniper shooting a Palestinian man standing near the border fence.
After the Palestinian man falls to the ground, soldiers are heard cheering in the background. One yells, "What a legendary film!"
The video, which circulated on social media, appears to be through a scope, showing the Gaza border fence and a field behind it.
The sniper is heard discussing the shot with another soldier nearby.
"When he stops, you take him down," the soldier says. "Are you on him?"
"I can't fire because of the barbed wire," the sniper responds a short time later.
"Take out the one in the pink," the other soldier says after a few moments.
IDF soldiers cheer as you hear the gunshot and see the Palestinian man fall.
"Son of a bitch!" one soldier, who appears to have recorded the video, yells. "What a legendary film! I haven't seen this kind of thing for a long time."
"The sniper deserves a medal, and the photographer deserves a demotion," said Israeli Defence Minister Israeli Avigdor Liberman, speaking Tuesday afternoon.
"The IDF is the most moral army in the world, but…”
[The IDF claims that this video was taken in December 2017, not in the recent protests. But at least 35 people have been killed, according to news reports, since the Land Day marches began on March 30th. The dead include a fourteen year old boy and journalists, who were clearly identified as PRESS]
Ahmad Tibi, a politician from the Joint Arab List party in Israel's Knesset, said on Facebook: "The crime and the evidence. The hunting of humans, and the gratification the sniper derives from the ruthless murder of an unarmed Palestinian civilian in Gaza. A video recorded by a soldier of the Israeli occupation forces who stood next to the sniper. Difficult to watch."
Israel's Minister of Education and leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party, Naftali Bennett, defended the soldier's actions.
"Seriously do you know what they were doing three minutes before, two minutes before?" he said on Israel Army Radio Tuesday morning.
"Maybe they lost a friend a day before…. I stand behind IDF soldiers. They are guarding us, and we should get back to that a basic understanding which somehow got lost."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/10/middleeast/video-israeli-sniper-intl/index.html
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) (April 27 2018) – Since the protests began on March 30, 2018, CPJ has documented at least 14 journalists hit by live rounds fired by Israel Defense Forces two of whom– Yaser Murtaja and Ahmed Abu Hussein–later died from their injuries.
https://cpj.org/2018/04/seven-palestinian-journalists-injured-as-gaza-prot.php
