A former army chief may present a challenge to Benjamin Netanyahu, but his campaign’s exultation of destruction and oppression is chilling, reports Jonathan Cook. By Jonathan Cook Jonathan-Cook.net With April’s elections looming, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has good reason to…Read more →
In the early 2000s, at the dawn of the social media revolution, Israelis used to dismiss filmed evidence of brutality by their soldiers as fakery. It was what they called “Pallywood” – a conflation of Palestinian and Hollywood. In truth, however, it was the Israeli military, not the Palestinians, that needed to manufacture a more convenient version of reality.
Human rights activists are stepping up efforts to expose Israel's long and covert history of supplying weapons and military training to regimes while they actively commit massacres, ethnic cleansing and genocide. The issue of Israel's trade with rogue regimes has been thrust into the spotlight after revelations that it is sending weapons to Myanmar, in defiance of a US and European arms embargo.
A display of Israeli-style community policing before an audience of hundreds of young schoolchildren was captured on video. It shows four officers staging a mock anti-terror operation. As the “terrorist” lies badly wounded, the officers empty their magazines into him from close range. In Israel it is known as “confirming the kill”. Everywhere else it is called murder.
Israel received three F-35 stealth fighter jets from the United States at the weekend - a new generation of "near-invisible" planes that critics fear will free Israel's hand to launch air strikes and spying operations against neighbouring states undetected. In total, Israel has bought 50 F-35s from Lockheed Martin, and claims it will have the first squadron combat-ready before the end of the year.
Israel has given itself almost complete immunity from paying compensation in cases where its soldiers have killed, injured or disabled Palestinian civilians, Israeli human rights group B'Tselem warned in a new report this week. It said changes to Israeli law over the past 15 years meant Israel now denied many thousands of Palestinians redress in its civil courts, even for harm caused in non-combat situations.
Human rights groups and Palestinian leaders condemned what they called the “extremely lenient” punishment of Elor Azaria, the Israeli army medic who was filmed executing a severely wounded Palestinian in Hebron last year. On Tuesday, a military tribunal sentenced the soldier to 18 months in jail and a demotion. The sentence was much lower than the three to five years demanded by the prosecution.
The popular reaction in Israel to the military court’s decision to convict Elor Azaria was far more telling than the decision itself. Like Brexit and Trump, Azaria’s trial exposed not only a deep social fissure, but also a moment of transition. Those who see a virtuous system punishing a rotten apple are now outnumbered by those who see a rotten system victimising a hero.
It was the trial almost no one in Israel wanted. It exposed not just the rogue actions of one soldier but the dark underbelly of Israeli society and its "citizens' army". Elor Azaria was taken to the Israeli public's bosom, celebrated as the "child of us all". But like many of his fellow soldiers and commanders, he consorted with the most extreme settler leaders in Hebron and used social media to express his hatred of Arabs.
Israel is locking away millions of official documents to prevent the darkest episodes in its history from coming to light, civil rights activists and academics have warned as the country's state archives move online. They claim government officials are concealing vital records needed for historical research, often in violation of Israeli law, in an effort to avoid damaging Israel's image.
