This Week's Dose of Moral Turpitude

I have been ignoring this story since it started circulating around the blogosphere, and then onto local news sites, and then political commentators who are in the know. Now that it has finally reached the AP, I feel I would be remiss in my duty to you if I did not take note of it.

The long and short of it is that Israeli soldiers have been printing tshirts with slogans like "1 shot, 2 kills" paired with the image of a pregnant Muslim woman. An army spokesperson says the soldiers involved in printing the shirts and handing them out to graduates of basic training have been penalized.

The shirts "are not in accordance with IDF values and are simply tasteless," the military said in a statement. "This type of humor is unbecoming and should be condemned." The army said it would not tolerate such behavior and would take disciplinary action against the soldiers involved.

A small number of the shirts (probably several dozen) were printed for specific army training units.

Another story making the same laps is the one about misconduct during Operation Cast Lead. Ha'aretz has printed several stories about IDF soldiers saying they were ordered to shoot unarmed women and children, and that they followed those orders. Some within the blogosphere have called into question the validity of such statements, saying that the stories are only heresay and that even if they are true, each case resulted in tragedy because of Palestinian error, not Israeli malice.

Relevant to both stories, the AP has the following to say:

On Monday, the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, defended his troops.

"I tell you that this is a moral and ideological army. I have no doubt that exceptional events will be dealt with," Ashkenazi told new recruits. Gaza "is a complex atmosphere that includes civilians, and we took every measure possible to reduce harm to the innocent."

Palestinians too have glorified attacks on Israelis in the past. In the Gaza Strip, Hamas-controlled media consistently send messages that Jews cannot be trusted and that Israel is a bloodthirsty, militaristic state eager to seize Palestinian land and slaughter Palestinian children.

Lola Goes Professional

I made this movie about San Francisco's protests against Israel's Operation Cast Lead for video journalism hub SanFranciscoIAM. You can watch the video directly on the site here.

Gov't Report Reveals Corruption at Highest Levels

With Israeli elections just around the corner, we can safely assume that all major political developments are at least in part one group or another's attempt to win favor with the electorate. Operation Cast Lead was one example of political maneuvering, and quite possibly the most significant one of this election. It has seemed to achieve its goals of creating a sense of national unity, feelings of patriotism, and a strong distrust of outsiders and their criticisms. In short, the country has been put in a war mood.

This is good for Prime Minister candidate Bibi Netanyahu, who has already held the office from 1996 to 1999, as leader of the conservative Likud party. Support for the latest Gaza war and Israelis' tendency to go insular when they are threatened has made his success much more likely.

This could be the reason a secret government report revealing settlement construction to be illegal and corrupted has recently been released, even though it was completed over two years ago. What's more is that the research was done by the Israeli government and at the behest of former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, another right-wing candidate for Prime Minister in this election.

Ha'aretz writes:

An analysis of the data reveals that, in the vast majority of the settlements - about 75 percent - construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued.

Now, let's deconstruct this in order to fully realize the significance. Building without permits is a pretty piddly violation. If building without permits was the only accusation we could make against the Israeli government, I wouldn't have anything to write about. What makes this significant is that Palestinian homes built without permits are demolished, oftentimes without warning, meaning the residents not only lose their home, but many of their possessions as well. Before the appearance of this report, government spokesmen could make all the excuses they want about these demolitions, but now, they can no longer claim Palestinians receive equal treatment in this regard.

Moving on:

The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents.

The government admits that it knowingly builds on the property of the West Bank's Palestinian residents.

The Ha'aretz article, besides a summary of the report, includes interviews with settler leaders and Housing Ministry officials. Not surprisingly, they all pass the buck higher and higher, until it becomes clear that decisions regarding the illegal building come from the very heights from which the order to compile the report was given. Nevermind why Shaul Mofaz would order a report written that could very well cost him the election, the question is: who released the report to the public, two years after its completion?

The answer, if I may speculate, comes from the left. If Operation Cast Lead hurt Tzipi Livni's chances in the election, this report does the same to her right-wing competitors. If the electorate knows their government is out looking for trouble, support of the Gaza war could wane, thus giving Livni the boost she needs at the polls.

Wait For It...

A couple of weeks before the IDF began bombing Gaza, I warned some of my Palestinian friends that a major Gaza operation would be coming. They asked me how I knew. I said a good friend of mine, an Israeli former Special Forces soldier, had been called for reserve duty and the only information he was given was that it had to do with Gaza.

My Palestinian friends shrugged this off, saying, "They do this shit all the time. It means nothing."

When the bombing began, my friends said it would last a few days and then stop. They said Israel was only making a statement, sending a warning to Hamas about the rocket fire. I told them there would be a ground invasion, and I said that weakening Hamas was not their prime objective.

Well, there's certainly no satisfaction in being right about this. I wish I had been wrong. But my predictions haven't stopped coming. Weakening Hamas is a pleasant side effect of the operation, but the IDF's primary objective is recovering Gilad Shalit, alive or dead. Dead, most likely, at this point.

Shalit was abducted by Hamas in the summer of 2006 during a cross border raid. He has been held all this time. As of July of 2008 he was alive, but this week Hamas has been hinting that he may or may not be alive anymore. Words were to the effect of, "It is no longer our concern." This leads me to believe he's dead, which isn't going to be good for anyone. Not for Hamas, not for the morale of the Israeli people, and not for the politicians running in the upcoming election.

That's right, Israelis will vote for their prime minister presently and whoever is responsible for bringing back the country's beloved Missing Soldier will win the prize. Gilad Shalit is no longer just a person. He is a symbol. If he is found alive, national pride in Israel will flourish. If he is found dead, Israelis' hatred of "the other" will be further cemented and the Gaza operation will likely end later and with more civilians dead. The possibility that Shalit is alive is quite possibly the only factor applying what little restraint there is in this campaign.

On a personal note, I am deeply saddened by the hatred I see coming out of both my Palestinian friends and my Israeli friends. Those who could enjoy each others' company before this operation began can no longer be in the same room together. They see each other as monsters, no longer human beings. Sometimes it is too complicated for the mind to grasp the complexities of humanity in others, or even in ourselves.

But I know the truth. Each soldier who bombs a house, shoots a man, arrests a child...these soldiers are also someone's son, husband, or father. The same as the Hamas operatives who shoot qassam rockets across the border into civilian areas are sons, husbands, and fathers. It is not easy to accept, but it is true. I believe that true progress can only be made with this in mind.

If you believe your own actions are justifiable, then you must believe someone else's actions are too.

UPDATE: An AP article from today says:

Israel said it was approaching the "endgame" of its three-week offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers and scheduled a Security Cabinet vote Saturday on a truce proposed by Egypt. Under the cease-fire plan, fighting would stop immediately for 10 days, but Israeli forces would initially remain in Gaza and the border crossings into the territory would remain closed until security arrangements are made to ensure Hamas militants do not rearm.

According to my theory, Israel scheduling a vote on the ceasefire for Saturday means they think they have located Shalit and are probably planning a night rescue for...that would be tonight. If they were right and they were successful, tomorrow's news will reveal that. If they were wrong or unsuccessful, I doubt anyone will ever hear about it.