INTERVIEW
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Tales of a Fourth Grade Suicide Bomber | |
| Brooke Goldstein's exploration of child martyrs | ||
 by Sarah Goldstein, May 9, 2007
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Suspicious of his oversized clothes and nervous movement, Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint ordered Hussam Abdu to stop and lift his hands. “I don’t know how to get this off,” Abdu shouted, tugging at the explosive belt around his waist. “I don’t want to blow up.” It was March 24, 2004 and the would-be suicide bomber, subsequently sentenced to eight years in prison, was fifteen.
This unsettling scene sets the tone of Brooke Goldstein and Alistair Leyland’s documentary The Making of a Martyr, a look at the recruitment and induction of child suicide bombers. At the time the film was made in 2004, there had been 28 Palestinian suicide bombers aged 18 or younger, comprising roughly 30 percent of all Palestinian suicide attacks since 2000. Over the course of 60 minutes, the film makes the case that it is not only the extremist Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or Islamic Jihad who are responsible, but Muslim society at large. Goldstein and Leyland look at the way cartoons, school curricula, and local murals throughout the West Bank propagate the myth of the martyr. The pair spent hours interviewing parents of suicide bombers, school-age children, psychologists, teachers, and Jihadists to demonstrate how unwitting children are indoctrinated and exploited.
Body of evidence: The Making of a Martyr posterThe film itself is not unlike watching the nightly news—we are shown upsetting, chaotic footage coupled with overwrought voiceover. The strongest moments are the interviews in which young Palestinians, including Abdu, speak as casually about martyrdom as if talking about sports, and Jihadist leaders freely admit to welcoming children into their ranks. Suicide bombers have become folk heroes in parts of the Muslim world, so recruiting children is not difficult. Indeed it took all of 48 hours, and $20 dollars, to convince Abdu to go to the checkpoint.
Goldstein is not religious but considers herself a Zionist. She made the film as her thesis for Cardozo Law School, and she’s fanatic about the subject. While there is no excuse for sending children to their deaths, one wonders if she isn’t being somewhat disingenuous when she argues that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “completely irrelevant” to the issue. The film itself is filled with charged images of the conflict—bloodied bodies from the Second Intifada, Sharon on the Temple Mount, the failed Camp David Accords. Arguing on behalf of children will always be the right thing to do, but it is impossible to forget that this troubling situation is the outcropping of a complicated war.
Jewcy recently sat down with Goldstein, 26, at a café near Washington Square Park in New York City to discuss the film.
When did you first consider taking on this issue?
I was in my second year of law school studying international human rights law when I heard about Hussam’s case. It occurred to me that there was a legal argument that nobody was making about the incitement and recruitment of children to become suicide bombers. Instead of seeing Hussam as a murderer, I viewed him as a child victim of state-sponsored infanticide. From infancy, he was taught that the greatest thing he could amount to was a shaheed.
So I decided to do my thesis on it. I wanted to collect visual evidence from the perpetrators and victims in order to raise public awareness, with the ultimate goal of getting together a group of attorneys to prosecute this case.
Goldstein's inspiration: Hussam AbduWho would you prosecute?
You could go after the direct criminal perpetrators—the terrorist groups, people like Zachariah Zubedi, Al-Aqsa, Fatah—but obviously you can’t exactly go to the West Bank and slap handcuffs on them. It’s easier to pursue the financiers and the government parties that are enabling it. The Palestinian Authority (PA) creates television programs and buys school textbooks encouraging martyrdom, so you could sue them for libel. The United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) funds schools run by Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups without regard to curriculum. This has been done before: The Holy Land Foundation was taken down because it had financial ties to terrorist groups.
Attorneys can also help raise public awareness by getting groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to condemn the issue, or at least speak in a language that signifies to the public that this is an abuse. Instead of calling Al-Aqsa “militants,” they should be called “child murderers” or “terrorists” or “criminals.” The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers has actually gone on record stating that there’s no proof that children are recruited to become suicide bombers, regardless of all the evidence collected by people like me.
Why do you think that is? Why hasn’t there been a critical mass, or at least why hasn’t it received the kind of media attention of child soldiers in Africa?
It could be intentional, willful ignorance by organizations like the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, whose bias against Israel is so strong that they won’t even condemn the murder of Palestinian children by their own community. These are organizations that advocate themselves as the defenders of the Palestinians against Israeli aggression. Surely they should also be outraged by the murder of Palestinian children by the very people who are supposed to be protecting them.
Why wouldn’t Israeli or even other American news outlets exploit this? It’s so sensationalist.
Certain further-right organizations do cover it. I think the New York Sun does a very good job covering international issues, as does Fox, but other news outlets are biased. Look at the way the BBC covered the quote-unquote massacre in Jenin. They have a policy of using the term “militants” as opposed to “terrorists.” So does the New York Times.
But the reason we focused on children is to get around that political issue—to say, “Even if you have your opinion about the Pandora’s box of the Israel-Palestine conflict, can you at least bring yourself to condemn this?” That way you can see the true motivations of people who do condemn it and those who don’t.
How did you get access to Zubedi?
Initially we didn’t intend to go into the West Bank, but we were introduced to a Palestinian fixer who was able to get us access to the things we wanted to see. He liked who we were, he liked that we were young (I was 24 when we started filming), and he thought that it was a worthy cause. For a daily rate, he operated as our friend, our translator, guide, driver, and security guard.
Who was that masked man?: Not the most comfortable interview experienceWere you afraid at any point?
Terribly afraid. There are such horrific scenes in the movie that here in North America, we can’t show it to children under a certain age. It’s ironic—we can’t show a movie about how children live elsewhere to children here because it’s too disturbing. There was one scene where we’re talking to five masked men. There’s a loaded gun on the floor facing me, and if I make one move they just lift it up. In interviews with Zachariah Zubedi we regularly had five or six armed men watching us. It was a petrifying experience.
Did you have to agree to any conditions in order to speak with certain people? Or were you ever threatened?
Well, obviously there were conditions about what I wore and how I acted. As someone collecting evidence you need to present yourself as a party who’s willing to listen. I wasn’t going to argue with a bunch of armed crazies who kill people for a living. At the same time, they were reluctant to speak openly with us. Zachariah knew I was Jewish. Our interview with him lasted three hours, and the first two were all anti-Israeli propaganda. But by the third hour he opened up and told us, “Yeah, of course children come to me, yeah I push them away, the first, second, third time, but the fifth time I give them a bomb belt, I send them to the field.”
Our subject matter afforded me the opportunity to be completely honest with people with whom I would otherwise disagree on every single level. I was there to protect their children. It was a subject that we were able to talk about at great length without having to go into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general.
You say that the desperation and the politics are irrelevant to the issue, but it’s impossible to watch your film and not notice the IDF’s destruction of so much of the West Bank.
Faced with an ultimatum: Wafa Idris (on right)That’s why we separate child bombers from the argument about adults. The adult suicide bomber is a completely different species than the child suicide bomber.
As a side note, though, you have to steer clear of making generalizations about why people kill themselves. Look at Wafa Idris, who is pretty much the only adult suicide bomber who we talk about. She’s a divorced, barren woman, an adulteress threatened with an honor killing but given an ultimatum: Either we kill you and you bring shame upon your family, or you can go blow yourself up in an Israeli pizza parlor, we’ll pay your mother $30,000, and your family can hold its head high again. For adults it’s various reasons: pressure, politics, religion. But this is a whole different species and I’m not an expert on that.
What’s very important to me is the motivation of the child suicide bomber. It’s not out of desperation; it’s out of aspiration. Not one child—and I interviewed tons of children in school, children in prison, their families—told me that he was doing it because of Sharon’s policies or because of the failed Camp David Accords. They were doing it to kill Jews, for religious reasons, for Allah; they were doing it to secure places for their family in Paradise; they were doing it for fame, for candy, for money. The child suicide bomber is purely a result of a shrewd brainwashing and recruitment strategy by the PA, its affiliated terrorist organizations, and societal influences. If the children were taught peace they would not be blowing themselves up.
In the film you show Wafa’s mother’s home after Wafa has killed herself, and it’s been half demolished by the IDF. Do you think that’s a good strategy to demolish the homes of suicide bombers’ families?
It’s Israeli policy to discourage families from encouraging their children to blow themselves up. But that’s also where the money from Fatah or Al-Aqsa comes in. Those organizations give the families an exorbitant amount of money to rebuild their homes. Then again, that’s another reason why children are now being used by terrorist organizations: Because they’re cheaper. Hussam was paid $20. You don’t need to give children much incentive, because they are so easily manipulated—but that’s why children are afforded special protection under international law. These children are being manipulated and murdered by their own community. That is unprecedented in human history.
What about the child soldiers in Uganda or Sudan?
Manufacturing dissent: A Bethlehem martyr posterChild soldiers are stolen from their parents by non-governmental military groups in village raids. You do have instances where governments are recruiting children as soldiers—even Britain did it at one point—but the societies aren’t advocating the death of their own children. Their goal is to give the child a weapon and have that child live to fight the next day. Whereas the primary goal of child suicide bombers is to kill that child. And it’s not just Palestinian children but Muslim children throughout the world.
Also, in this case, it’s systemic; it’s society encouraging its own children to die. They’re not being kidnapped. You could argue that some more fanatic members of society are hijacking the children of moderates, like Hussam’s parents. Because he has the hold of Jenin that he does, Zachariah Zubedi can take children against their parents’ will. But ultimately this is a societal problem.
In the film you show cartoons advocating martyrdom.
Yeah, they’re being produced by Iranian TV, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia. Egypt is horrible when it comes to printing children’s textbooks.
How often are the cartoons aired?
They’re inescapable. “Little Moon” is played every single Friday when the kids get out of school—primetime. The issue is systemic. Zachariah Zubedi said it to me himself: “This is the culture of Jenin. This is what we believe in. It stems from religion.” Okay? And it’s pervasive—you walk through the West Bank and there’re martyr posters of dead children brandishing weapons everywhere,
What has the response been to the film among Palestinians?
Well we did a very interesting thing at Cardozo, my alum. I invited Alan Dershowitz to speak with me, and we debated Hamid Dabashi. Hamid Dabashi is a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University, a very controversial figure.
As is Alan Dershowitz.
Positive publicity: DershowitzObviously Dabashi had brought his cronies along. I can’t say if they were Palestinian but they were Muslim, and they shouted horrible things like, “You’re the type of Jew that should have died in the Holocaust” in my direction and Alan’s direction, or “You should be assassinated.” Then we played the film. It was quite calm after that.
When Hamid tried to engage me in a debate about how the IDF is supposedly injuring Palestinian children or violating human rights, we were able to say that’s completely irrelevant. The argument against child suicide bombers is so powerful that even people from the completely opposite spectrum of the debate will agree.
Do you think it’s really going to be possible for people to divorce themselves, ideologically, from the conflict?
They have to. These ten-year-olds are the ones who are going to control the future. If the Muslim community itself isn’t willing to save its own children, then there’s nothing we can do politically that is going to help with the situation.
Child suicide bombing is not the result of any IDF policy, any American policy. Also, you have to note that when you talk to a child and he talks about “infidels,” he doesn’t just mean Jews. He also talks about Americans, the British, non-Muslims who don’t agree with their fanatical way of thinking. So it’s not just an Israeli-Palestinian problem, it’s not a Muslim-Jew problem, it’s a clash of two ideologies.
What kind of responses have you received at synagogues, when you screen the film to Jewish audiences?
Jews, like human beings throughout the world, like to have faith in humanity, and agree with me that there is no justification for the intentional murder of any innocent child. So obviously there’s sympathy and sadness and horror.
To return to the film once more: Do you have any idea what’s going on right now with Hussam and with other children who have been involved with planning for these bombings?
Voter fraud: During the Palestinian electionI keep in touch with my fixer, who has visited Hussam a couple of times with other journalists. He told us that during the election, Hamas adults in the prison would tell the child prisoners to call their parents and say, “Hey Mom and Dad, I’m having a good time in jail, no one is harming me, but that’s because of Hamas. Hamas is protecting me, so vote for Hamas or I’m not going to have that protection in jail any longer.”
Hussam is still in jail. Like you saw at the end of the film, he became more cocky, more sure of himself. There’s no real rehabilitation in the prisons because Israel doesn’t have the funds to set up a fancy rehabilitation center. And then what? When they get released they just go straight back into the community that tried to murder its own children.
Why do they become more militant in jail?
You have a bunch of delinquents, so to speak, festering in very small areas, talking to each other freely. Like you would in any jail, you join a group. Here in America you join the Blacks, the Hispanics, the Neo-Nazis, or whatever group. So in Israel you have Al-Aqsa, Fatah, Hamas, etc., and that’s how they live.
You interviewed one young man, Nasir, who convinced Hussam to do this. And he said that he was told that he wouldn’t have to worry about prison, or that it wouldn’t be more than one or two years.
Another example of how these kids are being abused. He was lied to! Kids aren’t doing this because of their huge desire to be politically active against the Israelis; they’re doing it because they’re a bunch of teenagers looking for cool things to do. They get manipulated by older cooler kids who are giving them money, saying “Hey, you want to be a big shot?” They give them live ammunition, they give them guns, they let them play with explosives. It’s like any fourteen-year-old boy’s fantasy, and they exploit that. If they’re willing to go and strap a bomb on a kid—and now, by the way, they’re using remote control bombs—then of course they’re willing to lie to them and tell them they’re not going to be punished.
Nasir seems more thoughtful, or self-reflective than the others.
Heaven is a place on earth: Child bombers are promised earthly delights in the afterlifeNasir is interesting because he regrets what he did—not because he thinks it’s wrong, but because he was caught. Same with Hussam. We asked him in the first interview, why didn’t you blow yourself up? “Because I’m going to miss my family, out of love for my family.” But do you still believe in martyrdom? “Of course I believe in martyrdom!” They’ve succeeded in brainwashing these kids to make them think that death is not martyrdom, it’s two completely separate things. When you blow your limbs apart you’re not going to die, you go to heaven and heaven is actually a real place with Ferris wheels. Children have no problem describing to you what their house is going to look like in heaven, how they’re going to have a marble floor, how there’s going to be lots of candy.
Hussam liked to talk to us about the virgins. He was obviously a marginalized teen, he’s dwarfed, he’s a “loser,” he was excluded, he never had a girlfriend, so he took pleasure in describing the virgins to us. It’s a child’s notion of what a fairy-tale paradise is. That’s the crime. It’s important to know that the crime isn’t blowing yourself up; the crime being committed against the children is this brainwashing. It’s a dangerous crime because at a certain point it becomes irreversible and it’s destroying the Palestinian community.
Why would society make such an effort to indoctrinate and prop up this myth? Is this because of the efficacy of a child suicide bomber—that’s it’s less complicated, that they’re cheaper?
Technically, it’s because they’re cheaper, they’re more impressionable, they’re less detected by the IDF at checkpoints—which is changing now. First we had men, then the IDF started getting used to men; then they used to women; then we had pregnant women; then we had children; and now we have mentally handicapped children, so what’s next? Infants?
What are the motivations of the adults of the PA? What was the motivation of Arafat when he held a child over his head and he said a million die on the way to Jerusalem? Now you’re getting into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a whole, but I’m focusing as a student of the law, and as an advocate of children’s rights. These people who are killing children in this matter are child murderers regardless of what the motive is. And guess what? I don’t care. I don’t care what the political motive is, I don’t care what the religious motive is. Why? Because there is no justification whatsoever for the intentional murder of an innocent child.
Do you see any positive developments since the release of the film?
If they continue to educate their children in this fashion and we continue to ignore it and allow it to be funded, then the future looks very bleak. If they’re not willing to save their own children, what can we do? There are two quotes I like to repeat a lot. Nelson Mandela says, “There can be no keener revelation into a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its own children.” And another quote that I think rings very true is what Golda Meir said: “There will be peace when terrorists love their children more than they hate whoever their perceived enemy is.”
[Brooke Goldstein and Sarah Goldstein are not related -- they're just both Jews. Read more by Brooke Goldstein on her blog]
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Sarah Goldstein is a reporter for Inc. and an editor for The Crier magazine. More... |
Anonymous
devastating
when and where is this film showing?
Martyr Screening at Brooklyn Film Festival
Martyr's Next Screening
The film will be screened at this year's Brooklyn International Film Festival starting June 1st...
François Blumen...
Dershowitz just mentioned
Dershowitz just mentioned the film in a lecture at Northwestern. More on this soon.
Anonymous
They should open-source the film...
... and make it available on the Internet. It may never be a big money-maker, but it can be a good consciousness-raiser. Open-sourcing would allow not only its unlimited viewing online, but other documentarists to incorporate segments of it into other works freely.
Anonymous
BUY THE DVD!
Hello everyone, if you want to support this cause, please buy the DVD of "The Making of a Martyr" for your collection or for your friends!
The DVD is available at:
http://www.vipshoppingmall.com/martyr/
Anonymous
MARTYR IS AVAILABLE ONLINE
SEE
http://movies.aol.com/truestories/making-of-a-martyr
Anonymous
Does it matter
that the vast majority of Palestinian deaths are caused by the IDF, not suicide bombers? That more than 10 times mor Palestinians than Israelis die in any given year? That maybe the Palestinians have deciced that if they have to die, they's rather die at their own hands than the IDF's? That this movie is a total piece of propaganda?
Anonymous
Propaganda
In response to the person above, please view: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model for more info on media / propaganda.
I've seen the film and its focus is not on the israeli-palestinian conflict but on propaganda specifically intended to brainwash children which in this cases has horrible consequences. I hope you view the film before dismissing it as propaganda.
Anonymous
The majority of Arab casualties are caused by their terrorists.
Arab terrorists use human shields, women and children,when fighting the IDF so they can blame Israel if Arab civilians are hurt. In fact over 80% of Arab casualties were terrorists or Arab civilians that they killed. The only propaganda here are the comments by the terrorist supporting tool who gets their information from Al-Quedazeera.
Anonymous
problematic post
I followed this post's link to Brooke Goldstein's blog. I found a couple of her posts there quite illuminating. First, she suggests that her readers will find Memri's website useful. This organization was founded and is run by a former Israeli intelligence officer. It purports to transalate media from the Middle East as a public service for Westerners. Oddly, not a particle of info unflattering to Israel is to be found. Memri is a shameless propaganda organ, nothing more, and should not be taken seriously by those interested in illumination rather than propaganda.
Under a March 27 post entitled "The Disease Spreads", Ms. Goldstein links to a NYT story about suicide bombings in Iraq. Under the same bold headline, with the tepid disclaimer "unrelated but bizarre", Ms. Goldstein links to a story about a Gazan woman found to have strapped 3 crocodiles to her body. The story makes it clear that, for the impoverished Gazans, selling these would provide a financial windfall. So what is the point of Goldstein's including this story under "The Disease Spreads"? Why call a poor person's attempt to feed her family "bizarre"? Seems clear to me it's to marginalize those who Goldstein's heroes have oppressed for decades. No wonder she likes Memri.
The real disease, the truly bizarre fact, is the tortuous machinations some folks will perform in order to justify Israel's unconscionable barbarity towards the indigenes of Palestine.
Anonymous
Memri
Who woulda guessed that Memri is run by an ex-Mossad agent? Talk about propaganda. Al-Jazeera doesn't even come close to the propaganda that the Zionist war machine has been producing for a century.
Anonymous
its about the children
so it seems your critiscm of Memri justifies your condoning of the murder of palestinian children by palestinians...never mind the innocent people that are killed by these innocent duped children. Goldstein wants this killing of innocents to stop and you question her motives?
Anonymous
Arab terrorist commentators appeasers support Arab child abuse.
Memri TELLS THE TRUTH! All Memri does is rebroadcast television programs from all across the Middle East where they call for the genocide of the Jewish people and the descruction of Israel. No one from any of these Arab stations has ever denied that the translations were correct. HOW CAN THE TRUTH BE PROPAGANDA?
There aren't any Jewish television programs that teach their children to murder Arabs and destroy Arab countries. I'm sure if they were they were be outraged in the Jewish community. I don't why understand you Jew-haters and supporter of Jew-killers even comment here. There are tons of websites that you can keep writing "Kill all the Jews" and everybody will agree with you.
Anonymous
The indigenous people of Israel are the Jews not the Arabs.
Arabs are barabarians who murder Jewish children in the most vicious way. Little Jewish girls have had their heads bashed in, have been raped and strangled, have been shot in the face numerous times. Arabs are blood-thirsty savages who love killing Jews.
Arabs, the term "Palestinians" actually referred to the Jews decades ago, are the occupiers of Jewish land and don't belong there. They should go back to the Gulf of Arabia where they came from.
Anonymous
do the math...
"there had been 28 Palestinian suicide bombers aged 18 or younger", how many palestinians 18 or younger have been killed by the IDF, this story is sensationalizing a small minority and labeling it as a pervasive movement in the arab world. Its the same as saying all jews are ignorant bigots based on the comments by Anonymous May 14, 2007 1:57 am.
Anonymous
Racist
AnonymousMay 14, 2007, 1:57 AM is the perfect epitome of the hateful Jew, who, while decrying anti-semitism, indulges in the most horrific racism against people the deem inferior to themselves.
Anonymous
The truth isn't racism. Arabs savages love to kill Jews.
Everything I wrote is TRUE! Arabs are violent sub-humans who have committed horrific crimes against the Jews. ARABS ALSO ARE THE MOST RACIST IN THE WOLRD. I don't make apologies for hating Arabs like I hate Nazis. Both are one and the same. They hate Jews because we are superior. It all comes down to jealousy.
Anonymous
Racist Jews
"Arabs are violent sub-humans who have committed horrific crimes against the Jews."
"They hate Jews because we are superior."
The Nazis are back, in Zionist garb. A Jewish peace activist once said that she became an anti-Zionist when she saw Jewish graffiti in Hebron saying "Gas the Arabs".
Anonymous
Goldstein Keeps it Real...
This is an important person in the future of this civilization. Cherish her, celebrate her, and support her efforts and achievements.
Anonymous
The only Nazis here are the Arab terrorists like Hamas.
The Arabs everywhere say "Gas the Jews" every single fucking day. This comes out in the Arab media all the time. The Arabs are the most violent, racist, sexist, murderous "people" in the world. The Jews can never be compared to the uncivlized Arabs who only live to murder Jews. Arabs=Nazis.
Anonymous
--
Another confirmation of the viciousness and evil of terrorism.
Anonymous
--
Iran's backing (either direct of thru Hezbollah) of the TV shows encouraging children doing suicide bombings shows that Iran is now using children as pawns in its strategy to attack Israel, for now at least, by proxy. And, they didn't used to use children. Yes, what is next... using infants?
Whoever is behind it, the point is that they have no soul.
Again, the evil of terrorism cannot be underestimated.
Anonymous
The Arabs everywhere say
The Arabs everywhere say "Gas the Jews" every single fucking day. This comes out in the Arab media all the time. The Arabs are the most violent, racist, sexist, murderous "people" in the world. The Jews can never be compared to the uncivlized Arabs who only live to murder Jews. Arabs=Nazis.
There are evil people in every race be it Arab, Jewish, Mexican, Japanese... etc. To say that the Arab people as a whole are evil is ignorant and shows a lack of true observation of the human race. Now to say that the Arab government and culture breeds violence, racism and sexism would be more of a correct statement. No child is born evil. Many of these people truly are victims of brainwashing....it's all they've ever known. Not that they should not be held accountable...for if we don't...how will they ever learn different?
mmausner
a bit of fairness...
MEMRI does have an agenda in selecting which pieces to translate, and it chooses from Arab media that which it thinks the west needs to hear. But all it does is select and translate: Arabs REALLY ARE SAYING THESE THINGS. Do all these anonymous posters seriously dispute that a great many voices in the Arab/Muslim world genuinely do call for and believe in murdering all 'zionists'?
The documentary is valuable because it highlights the difference in the MEANS. Israel and its enemies use. As Howard Zinn and others have pointed out, one can often judge movements or revolutions by their means: too often the ends RESEMBLE the means-- which is to say, if brutal violence and brainwashing (and in this case, child murder and honor killings, etc.) are the means, the ends will likely look similar. Whereas the big Israeli effort over the last few years, whether one agrees with it or not, is simply a wall. It didn't nor does it KILL anyone, and it saves a lot of lives, and obviates the need for a great many preventative IDF operations which would wind up killing many people (who, given terrorists' proven policy of hiding among civilians, would inevitably include civilians.)
This conflict is NOT equal morally. The spectacle of otherwise seemingly moral westerners claiming that Israel is fundamentally wrong in this conflict, in the face of the unambiguously horrific, child-brainwashing, civilian-TARGETING policies of the Palesitnians, is beyond pathetic-- it's scary.
Anonymous
what a lovely wall....
I agree, this conflict is not equally moral. Israel is the aggressor. This is a brute historical fact whose denial constitutes one of the world's most venal amnesias.
You're very mistaken or very dishonest, I'm afraid. "The big Israeli effort over the last few years...is simply a wall." Really? First, that "simple" bit of architecture has resulted in more home demolitions, more displacement, more real-estate grabs, more misery. Second, Palestinian non-combatant deaths, including the deaths of children, far exceed those of Israelis, this despite Israel's vaunted "precision" in hunting down the bad guys. You may no longer whitewash these murders with the usual obeisances to such weasel phrases as "collateral damage" and "tragic errors". They are murders, no more ethically privileged than the murder of innocents perpetrated by Palestinians.
Both sides have fanatics ready to demonize the other. I needn't remind you of the various religious leaders in Israel who regularly pronounce the most vicious dehumanizations of the Palestinians, nor the slightly more veneered opinions of such worthies as Lieberman and his drooling pack of thugs.
As for brainwashed children, what do you make of those pictures of sweet-faced Israeli tykes scribbling love notes on bombs about to be dispatched to the unhappy residents of Lebanon?
What I find most fascinating (and disgusting), though, is the obsession you and your buddies have with the fantasied Arab expunging of Israel while you disregard the daily sociocide that Israel perpetrates against the Palestinians. The triumph of the subjunctive over the actual. Delirium, pure and simple. Oh, and projection. Massive, toxic, clinically significant projection.
Deiscane
Errors
There is no such place as Carodoza Law School and one cannot be a senior while studying at CardozO Law School.
Izzy Grinspan
good catch
Both errors duly noted and corrected.
mmausner
point of information
anonymous, if you're anything more than just a ranting sock, do you have a source for " pictures of sweet-faced Israeli tykes scribbling love notes on bombs about to be dispatched to the unhappy residents of Lebanon?"
Israeli children-- all civilians in fact-- are forbidden from coming anywhere near IDF ordnance, bombs, artillery, etc., and children would NEVER be allowed to write on or touch or even approach IDF bombs. The reverse of course is not true; plenty of Palestinian and lebanese children join in the combat as lookouts, runners, and suicide bombers. And of course the higher number of arab civilian casualties at IDF hands is, according to Geneva convention rules, the primary responsibility of the guerilla groups that hide amongst civilians, deliberately putting them at risk.
Anonymous
happy to oblige......
Anyone even remotely literate regarding the Palestine-Israel conflict is aware of these disgusting pictures. Your ignorance of them tells me you're a dilletante.
In the service of educating the the uneducated, I provide the following: www.canadiancontent.net/commtr/article_824.html
The most rudimentary Google search will yield numberless additional citations, but I guess you were too busy dabbing the drool from your chin to perform that 7 seconds of hard work yourself.
I await your apology for the "ranting sock" remark.
Anonymous
happy to oblige......
Anyone even remotely literate regarding the Palestine-Israel conflict is aware of these disgusting pictures. Your ignorance of them tells me you're a dilletante.
In the service of educating the the uneducated, I provide the following: www.canadiancontent.net/commtr/article_824.html
The most rudimentary Google search will yield numberless additional citations, but I guess you were too busy dabbing the drool from your chin to perform that 7 seconds of hard work yourself.
I await your apology for the "ranting sock" remark.
Anonymous
Re: happy to oblige...
Thank you for the post above
here's another link showing israli kids during the lebanon war. I see only one difference between them and the palestinians (resources), you think palestinian kids would still be killing themselves if they had these weapons?
http://www.stolenchildhood.net/entry/israel-lebanon-war-a-conflict-between-israeli-lebanese-children/
Please dont be ignorant, try to help the kids instead of hating them.
mmausner
the photo is unattributed
"Unknown" is the caption. Real accountable reporting. I see no need to retract anything.
Esp. as the conduct of the IDF in Lebanon was incredibly restrained, giving several days' warning to allow civilians to leave combat zones, while Hezbollah's whole war strategy was to shoot rockets deliberately and indiscriminately into civilian Israel, even killling many Arab Israelis. And it was universally recognized even in the Arab world that Hezbollah started the war unjustifiably. (Just read the al-Jazeera coverage; i've come to be quite a fan of al-jazeera, and find it fairer than, say, the BBC or Fox News.)
Hmm, gee, if Palestinian kids had these weapons, would they still be blowing themselves up? No, of course not, they'd be killing ME. Is that supposed to prove something? Many of my friends serve in the IDF and have these weapons, but neither use them to kill Arabs, nor want to.
Anonymous
mausner shows his stripes....
Mausner assures us that he positively knows that IDF rules forbid civilian access to ordnance and demands (in a rather rude fashion) evidence for my assertion regarding Israeli kids signing bombs.
I provide a citation forthwith, and suggest to mausner that a brief Google search would provide tons of additional references. Mausner's reply? He didn't like the caption, and apparently refused to take the extra 7 seconds a Google search would require to find one more to his liking. He then went on to regurgitate more of the tired lies about the the IDF's humanism with which Zionists are happy to delude themselves.
If he were seriously interested in learning the truth about these pictures, he could have done so effortlessly. Instead, he wills away their existence and changes the subject, the unmistakable marks of an unhinged ideologue.
Again, Jewcers may safely ignore the dishonest ramblings of this empty scrotum.
Anonymous
There IS a Benjamin N Cardozo School of Law
it is located in New York City, and to be a senior means to be a 3L, a third year law student
Alhendra
Wow
Wow, its a powerful story. I would love to show it some friends of mine.
Megan Lieff
Overt Racism?
This is old hat, for Jewcy, so to speak, but I just had to mention (since no one else does) that this author basically states that a) you can "join" the Black or Hispanic community in America, as opposed to it being a racial or cultural identity that you are born into or raised with, and b) that "joining" the Black or Hispanic communtiy is analogous to joining a terrorist organization - or! - becoming a Nazi. Yes, we have ganss in America, and yes those gangs are often comprised of people from similar racial or ethnic backgrounds but they have names, that are neither"Black" nor "Hispanic." It's unfortunate for someone who is trying to fight the violation of human rights abroad, to say something so hateful of her fellow citizens. It are attitudes like these, the crassless stereotyping of whole groups that has propagted so much of the hate that is part of America's history. Whether or not Goldstein meant to lump all Black and Hispanic Americans with her comparison to nazi's and terrorists (which, I hope for her sake, she did not) the fact that she would allow herself to say something like that without thinking, says it all.
And even worse - almost a year after this article was posted, how am I the first Jewcy reader to think it's worth calling Goldstein out on how she portrays our neighbors and citizens?
(P.S. Goldstein: Most people in American jails are basically harmless, and there for petty theft, or drug related charges. Rarely do they form into militant groups.)
naftali
Ismail,
If you want to write here as Anonymous, at least change your prose style. If we go back to the top--to the article, this turning of a 4th grader into an explosive snowman, this is okay with you? Just say that sentence. Start with that kind of clarity.
And Megan,
I guess they're harmless until they steal your stuff and sell drugs to your kids. And that leaves people in jail for rape, assault, murder--
Ismail
Naf- You will note that the
Naf-
You will note that the posts you refer to are nearly a year old, at which time I hadn't figured out that I could use a screen name without registering-hence, anonymous. Your comment suggests I donned the cloak of anonymity after having posted as Ismail. Not true.
Of course it's not OK with me to see children die, whether the result of accident, assault or self-immolation. You seem unable to grasp this concept, preferring to imagine that I glow with anti-Semitic satisfaction at the deaths of innocent Israelis. The masturbatory satisfaction you must achieve from this fantasy, your delusional insistence that you hear things that never passed my lips, these are clinical signifiers of great concern.
My remarks were intended to point out the highly ideological content of Goldstein's work, which becomes obvious when you go to her rather odious website.
Things derive their meanings in part from their context and their use. I haven't seen Goldstein's film, so I won't stipulate to its accuracy or sincerity. But for the sake of argument, let's say that everything she says about the phenomenon she purports to have uncovered is true. It's still useful to ask why she brings this up, what social use she intends. (I should add that there's good reason to doubt her accuracy-on her blog, she traffics in the fiction that the PA purchases textbooks that encourage martyrdom. At it's immiserated inception, the PA used books from Egypt which contained untruths about Israel, though I know of no evidence that they encouraged martyrdom. When it could afford to write and print its own texts, these offensive passages disappeared. So for years now, Goldstein's casual untruth, well known to readers of the Dershowitz/Chesler/Horowitz Axis of Fantasy, has been exposed.)
Suppose someone makes a film about the Jews involved in sexual slavery and pornography in Israel. Suppose this filmmaker has a blog loaded with crass propaganda about Jews. Suppose that Jewish society were at that moment being dismantled by those the filmmaker supports. Would you not be justified in asking why, at this moment, under these conditions, our cineaste chooses to focus on this pathology of Israeli culture and ignore the far more devastating crimes being perpetrated against the vast majority of Jews who are not slipping roofies to Ukrainians and holding them in bondage?
Are pornography and sexual slavery not problems in Israel? Sure they are. In this case, the truth of the accusation is not in question. It's the use of the accusation, and hence its meaning, that correctly draws our attention.
This may be a little nuanced for you, but if you read it over a couple of times, it should satisfy your concerns re clarity.
naftali
Okay, but...
Sorry, didn't look at the date. That happens on this site, stuff comes up sometimes two years old and it takes a minute to figure out something is wrong.
In this case, I think you used the same arguments last week, so--it just seemed so contemporary.
What I can grasp, is that your arguments have been blowed up by your own arguments. Or, using another metaphor, checkmate. If you wipe away the foam from your mouth, your argument is that Israel is systematically denying the Palestinians their civil rights (if you ignore the fact that the Palestinians even have civil rights because of Israeli sovereignty). They wouldn't have the same rights in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, lots of places on earth--China, Cuba. Civil rights are a decidedly western invention. A good invention, but not one enthusiastically embraced the world over.
But that aside, you can only make that case if you ignore, or are baffled by the statements in the charters of both the PLO and Hamas that they wish to destroy Israel and the Jews living within those borders. To me, this is a declaration of war, and as Benny Morris said so eloquently on this site, it's been going on since before Israel was a country--this time around. At first it was tribal attacks, then nations attacked in 1948, 1967, and 1973. In 1974, the strategy for this war changed, and it was given to Yasser Arafat, the job of fighting the war, which he did with expertise, that along with the Arabs forming OPEC.
But you can't say that two nations at war are violating any civil rights. You can't say that Britain violated German civil rights in WWII, nor can you say that the US violated Japanese civil rights in WWII--in the war in the Pacific. Because the countries were at war, the rules are different. So your whole position rests on you not recognizing that there is a war on.
Well, guess what, there's a war on. And Hamas says so, and so does Fatah, and they get money and weapons from Iran and the Saudis, and Syria in order to fight this war. And they also get money from individuals in Jordan and Egypt, and they used to get money from Saddam. They even get money from the US.
When you get down to it, we are arguing over a few sentences--ones that I give a great deal of meaning, ones that you can't explain. But these are some very powerful sentences that could change the context of everything you believe and defend. These sentences could change your position into mine.
So, what, now we talk recipes?
Ismail
Here we have another example
Here we have another example of naf disgorging his well-worn talking points in a fashion entirely unresponsive to my argument. His comments have the appearance of a rejoinder, but they are actually, like the saliva dripping from the chin of Pavlov's pooch, a mere tropism, entirely unmediated by higher cortical processes.
Given the degree of impairment his comment represents, I doubt the poor fellow could even follow a recipe, so I guess that leaves nothing to talk about.
Anonymous
Ismail, why dont you focus
Ismail, why dont you focus on the myriad problems of the Arab and Muslim world? We dont really need your help. Perhaps you could focus on the corruption of the Palestinian leadership, who has squandered the lavish gifts that could be better used to aid victims of the Myanmar cyclone or the Chinese earthquake, or African AIDS. Perhaps you could focus on madrassas from Morocco to Indonesia that teach hate, Perhaps you could focus on your buddy AHmadinejad, who has daily chats with the 12th Imam. Perhaps you could focus on corruption in Egypt, honor killings in Iraq, or the plight of Bahais in Iran. Why do you hang out here? WE dont hang out on your hate sites
naftali
Ismail
My point is that I'm not going to respond to your arguments until you deal with that enormous gaping hole within your arguments. I'm setting a natural boundary. Metaphorically, call it the Jordan River.
I think this point I've raised has been on the table for some time, along with me asking you how Jordan lost its sovereignty claims over the West Bank, along with a few other questions--which you haven't answered. So please don't Cry Me a River (talk music?) about me not responding to your arguments. I said before, I'm not going to do it until you actually respond to where this dialogue has taken us. You've got some splainin' to do.
naftali
Anon of '08, Right Above My Post
He hangs out here because...There's A War On. And it moved from the battlefield of the Sinai in 1973 to the PLO, who took it into the media and the mind. Using any number of falsehoods and distortions, not to mention completely fabricated video footage, the PLO fights with suicide bombers and media distortions, academic distortions (Edward Said), and folks showing up on Jewish sites to confuse Jews (not as hard a task as it appears on the surface) about their own history and relation to Israel. The technique is the opposite of MEMRI, which attempts to tell the truth.
Anywhere there is a site to bolster Jewish identity or to support Israel, there is someone who tries to confuse the issues. That's why he's here, because he knows...There's a War On.
Ismail
"Why do you hang out here?
"Why do you hang out here? WE dont hang out on your hate sites"
Funny, I don't think of Jewcy as a hate site.
I can think of little that makes me feel more certain of the correctness of my opinion than hearing some variant of "if you don't like it, why don't you leave?" hurled at me. I heard it in the south during the civil rights struggle, I heard it at Vietnam protests...it's the honk of the idiot who doesn't understand the notion of engagement.
By the way, anon, I presume that you're Jewish. Are you aware of how often your yahoo anthem-"stop meddling, go home, you don't belong here"-how often this stupid bleat has been aimed at courageous Jews who took great risks to call for justice. It's really the favored trope of thugs and anti-Semites. Very ironic that you embrace it so easily.
Ismail
...out of pity and concern...
Naftali, stop it. You're embarrassing yourself
naftali
Ismail
At least we're on the same page. That hole in your argument is like a black hole and sucks up everything you try to say--albeit everything your try to say is usually false.
But the metaphor that I was thinking about, regarding where you are now, argumentatively, was that you think you are making perfect sense, but to the rest of us, you are like Benjy in The Sound and the Fury.
Do you, like, make bricks, you know, have a mold, pour in all that elephant dung, dry them in the sun, and make living room furniture? Is there this huge couch in your living room for the elephant and a table lamp for it to read--they are very smart creatures. And how to you haul it to the vet for check-ups? Do you have to rent a truck or something?
Anonymous
Ismail-you still havent
Ismail-you still havent answered my question-Why do you hang out here when you could be addressing the more serious problems of the Muslim world? If you want us to hear the familiar refrain "Jews good, Israel bad, suicide bombers good, illegal settlements bad, etc", we have already heard it and you havent swayed any minds. Go devote yourself to more worthwhile causes, such as why Bahais in Iran are persecuted
Ismail
I didn't answer your
I didn't answer your question, anon, because it's not really a question, i.e., a good faith expression of curiosity, but is instead a roundabout way of saying "I don't like Ismail". This is a perfectly legitimate sentiment, but don't dress it up as an interrogatory and then wag your finger at me because I refuse to go along with your charade.
Ismail
"At least we're on the same
"At least we're on the same page. That hole in your argument is like a black hole [ two "holes", seven wordsapart. Find another simile or rework to eliminate redundancy] and sucks up everything you try to say--albeit everything your try to say is usually false [ how would youknow what I "try" to say? You mean "everything you say", so just write that. And everything I say is usually false? Either everything is false or my comments are sometimes false, but everything being usually false? Clumsy, and logically iffy.]
But the metaphor [you mean simile-note that"like" just before Benjy down there ] that I was thinking about,regarding where you are now, argumentatively, was that you think you are making perfect sense, but to the rest of us , you are like Benjy in The Sound and theFury. [hellishly awkward-rework mightily]
Do you, like, make bricks, you know, have a mold, pour in all that elephant dung, dry them in the sun, and make living room furniture? Is there this huge couch in your living room for the elephant and a table lamp for it to read--they are very smart creatures. And how to you haul it to the vet for check-ups? Do you have to rent a truck or something? [this is actually pretty good. You go on a bit longer than you might have, but overall, I like. Good work."]
Enough with this. Anyone with an opinion related to the original post, speak up. Anon and naftali, thanks for coming. G'bye.