Ever want to tell your buds about the funny things that happened at work? With the advent of YouTube and cheap video equipment you can show them!
That's what the Israeli Border Police have been doing. For amusement, they humiliate Palestinians. Some film their pets doing stupid tricks, the border police boast about how they forced young men to slap themselves or are forced to sing and other such indignities.
This is what occupation looks like.
Last week, the US congress approved another 2.2 BILLION for Israel, following a half billion that was included in a supplement bill just a few months ago.
Your tax dollars are at work.
You can read the Haaretz article.
I'm not surprised to see this, and think it is the direct result of what the Border Police are trained to do, even if these particular games are not allowed. If you are sent into a situation to restrict people's freedom, you must convince yourself that they are of lesser value, or you risk your sanity. Or you start to refuse orders.
I have been to checkpoints and watched them in action. I did not see any Palestinian forced to sing. The Israelis there just followed orders. Students were forced to sit and wait for clearance for hours on end (for some reason, it comes at the end of the day, they are waved on, it seems the actual reason they are held there is that they will not be allowed to do their daily tasks, to make life impossible. not for "security"). An Old woman who have just visited a doctor in Nablus cannot return to her village that evening (all within the West Bank). There are orders.
So i can hardly blame the individuals who play these games as a way to introduce a little more creativity, something novel, into their day of crushing Palestinian rights. I blame the whole system of oppression and those that promote it.
It has become such an integral part of Israeli life that they even think that military life and those restrictions placed on Palestinians can be part of advertising campaigns.
Above is an Israeli ad for a cellphone. It makes light of the Wall that is taking Palestinian land, separating farmers from their crops, Palestinian villages from other Palestinian cities and hospitals. The ad shows no Palestinian. They are faceless and invisible, which is a comfort no doubt to the targeted demographic of the ad. The Israelis, we are told, just wants to have fun.
"What do we all want? Some fun, that’s all." is how the end is translated.
and what's more fun than enforcing an occupation, and imagining that Palestinians will want to play along?
All of us should be united in affirming that both Palestinians and Israelis have all suffered terribly in direct consequence of this military occupation, and that the value of each human life is is to be respected no matter who or where they are.
But we must not lose sight that it is the State of Israel that occupies and dispossesses Palestinians of their land, restricts their movement, humiliates them at military checkpoints, demolishes their homes, cuts down their olive trees, enforces their permanent exile of millions of refugees. Their is no "symmetry" in that sense.
Occupation is a crime.
Resisting it can and should be a joyous activity. Refusing military service and risking prison can be liberating. Uniting of Israelis and Palestinians and internationals to bring down the wall, as happens in some villages in the West Bank on a weekly basis is exhilarating. Boats that take risks at sea to break an inhuman and cruel and illegal blockade give us hope. Calling for an end to military support for oppression is life-affirming. Do that now.
UPDATE:
Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi on Monday joined calls to scrap a television commercial depicting Israeli soldiers playing soccer at the West Bank separation fence, which many have found offensive.
"The barrier separates families and prevents children from reaching schools and clinics," Tibi told Reuters on Sunday. "Yet the advertisement presents the barrier as though it were just a garden fence in Tel Aviv." -Haaretz