[wvns] Killing "like a video game".
Killing "like a video game".
Grim image of Israeli occupation
Veterans show dark side of presence in territories
By John Murphy
Sun Foreign Reporter
Originally published March 31, 2007
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.hebron31mar31,0,7667974.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines
HEBRON, West Bank // Yehuda Shaul stopped abruptly in the middle of a
litter-strewn park in this West Bank city to point to a Palestinian
school that he and other members of the Israeli army once commandeered
so they could shoot at Palestinian gunmen. Shaul operated a grenade
machine gun, a lethal though highly inaccurate weapon.
"Anything hit within a radius of 8 meters is killed. Anybody within 16
meters will be injured," he said. "When I first learned of my mission,
I freaked out."
But the young soldier did as he was told, firing as many 100 rounds
per night into a crush of Palestinian homes, not knowing whom he might
have wounded or killed.
"It was like playing a video game," he recalled.
Part confession, part condemnation of Israeli military policy, Shaul's
walking tour of Hebron is a rare journey into the troubled conscience
of an Israeli army veteran and the grim realities of Israel's
occupation of the Palestinian territories.
A bearish-looking 24-year-old with a head of shaggy black hair topped
with a skullcap, Shaul is the founder of a group of former Israeli
soldiers who have sought to prick the conscience of the Israeli public
with their tales of military service.
Called Breaking the Silence, the organization first came to the
public's attention in 2004 when it created an exhibit of photographs,
videos and testimonies of the routine injustices, humiliations and
harassment of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli forces. The
exhibit, displayed in Tel Aviv and the Israeli Parliament, stirred
widespread debate about the consequences of Israel's occupation.
Now the veterans are trying to focus Israelis' attention on Hebron,
the historic burial site of Abraham - the father of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam - and one of the gloomiest and most
dysfunctional cities in the West Bank.
"When I realized something was wrong here, we decided to do something
about it," says Shaul. "We ... have a moral obligation to speak out."
About a 45-minute drive south of Jerusalem, Hebron is the only place
in the West Bank where a small community of Jewish settlers lives in
the heart of a Palestinian city. Since 1997, Hebron has been divided
into two sections. Some 150,000 Palestinians live under Palestinian
control in an area known as H1. Israel controls about 20 percent of
the city in an area known as H2, where 650 Jewish settlers live among
30,000 Palestinians near Hebron's Old City.
With the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in 2000, Hebron became
the scene of a deadly mix of suicide bombings, shootings, stone
throwing and other fighting between Palestinian militants, Israeli
soldiers and Jewish settlers.
"No one is innocent here," says Shaul, who spent 14 months of his
three years of compulsory military service in Hebron. "Breaking the
Silence exists to give testimony, to tell the story."
But Shaul says his time in the military taught him that the story
always has the most tragic ending for the Palestinians, who suffer
from curfews, checkpoints and other restrictions even when Jewish
settlers are responsible for the violence.
"The Palestinians always pay the price," he said.
During a three-hour journey through the narrow streets of this ancient
city, Shaul sought to highlight the hardships created by Israel's
occupation of Hebron that often go unnoticed by Israeli society.
In Hebron's Casbah, the main marketplace, more than 2,000
Palestinian-owned stores have been shut down by the Israeli army for
security reasons, turning what had been the throbbing heart of the
city into a ghost town. On many of the shuttered shop doors, there are
spray-painted signs that say "Arabs Out."
Shaul pointed to pockmarked Palestinian homes in neighborhoods where
Israeli soldiers often came to crush cars, shoot out street lights and
destroy property even when there were no Palestinian gunmen.
"We were told we should make our presence felt," he said.
Stepping up a rocky footpath, Shaul followed the trail used by
Palestinians who are barred by Israeli forces from walking on Hebron's
main street for security reasons. One twisted pathway led to the front
door of Hashem al-Azzeh.
Al-Azzeh's home is on the side of a hill below the Jewish settlement
of Tel Rumeida, home to about 15 Jewish families. Al-Azzeh described
how his settler neighbors have cut his phone line, electricity and
water and have regularly tossed rubbish onto his property.
*********************************************************************
WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE
To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/
Need some good karma? Appreciate the service?
Please consider donating to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@yahoo.com for instructions.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:wvns-digest@yahoogroups.com
mailto:wvns-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
No comments:
Post a Comment