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CounterPunch
March 7,
2003
Murder Under the Cover
of Righteousness
There
Is No Fixed Method for Genocide
By SHULAMIT ALONI
Dr. Ya'akov Lazovik writes ("Academic Genocide",
"Ha'Aretz", 4 March) that in the State of Israel it
is impossible that the regime and the nation will plan and commit
a genocide. It is difficult to determine if this is naivety or
self-righteousness. As we know, there is no single fixed method
for murder and not even for genocide. The author Y. L. Peretz
wrote about "the righteous cat" who does not spill
blood, but only suffocates.
The government of Israel, using the military
and its instruments of destruction, is not only spilling blood,
but it is also suffocating. What other name can be given to the
dropping of a one-ton bomb over a dense urban area, when the
justification uttered is that we wanted to murder a dangerous
terrorist and his wife? The rest of the citizens who were killed
and injured, among whom are children and women, do not count,
of course.
How is it possible to explain the expulsion
of citizens from their homes at three o'clock in the morning
on a rainy night, then depositing bombs in the house and then
departing without warning? When those expelled returned to their
home, the bombs were exploded and a brutal murder and destruction
of property was thus committed. And what is the justification
for what happened in Jenin? We did not destroy the whole neighbourhood,
just 85 houses; it was not slaughter, we killed only 50-some
citizens. How many does one need to murder and destroy for it
to be a crime?--A crime against humanity, as determined by the
Laws of the State of Israel, not only the laws of Belgium.
And more: A curfew and closure of an
entire city so that a few celebrants from the racist bunch in
Hebron could walk to the Cave of the Fathers, and tanks destroying
fruit and vegetable stands, and bulldozers that destroy houses,
and Generals who, in their arrogant hubris, are willing to destroy
a whole neighbourhood for the convenience of a group of settler
hooligans. Curfew, closure, brutality, murder, destruction of
homes of suspects, while we keep parroting the incantation that
a person is innocent until proven otherwise (as in the case of
our Prime Minister and his sons).
The order that Ariel Sharon gave to the
soldiers who went to wreak revenge in Qibiah: "Maximize
losses in life and property", has not been forgotten. Today
Sharon, Mofaz and Yaalon, the three Generals who manage the policy
of this government, behave like that self-righteous cat--suffocating
all the time. Curfew and another curfew, arrests and more arrests,
destruction of roads, brutality to the residents at road stops.
Benny Alon, (a minister in the present government), already said:
"make their life so bitter that they will transfer themselves
willingly".
This is done on a daily basis, in addition
to the destruction. The Chief of Staff, Yaalon, already announced
that he is "destroying for re-building". One can understand
from his moves that the "building" is building of more
and more settlements. So that they will not be obliged, as military
rulers, to take care of the residents' well-being, the army uses
sorties, followed by retreats. They enter a village, they kill,
they destroy and they arrest, and then they retreat. Those who
remain on the ashes and the ruins will take care of themselves.
Many of our children are being indoctrinated,
in religious schools, that the Arabs are Amalek, and the bible
teaches us that Amalek must be destroyed. There was already a
rabbi (Israel Hess) who wrote in the newspaper of Bar Ilan University
that we all must commit genocide, and that is because his research
showed that the Palestinians are Amalek.
The nation is not planning to commit
genocide; the nation really does not want to know what's happening
in the territories. The nation is following orders given by the
legitimate representatives of the regime. After the legitimate
Prime Minister who wanted to bring peace was murdered, the hand
is loose on the trigger, greed is paramount, and there is always
some reason to brutalise all of the residents of a city that
number tens, if not hundreds of thousands, because there are
always people there who are on the "wanted" list. It
is sufficient that one person is wanted to bomb and kill, by
mistake, of course, also women, children, workers and other humans--if
indeed we still count them as humans.
Of course with our self-righteousness,
with our self-adoration in our "Jewish ethics" we make
sure to advertise how beautifully the doctors take care of Palestinian
victims in the hospitals. We do not advertise how many of those
are executed in cold blood in their own homes.
So it's not yet genocide of the terrible
and unique style of which we were past victims. And as one of
the smart Generals told me, we do not have crematoria and gas
chambers. Is anything less than that consistent with Jewish ethics?
Did he ever hear how an entire people said that it did not know
what was done in its name?
Shulamit Aloni
was an Member of the Kenneset and served as a Minister of Communications
and the Arts, Science and Technology.
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