Although they are not primarily profit-seeking mercenaries (already banned under international law), the term “foreign fighter” carries an
implication of illegitimacy because they are dangerous fanatics. And this phenomenon is far
wider than just Islamists. Are IDF foreign soldiers comparable to al-Qaeda and ISIS jihadists? The answer is YES:
Israel may call their foreign fighters
"lone soldiers" to romanticize their crimes, but in fact, they are
what they are, young Jewish jihadistes who leave their parents, families,
countries and comfortable lives behind in places like Sydney, London, Los
Angeles, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and elsewhere to join the IDF - Israeli
Occupation Forces, becoming Palestinians jailers, abusers and killers in the
name of a foreign country.
In 2014, during
the brutal Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, the Israeli daily Haaretz
reported that some 800 to 1,000 foreigners join the Israeli military every yea
according to the IDF spokesman’s unit. There are currently 6.300 foreign lone
soldiers serving in the IDF.
For Jews who left Israel before the
age of 15 or who never lived there, their service is voluntary. For many, it is
a response to a well organized "calling". Most of them don't even
have dual citizenship and peak little to no Hebrew and have only recently been
to Israel.
A lone soldier’s monthly salary is twice
of what a regular soldier in their unit would receive and a they are a kind of
star in Israel. For Israeli kids, army service is a rite of passage to become
an occupationist zionist. But because it is a choice for young foreign Jews who
re-direct their own moral life paths to defend unlawful Israel's zionist
Project of erasing Palestine from the map, "those enlistees are given a
hero's welcome — and a lifetime of Shabbat dinner invitations from their fellow
soldiers, who become their surrogate families", explain one of their
sites.
These Israeli jihadistes are nothing
like ISIS'. They don't run away from poor homes to become killers, they come
from structured privileged families that support and encourage their child's
enterprise to lose his soul in a dirty fight of ethnical cleansing.
And it all began with the recruitment drive
launched in 1945 by David Ben Gurion, later Israel’s first prime minister, to
obtain the assistance of zionist Jews to rapidly build militias to submit the
native Palestinians. In order to assure yishuv (zionist immigrants) supremacy,
Ben Gurion turned to North American donors to equip and field experienced World
War II combat vétérans. And of course, the hasbara (propaganda) worked
perfectly because their pitch was not the opportunity for a Jewish state,
but "to avoid the inevitable resumption of the Holocaust"
without foreign help; as if they were victims and not brutal invaders. At the
time, over 5,000 volunteers came from over 40 countries and they, particularly
the pilots, were subsequently credited by Israeli leaders from Benjamin
Netanyahu to Yitzhak Rabin as having played a decisive role in the outcome of
the occupation.
Over the next 50 years, foreign Jews, including Chicago Mayor and former Barack
Obama's White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel were both IDF jihadists. In
the late 1990s, the Mahal2000 program encouraged Jewish youth from abroad to serve
in combat units for stints of 14 months. The IDF today incorporates this
successor program as one option for service by non-citizens. Thousands of
Western Jews have now volunteered, sought by the IDF to fill manpower gaps left
by the Shministim, good Israeli born conscicence objectors who refuse to serve
in the IDF.
This new
generation of young Israeli kids is standing up to the government. The Shministim are all about ages 17, 18, 19 and in the 12th
grade - are taking a stand. They believe in a better, more peaceful future for
themselves and for Israelis and Palestinians, and they are refusing to join the
Israeli army. They’re in jail, holding strong against immense pressure from
family, friends and the Israeli government.
The most famous of all is Omer Goldmen, the daughter of a former chief of the Mossad - Israeli secret services. In her own
words in 2009: “ We refuse to do military service for the Israeli army. I grew up
with the army. My father was deputy head of Mossad and I saw my sister, who is
eight years older than me, do her military service. As a young girl, I wanted
to be a soldier. The military was such a part of my life that I never even questioned it. Earlier this year, I went to a peace demonstration in Palestine. I had
always been told that the Israeli army was there to defend me, but during that
demonstration Israeli soldiers opened fire on me and my friends with rubber
bullets and tear-gas grenades. I was shocked and scared. I saw the truth. I saw the
reality. I saw for the first time that the most dangerous thing in Palestine is the
Israeli soldiers, the very people who are supposed to be on my side. When I came
back to Israel, I knew I had changed. And so, I have joined with a number of
other young people who are refusing to serve - they call us the Shministim. On
December 18th, we are holding a Day of Action in Israel, and we are determined
to show Israelis and the world that there is wide support for stopping a
culture of war. Will you join us? Please, just sign a letter. That’s all it takes.” There
you go. And she is not the only one. If you are a Jew, instead of becoming a killer, join Jewish Voice
for Peace. Here’s the link.
Israeli Jihadists
PALESTINA
If you are in London this Fall, go to the Young Vic Theater to see:
A Palestinian father has just released a video of his home invaded by Israeli soldiers in the midlle of the night, which happens everyday all over the West Bank.
Um pai de familia palestino acabou de divulgar um video de soldados israelenses invadindo sua casa no meio da noite, abuso quotidiano que a IDF comete em toda a Cisjordania diariamente.
Let’s
start from the end: Even if the Palestinians had a single, united, respected
leadership that had a reputation for integrity, and even if its members
excelled intellectually, were committed to their people and strategically
capable, it would have been difficult for it to challenge the
dispossessive/acquisitive enterprise that Israel keeps strengthening and
enhancing. Difficult, but possible.
There
is no single leadership, however, but several, and they are squabbling with
each other even when they are from the same party (Fatah), organization (PLO)
or institutional umbrella (two governments). It’s not because of Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas, but because of a system and modus operandi, of which
he is one of the creators and products at the same time.
The
Palestinian public’s attitude toward the leadership is characterized by
suspicion, disdain and contempt, along with fear. The milder accusations
directed at the leadership in Ramallah speak of a lack of organization,
inefficiency and laziness. The more serious accusations are of corruption and
clinging to power for personal and sectarian motives. Similar accusations are
somewhat less bluntly leveled at the Gazan government and at NGOs.
For many it’s clear that the Oslo framework, which expired in 1999, was a
trap. The countries donating to the Palestinians continue to uphold it for fear
of an even greater humanitarian disaster and loss of control, and because they
are boundlessly loyal to Israel. The donations have
decreased but remain a trap. They require obedience and maintenance of “calm,”
or permit only low-intensity rage. But the Palestinians are captives who are
convinced they could not manage without their donating captors.
The
head spins and the heart aches, because facing them is a sophisticated, wicked,
effective enemy who has no borders.
Visually,
the image of an octopus might be appropriate, but there are two problems with
using it to depict the Israeli regime. One is that it recalls anti-Semitic
caricatures, but that’s the problem of a regime that imitates caricatures. The
second is that Israel sends out far more than eight tentacles as it cooks up a
mix of several traditions of domination – military occupation, colonialism (the
removal of a people from its homeland to settle others there instead) and
apartheid (since the expulsion wasn’t totally successful, there followed
separation based on inequality). It should be clear that this refers to the
situation on both sides of the Green Line. Israel was given a chance to change
in 1993. It chose to miss it.
A
better image would be that of a computer that spews out commands in every
direction. Once programmed, it doesn’t stop. It sends official armed gangs to
burst into people’s houses as they sleep and to confiscate money and property;
destruction squads to crush kindergartens, homes and wells; and unofficial
armed gangs to boot out shepherds and farmers. It also employs land thieves –
the clerks, planners, architects and building contractors – who make sure that
the Palestinians suffocate in their built-up areas. The space is all for Jews,
says the supreme command. The computer also issues intellectual commands:
Ignore everything by indulging in the depths of Jewish heritage. Nullify
everything as unimportant through pride in our nation, which produces Nobel
laureates. Declaim our suffering and heroism in Auschwitz.
Against
the efficient and complex Israeli apparatuses stand the Palestinians with a
host of competing leaders, conflicting strategies, uncoordinated government
ministries, information that isn’t public knowledge and is not accurate, the
tiresome duplication of institutions whose work overlaps, the empty slogans and
despair. One expression of this despair is the declaration that Israel is the
strong one, therefore change can and must come only from Israel. But no; Israelis
have no interest in changing the situation. We benefit from it. The initial
change can and must come from the Palestinians themselves, in their own home.
BRASIL - DIRETAS, JÁ!
