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Commentary Last Updated: Jul 31st, 2008 - 00:35:47


Top-ranking IDF sadists
By Gilad Atzmon
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Jul 31, 2008, 00:13

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We learn from the Israeli press that a criminal investigation has been launched against the soldier caught on tape firing towards a bound Palestinian. However, there is a detail the Israeli press in English is reluctant to share with us. The shooting soldier was not just an ordinary low-ranking infantry recruit, he was a First Sergeant. But it goes much further, the soldier who is caught on video holding the bound Palestinian detainee is no less than a regiment commander, an IDF lieutenant colonel.

In case someone fails to understand, it is a high-ranking Israeli officer who is caught on video holding a handcuffed man as a still target for the merciless vengeance of another IDF soldier. An unavoidable question pops to air. What are these people made of? Do they share any recognised qualities with the rest of humanity? Clearly, cruelty is deeply rooted in Israeli society. It may take two to tango, but apparently it doesn�t take more than two Israeli soldiers to prove to us all what Israel and the Jewish national revival is all about.

Seemingly, barbarism is deeply engraved within Israeli society and the Hebraic culture. It shouldn�t take us by surprise. It was that very barbarism that led to the uprooting of the Palestinian population in 1948. It is a barbarism that is fuelled by a complete dismissal of Otherness that has been maintaining Israel and Zionism since then.

Now when it becomes clear to more and more people that Israel�s days are numbered, some may like to take the opportunity and start to summarise the contribution of the Zionist revival to Jewish history or even history of modernity in general. Though Israel and Jews around the world are always keen to tell us about Israel�s achievements in science, technology, agriculture and the arts, I would bet that not much of it would be remembered as a legacy of the Israeli heritage for future generations.

On the contrary, in the long term, Israel will be remembered as a shameless disaster. Even if we manage to save Israelis from nuking Iran, a sinister mass murder they are really keen upon launching, we would be left with a story of a racist tribal society, an ethnic cleansing ideology, a gigantic wall that shreds the holy land into starving Bantustans, malnutrition in Gaza and the West Bank, torture and lynch practices. As Khalid Amayreh detected recently, Israelis are the Nazis of our time.

Yet, as much as we can see the Israeli crimes that are emerging daily from our TV screens, press outlets and even YouTube, any genuine historical scrutiny of the Nazi era and Nazi crimes is strictly prohibited. Consequently, I believe, Nazi evilness will lose its primacy, and Israeli will eventually grab the crown of absolute evilness.

I am fully aware that Jews, both in the left and the right insist upon telling us about Jewish culture being humanist and universalist. I better admit it, though I am fully aware of many Jewish humanists, I myself have never come across a single text that can be labelled as Jewish humanist or universalist. Instead, rather too often I unfortunately come across some Jewish tribal barbaric teaching and practices, whether it is in the Bible or Zionist preaching and practices.

Zionism was initially there to bring about a humanized Jew, an authentic ethical civilised being that is attached to the land, to the soil -- all the while making peace with the rest of humanity. Though it is clear that project was doomed to failure; in the light of Israeli sinister vengeance, the scale of the failure is massive.

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Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli jazz musician, author and political activist.

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