1948 to 2009: Israeli Army sees no need to distinguish between ‘guilty’and ‘innocent’
Zionist tradition of deliberately killing civilians has not changed
by Mick Napier
"What is necessary is cruel and strong reactions. We need precision in time, place, and casualties. If we know the family, we must strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise, the reaction is inefficient. At the place of action, there is no need to distinguish between guilty and innocent." Ben Gurion's Diary entry, 1 January 1948
Der Spiegel is one of the newspapers covering the most recent admissions by Israeli soldiers of what their units did in Gaza during the January massacre of over 1,400 Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians. The BBC also deals with the report in its usual dismal fashion. The Spiegel article is entitled Israeli soldiers provide shocking testimony but, although without a doubt shocking, the testimonies are not at all surprising to anyone familiar with Israel's 60-year catalogue of massacres of Palestinians.
The soldiers' testimonies are clear: Israeli military atrocities included mass destruction of civilian areas, wantonly sadistic shooting at families' water tanks, killing civilians waving white flags, use of white phosphorous in densely-populated areas, and much more.
There was also the habitual Israeli Army practice of massive destruction to avoid engaging with enemy combatants, and the frequent use of civilians, including children, as human shields when advancing into Palestinian territory.
A recurring theme in the soldiers' testimonies is the readiness to massacre non-combatants: "we shoot. No special mention was made of innocents...anyone is your enemy. No innocents."
A Biblical killing of innocents is nothing new: no less a figure than the revered 'Father of the Nation', David Ben Gurion, exorted his soldiers to include civilians in their frequent lethal attacks on Arab villages. The killing of women and children, in Gaza in January and in all of Palestine yesterday, is officially endorsed. Ben Gurion's words are a terrorist manifesto, consistently honoured by his successors:
"What is necessary is cruel and strong reactions. We need precision in time, place, and casualties. If we know the family, we must strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise, the reaction is inefficient. At the place of action, there is no need to distinguish between guilty and innocent." Ben Gurion's Diary entry, 1 January 1948
The Israeli soldiers of Breaking the Silence spill a lot more beans, but the broad outlines of Israeli savagery are well known for the simple reason that the savages themselves are brutally frank - they didn't feel the need to conceal what they did.
Ariel Sharon, whose involvement in numerous massacres paved the way for his later political success in Israel, left those who voted him to the highest office in the (stolen) land in no doubt of what they were voting for. 'Cut off their testicles,' he advised his troops on how to deal with Palestinian demonstrators, before Hamas was born. Sharon was merely repeating an old adage of the American frontier when he said to his troops that 'The only good Arab is a dead Arab'.
Here are extracts from the Breaking the Silence testimonies
...according to statements from Israeli soldiers there were malicious acts of destruction, white phosphorus was used and civilians were deliberately targeted.
...the commanders hammered it into their soldiers that they were not to show any consideration for the Palestinian civilian population
...the Israeli military...ignored...the distinction between combatants and innocent bystanders...
Many of the wounded and dead are clearly the result of a lesson Israel learned in the Lebanon war of 2006: no hesitation, no scruples.
...the army sent local residents into houses where Hamas fighters were holed up, [a] method, known as the "neighbor procedure"...
...the driver of a D-9, a powerful, armored bulldozer as tall as a two-story building. "We demolished a lot. If I remember correctly, from the battalion commander's talk at the end, we demolished 900 houses."
Several veterans confirm that the Israelis used white phosphorus, which falls to the earth like rain and inflicts serious burns on people. One soldier describes how an area of 200 to 300 square kilometers (77 to 115 square miles) was littered with the shard-like, dirty-brown remnants of white phosphorus.
And the British Government still sends 177 different types of arms to these brutes.
Mick Napier
15 July 2009