EDITOR: “I did nothing wrong”…
They never do, do they? The French in Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam, and now the UK and US in their assorted neo-colonial wars. Israelis could never do anything wrong, of course – it is against their constitution and principles. The wrong-doing in the Middle East is the specialty of the Palestinians, of course, who excel at it.
So here is another Israeli who did nothing wrong, and if she reminds you of Ms Lindy England of the US at Abu Ghraib, well, that is your problem, not hers.
Israeli woman soldier denies Facebook photos wrongdoing: BBC
A former Israeli soldier who posted pictures of herself on Facebook posing with blindfolded Palestinian prisoners says she did nothing wrong.
Eden Aberjil, 26, said she had had death threats over of the images and was surprised at the backlash.
She said the pictures had been taken to “remember the experience” in the army.
Speaking to the BBC, an army spokesman condemned what he called “shameful behaviour by a young soldier”.
“It’s a compulsory army and part of the soldiers do not understand the seriousness of the situation they are in and the duty they are given in the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces],” Capt Arye Shalicar told BBC World Service.
Israeli anti-torture activists said more needed to be done to teach soldiers respect.
Ms Aberjil said the pictures were not intended to be a political statement and the prisoners had been treated well.
It had “never occurred to her”, she told Army Radio, that there might be a problem with the pictures, and she insisted had been a “model soldier”.
Ms Aberjil has already been discharged from the army having completed her mandatory military service.
The pictures show her in uniform, smiling next to three bound and blindfolded prisoners.
Pictures removed
“There’s no violence or intention to humiliate anyone in the pictures,” she said.
A great many young Israeli soldiers have photograph albums quite similar to Eden Aberjil’s “The army: the best days of my life”.
The only difference is that they do not post them on Facebook.
That explains her remark that she still did not “understand what was wrong” and the comment of Dr Ishai Menuchin of the Committee Against Torture in Israel that “she is a bad apple, but all the box are bad apples”.
The IDF likes to think of itself as the most ethical army in the world and so condemned the photographs in strident terms. (They are also no fools when it comes to public relations).
For most young conscripts, and young Israelis who have completed their military service, I suspect the reaction will not be outrage but a simple shrug of the shoulders.
Anger at Israel Facebook photos
“I just had my picture taken with them in the background. I did it out of excitement, to remember the experience.”
Ms Aberjil had put the images in a Facebook album named “The army: the best days of my life” several weeks ago.
Their existence was reported by media on Monday, and they have now been taken down.
“I find it astounding that there are so many people who want peace and I’m the one ruining it for them,” she said, adding that she had received “loads of death threats” but was not scared.
She said she was disappointed by the army’s response to the pictures.
Condemning the photos, another army spokesman, Barak Raz, said they did not “reflect the spirit of the IDF, our ethical standard to which we all aspire”.
Capt Shalicar said that one of the aims of the IDF was educational, teaching young conscripts what was right and wrong.
If Ms Aberjil was serving in the IDF today, he suggested, “most probably her commander would give her the right punishment and they would maybe put her behind bars for a few weeks”.
‘Humiliating’
Palestinian groups said the images were humiliating and revealed the “mentality of the occupier”.
“This shows the mentality of the occupier, to be proud of humiliating Palestinians,” Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib told the Associated Press news agency.
“The occupation is unjust, immoral and, as these pictures show, corrupting.”
A spokesman for the campaign group the Israeli Committee Against Torture, Ishay Menuchin, said the Israeli military needed to do more to stop the abuse of Palestinian prisoners.
“The problem is that they can condemn her, but they need to work and educate these soldiers that Palestinians are civilians with human rights and they should treat them as human beings, not as a background for a pose,” he said.
Jordan Valley is a microcosm of Israel’s colonisation: The Guardian CoF
Israeli land seizure and ethnic cleansing should be met with arrest warrants – not arms sales and diplomatic games
Ben White
Tuesday 17 August 2010 09.59 BST
The Jordan Valley, stretching all the way down the West Bank’s eastern side, is a microcosm of Israel’s discriminatory policies of colonisation and displacement. For 40 years, settlements have been established, military no-go areas declared, and Palestinians’ freedom of movement restricted. There are now 27 colonies in the Jordan Valley – most of them had been established by the late 1970s under Labour governments. There are also nine “unauthorised” outposts. In the 1990s, the size of territory afforded to the settlements increased by 45%.
As we watch yet another bout of periodic, though tempered, enthusiasm about “direct negotiations”, Israel is doing as much as possible to determine the Bantustan borders – policies exemplified in the Jordan Valley, a substantial area of the West Bank almost isolated from the rest of the occupied territories. In 2006, B’Tselem noted how the Israeli military “made a distinction between the ‘territory of Judea and Samaria’ (ie the West Bank) and ‘the Jordan Valley’, indicating that Israel does not view the two areas as a single territorial unit”.
While there are areas of the West Bank that have witnessed the removal of some checkpoints, according to a senior UN official in June, “it hasn’t improved at all when it comes to moving towards the east” and the Jordan Valley. Without a special permit, Palestinians who are not registered as Jordan Valley residents are prohibited from crossing the four key checkpoints controlling the area north of Jericho in their private vehicles.
The presence of the valley’s Palestinians is a “problem” that Israel approaches with the tools of evacuation orders and bulldozers. Amnesty International, among others, has noticed an intensification of home demolitions and evictions, while B’Tselem sees “the current wave” as “part of Israel’s ongoing efforts to remove” Bedouin Palestinians from the Jordan Valley. As Luisa Morgantini, former vice-president of the European parliament, put it recently, “an area cleansed of its inhabitants today is more easily annexed tomorrow”.
Israel’s strategic objectives mean disaster for the lives of Palestinians on the ground. Sitting next to his wife and children, Omar described to me a visit from the Israeli military to his community of al-Fasayil. “They arrived at 10 in the morning, with around a dozen jeeps and a bulldozer. They wanted to demolish everything immediately, and we were begging for a little time to get things out.”
Other people came running to help, he said, but the soldiers only allowed his two brothers-in-law to help him move out his animals and possessions. “We wanted to save the metal door but the soldiers said, ‘No, it is part of the demolition order’.”
In that particular raid, the Israeli army targeted one structure used for farming and storage. But not far away, other Palestinians last month were left to survey the damage after around 70 structures were demolished, displacing 100 Palestinians. When I visited two days later, all around were piles of debris: heaps of twisted metal, plastic fragments and broken pots and pans. In the words of one Oxfam official, the scene resembled the aftermath of “a natural disaster”.
This is a stark example of Israeli apartheid. Across the Jordan Valley, thriving Jewish settlements – whose very presence is illegal under international law – produce vegetables and fruits for export, their communities integrated into the main infrastructure and communications network of the Israeli state. Afforded generous “master plans” for development by the Israeli state, all around these settlements are Palestinians whose very livelihoods are threatened by the occupation.
Perhaps the main method of making normal life impossible for the Palestinians is to prevent “legal” construction. Back in April, Amnesty International cited an Israeli army spokesperson who said in 1999 that “our policy is not to approve building in Area C” (an Oslo Accords classification applying to almost all of the Jordan Valley). These restrictions, along with the settlements and the 44% designated as an Israeli “military area” or “nature reserve”, mean that “in almost the entirety of the Jordan Valley, Palestinian construction is prohibited”.
These are the realities that persuade many groups who work on the ground to draw disturbing conclusions about Israel’s objectives. Amnesty International has expressed its concern that the home demolitions are “part of a government strategy to remove the Palestinian population from the parts of the West Bank known as Area C”. B’Tselem suggested that Israel’s motive “is not based on military-security needs, but is political: the de facto annexation of the Jordan Valley”.
From the faces of Palestinian families picking over the ruined remains of their simple properties and the prospering Jewish settlements next door, to the declared intentions of leaders such as Binyamin Netanyahu, the Jordan Valley is Israeli rejectionism distilled. Land seizure and ethnic cleansing should be met with arrest warrants and sanctions, not arms sales and diplomatic games.
Governmental inaction makes it even more imperative for citizens to take action: through solidarity with Palestinians defending their community in the Jordan Valley to boycotting products and resisting corporate complicity in a regime of separation and inequality. Once more, the response of civil society shames our elected representatives.
Israel ruled responsible for death of Palestinian girl: BBC
Israel was responsible for the 2007 death of a 10-year-old Palestinian girl, a court in Jerusalem has ruled.
Abir Aramin was shot in the head by a rubber bullet during a clash between border guards and stone-throwing youths in the West Bank town of Anata.
A judge in the civil case brought by her family ruled the killing was “unjustified” and the guards had either been negligent or had disobeyed orders.
The state has been ordered to pay compensation to Abir’s family.
Abir was killed shortly after leaving a sweet shop with her sister and two other girls in the West Bank town of Anata, north of Jerusalem, in January 2007.
The family – including her father who is a prominent peace campaigner – had brought the civil case after Israel’s high court ruled against a criminal trial, saying Abir might have been hit by a rock thrown by Palestinian protesters.
A group of youths had been involved in a clash with border guards nearby over the building of a section of Israel’s controversial West Bank barrier.
But Judge Orit Efal-Gabai dismissed that claim, saying there was “no debate” that Abir had been hit by a rubber bullet and that the shooting “occurred out of negligence, or in violation of the rules of engagement”.
“Abir and her friends were walking down a street where there were no rock-throwers, therefore there was no reason to shoot in their direction,” Haaretz quoted the judge as saying.
“It is clear that Abir’s death, caused by a rubber bullet shot by border guards, was due to negligence by the defendant .”
Security forces surround Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv after shots fired: The Guardian
Palestinian man claims he has two hostages and will blow up building
Israeli security forces were tonight in place around the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv where a Palestinian man was reported to be holding hostages after shots were fired.
Details of the incident were unclear but the Israeli foreign ministry confirmed there was a “hostage situation.”
According to Israel Radio, Turkish officials at the embassy were refusing to allow Israeli forces to enter the building. Relations between Israel and Turkey have been under severe strain since the Israeli attack on a Turkish flotilla heading for Gaza on May 31, when nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed . Tonight’s incident has the potential to further inflame a delicate diplomatic situation.
The Palestinian man reportedly arrived at the embassy in a state of undress, saying he was being persecuted by Israeli intelligence services and demanding asylum. He called an Israeli paper, identifying himself as Nadam Injaz, and saying he had previously sought asylum at the British embassy in Tel Aviv four years ago.
Shots were apparently fired in the vicinity of the Turkish embassy todayand police closed surrounding roads to traffic.
According to some reports, the Palestinian was shot in the legs and then taken inside the embassy. His lawyer, who was in contact with him by phone, said he was armed with pistol and a knife.
An Israeli TV channel played a recording of a phone call it said came from the attacker. “I have two hostages,” he said. “I will blow up the embassy.”
Eli Binn, the director of the ambulance service, who was at the scene, said: “We were called to scene after being informed that someone was barricading himself at the embassy. When we arrived, a Turkish representative said there is no need for us to come in and did not allow us to enter. We know with certainty that there is one gunshot victim but we don’t know his condition.”
“While we were at the site, more shots were fired, but at this time we don’t quite know what’s going on inside the embassy and are waiting outside, along with other security forces, until we get our orders,” he said.
The Palestinian was reported to be demanding to be taken to Ankara. Police said they believed he was mentally ill.