“Soldiers emptied all the money, in dinars, shekels and dollars, in plastic bags and left”
"they can do to us anything they want, they kill...they destroy...they bulldoze...and they steal our money"
by Khalid Amayreh, E. Jerusalem
On Monday, 11 February, and in broad day light, Israeli occupation soldiers raided dozens of homes, money changers and businesses throughout the West Bank after ordering “forces” answerable to Palestinian “Authority” Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to stay indoor until a further notice.
“They stormed my shop, trained their guns at me, and ordered me to give them the money, or else,” said one of the victims who implored this writer not to mention his name lest he be further savaged by the “most benevolent” occupying army.
His neighbor, a grocery store keeper, said the soldiers simply emptied all the money, in Jordanian Dinars, Israeli Shekels and US dollars, in plastic sacs, and left.
“They behaved like cowboys in the wide wild west in classical American movies,” he said.
I asked him to describe his feelings, having watched Israeli soldiers ganging up on his neighbor and robbing him of all his money and life-savings at one fell swoop...
“You see, they can do to us anything they want, they kill our children, they destroy our homes, they bulldoze our property, and they steal our money. And when we cry out for justice, they call us terrorists and dump us into detention camps like a piece of luggage.
“In brief, I’m talking about a criminal state that views us as creatures unworthy of living, very much like the Nazis viewed their victims more than 60 years ago.”
Raiding homes and businesses and stealing money is not the only gangsterly behavior of the Israeli state.
This week, the Israeli Minister of Interior instructed the police to arrest several Palestinians in East Jerusalem for daring to appeal to the Israeli High Court to order a halt to the bulldozing of ancient Muslim archeological sites adjacent to the Aqsa Mosque.
...“Justice” system last week ruled that there was no sufficient ground for indicting a number of crack policemen who had murdered 13 Israeli Arab citizens in October, 2000, during a demonstration against Israeli atrocities in the West Bank.
...some of these soldiers had admitted that they killed their victims deliberately and unjustifiably because they were Arabs...
...Israel, a state that not only acquits murderers of murdering Palestinian school kids, but actually goes as far as awarding the child-killers hefty financial “compensation” ...The case of 12-year-old Iman al Hams and her killer Captain R. will always be a clarion indictment of Israeli criminality and racism.
...Israel is simply a criminal entity from head to toe. State-sponsored crimes are Israel’s modus operandi. In recent days, Israeli leaders, from Noble Laureate and proverbial “peace dove,” Shimon Peres, to Ehud Olmert, to Ehud Barak to Haim Ramon to the end of the list have been threatening to annihilate Gaza and throw its 1.5 million residents into the sea or into the Sinai desert.
The threats made by these certified war criminals must always be taken seriously. After all, it is they who have been imposing a Nazi-like blockade on Gaza pushing the impoverished coastal territory to a humanitarian disaster unprecedented since the Palestinian Nakba or catastrophe in 1948, when the legions of Zionism massacred and terrorized the bulk of native Palestinians into fleeing their homeland.
A Zionist genocide, partial or complete, of Palestinians, especially in Gaza, can’t be ruled out. There is simply nothing that would prevent these modern Nazis from emulating their former tormentors who also happened to be their ultimate mentors...
Full article from Palestine Information Centre
For other Israeli bank robberies see, for example Israeli Organised Crime