'Death to Arabs':
The Israeli Army's New Unofficial
Slogan?
By CJ Werleman
July 06, 2015 "Information
Clearing House"
- "MEE"
- "I have no doubt in
my heart that the IDF is the most moral army in the world,”
said then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in the middle of Israel’s
2008-09 siege of Gaza – an air and ground invasion that left nearly 1,500
Palestinians, most of them civilians, dead.
Everyone from casino and media magnate
Sheldon Adelson to Jewish American trial lawyer
Alan Dershowitz has repeated the assertion in the hope that if it’s said
often enough the world will believe it true.
The trope has now been co-opted by even those who don’t have
ancestral or even spiritual ties to Israel.
Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of all British forces in
Afghanistan, made the claim during the height of last summer’s siege on Gaza
that “Israel is the most moral army the world has ever known.” Like, ever? I
can’t be sure but it’s likely Gandhi, who freed a country without firing a
single bullet, might have choked on whatever it is they serve in heaven.
That “Israeli military is the most moral army in the world” is
a trope repeated so often by so many pro-Israel propagandists, it now stands as
the IDF’s unofficial slogan.
It's a dubious slogan indeed given Israel waged a devastating
ground invasion and air assault on Gaza last year under phony pretences. Having
mischievously tied Hamas and Gaza to the kidnapping and murder of three teenage
boys in the West Bank, the IDF dropped $370 million worth of ordinance on one of
the most densely populated areas on earth.
Israel’s effort to “mow the lawn,” or as others have termed
it, “occupation management,” resulted in the death of more than 2,000
Palestinians (alongside another 10,000 injured), most of them civilians, more
than 500 of whom were children. And don’t get me started on widespread and
corroborated claims the IDF used Palestinian civilians as “human shields”.
Ok, do get me started. The Israeli High Court found the IDF
used Palestinians as human shields
1,200 times in the years 2000 to 2005 alone.
So back to last year’s siege of Gaza. The damage to Gaza’s
infrastructure and economy was just as devastating. More than 400 businesses
were wiped out;
Israeli shelling destroyed 10,000 homes, damaged another 100,000; 24 medical
facilities were struck, as was Gaza’s sole power station.
If you need a sense of the World War Two era level of carpet
bombing dropped on Gaza, consider Israel military’s
own estimates: “390,000 tank shells, 34,000 artillery shells, and 4.8
million bullets were supplied during the fighting.”
Given the population of Gaza is 1.8 million; the IDF had fired
almost two bullets for every resident of Gaza.
“The shocking level of firepower Israeli forces exerted
against Gaza’s civilian infrastructure told the story of a frustrated Goliath
unable to punish its vastly underarmed foe into submission,” writes Max
Blumenthal, who was in Gaza during the shelling, in his new book The 51 Day
War.
If one is to apply a slogan to the Israeli Defense Force that
is truly indicative of where large segments of Israeli society and the military
is today, one could do worse than apply the moniker “Death to Arabs.”
During the height of the 2014 siege, an
Israel Democracy Institute poll found that 95 percent of Israelis supported
the invasion, with nearly half complaining the IDF hadn’t used enough force. In
other words, “Death to Arabs.”
Strolling through the bombed-out rubble of Gaza, Blumenthal
recorded a number of Palestinian buildings, which had been used as military
outposts by the IDF during the invasion, that had been graffitied with the
words: “Death to Arabs.”
Vandalized Palestinian homes are not merely a frustrated
expression of war, for “Death to Arabs” has become a movement within Israel
itself.
Recently,
“Death to Arabs” has been spray painted on Arab Jewish schools, shouted
during
Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, and sung along to
by more than
200 far-right protesters outside a Muslim wedding.
In response to the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens,
which was mischievously blamed by Israel on Hamas to give political cover for
the Gaza invasion, Zionist groups held
“Death to
Arabs” rallies in Jerusalem.
This is the language of neo-fascism and the behaviour of an
increasingly fascistic state. Both comically and tragically, however, it is
Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem that is
self-radicalising those civilians who chant “Death to Arabs” in the streets, and
those soldiers who spray paint it on the walls of Palestinian homes.
Last month I
interviewed two soldiers from the IDF’s Lishkat HaGiyus (recruitment office)
in Jerusalem - soldiers whose job it is to analyse and test new recruits for the
purpose of determining which branch of the military the applicant would be best
served. I asked whether it was common for new recruits to just come out and say,
“I want to kill Arabs”? They said it was more common in Jerusalem because
applicants from the Occupied Territories – the West Bank and East Jerusalem –
filter through the Jerusalem recruitment office.
Each recruitment soldier guessed it was likely five new
recruits out of 100 who blurt out “I want to kill Arabs” at the first interview,
with a greater number who think it but aren’t stupid enough to say it. “It’s
different though and depends on where the applicant comes from. If they come
from behind the Green Line or live in the settlements, they are more likely to
be
excited about idea of killing Arabs,” said IDF recruiter Aki, a resident of
southern Galilee, who refrained from using his full name for obvious reasons.
“If you ask someone from Tel Aviv, it will be lower,” said recruiter Sheera, a
resident of East Jerusalem.
Both soldiers made it clear that Arabs who don’t live under
occupation don’t hate the military and maintain “friendly relations,” but for
those Israelis who live in the Occupied Territories, “you have an everyday
contact with Arabs and you see what they think of you.”
It’s the Occupation, stupid.
Illegal Jewish settlers are subjected to hostile resistance
from those they occupy. In turn, settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem
are subject to taunts and reprisals. When the children of settlers are old
enough to join the military, they enter with pent up anti-Arab resentment.
“Death to Arabs” becomes the mantra. “Death to Arabs” is
chalked on military shells meant for Gaza.
With three-quarters of a million illegal Jewish settlers now
living in the Occupied Territories, the civilian, political and military
spectrum gets pulled further and further to the right. A civilian military that
moves ever further to the fascistic bookend of the ideological spectrum means
bad things for those that dare resist its force, especially when high-profile
religious leaders begin calling for
“the extermination of the enemy population with whatever measures it deems
proper.”
A newly published
report by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) found Israel killed and injured
more civilians with explosive weapons in 2014 than any other country in the
world. The report defines explosive weapons as “munitions such as air-dropped
bombs, mortars, improvised explosive devices and artillery shells” which cause
“deaths, injuries and damage by projecting explosive blast, heat and often
fragmentation around a point of detonation.”
Of the 4,022 injuries and deaths from explosive violence AOAV
recorded in Gaza, 3,813 were civilians. “This means that civilians comprised
an alarming 95 percent of those killed or maimed by explosives in Gaza, placing
Israel in the same league as the militant group Boko Haram, whose deadly suicide
and IED (improvised explosive device) attacks resulted in a 97 percent civilian
casualty rate in Nigeria. By comparison, the rate of civilian casualties
in Syria, to which Israel often refers to deflect from its own atrocities, was
81 percent,” notes
Rania Khalek.
One should staple both the
AOAV and
UN Investigation
into Gaza to the forehead of Sheldon Adelson, Alan Dershowitz, Ehud Barak, Col.
Richard Kemp, and anyone else who claims “the IDF is the most moral army in the
world.”
If taglines are to be
thrown around, “Death to Arabs” is one that articulates the ideological
headspace of the Israeli military. A pseudo-tagline that will be heard more
often and more shrill as Israel continues to manage its illegal occupation.
- CJ
Werleman is the author of Crucifying America, God Hates You. Hate Him
Back, Koran Curious, and is the host of Foreign Object. Follow him on twitter: @cjwerleman