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News, April 2012

 

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Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses.

 
Israeli Brutality Caught on Video:
Senior Army Officer Eisner Hits Danish Peace Activist Las with M-16 Rifle


B'Tselem Release New Video of Attacks Against Activists

Friday April 20, 2012 15:59 by Circarre Parrhesia - IMEMC & Agencies

 

Further evidence has emerged Thursday following the suspension of Israeli military officer, Shalom Eisner, countering statements made by the officer.

Footage was released showing Eisner striking a Danish activist with the butt of his rifle. Furthermore, reports stated that other civilians at the protest had been injured due to the aggression of the Israeli military. He had claimed that he had lost restraint after being beaten with sticks by the protestors and suffered a wrist injury, but that his actions were necessary for Israeli security.

The newly released footage from Palestinians TV Channel 2, via Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem, details Eisner’s attacks against activists, showing that the attacks began after one cyclist had tried to continue cycling forward, ignoring the Israeli military blockade, showing that the military personnel at the scene were not under any imminent threat.

Speaking to Harriet Sherwood of British daily, the Guardian, the assaulted activist shown in the original video, going by the name Andreas Ias, expressed his frustration at the inequity of media coverage with regards to Internationals and Palestinians, stating, “No one would care if a Palestinian was hit with a rifle”.

Subsequently, the office of the Israeli Military Spokesperson has attempted to distance the incident from its usual practice despite regular reports of violence against Palestinians that break regular rules of engagement and international law, including reports of violence against non-violent demonstrations in West Bank villages each Friday afternoon.

Eisner, who has been demoted following the incident and barred from command duties, may be eligible to be promoted and return to such a position of seniority after two years. It had been leaked to Israeli news site, +972 Magazine, that Eisner was due to be promoted to the rank of Colonel and become Deputy Commander of Bahad 1, the Israeli military’s main school and training base for all of its officers.

===================

An Epitome of Israeli Barbarianism on Video:
Army Officer Eisner Hits Danish Peace Activist on Face with M-16

By Khalid Amayreh

PIC, Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, April 23, 2012





An epitome of Israeli barbarianism 

As a student of the collective Israeli mindset and long-time observer of Israeli behavioral patterns, I wasn't surprised a bit by Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner's behaviors with Danish peace activist Andreas Las.

The Israeli propaganda machine would want us to believe that the incident was an aberration, a kind of anomaly that in no way represents the true ethos of the Israeli army. But this is untrue.

In fact, from my observation of Israeli behavior for decades I can solemnly testify that Eisner's behavior represents the norm rather than the exception.

Israeli barbarity, savagery, brutality and incivility, especially toward Palestinians, are too banal and too routine to even warrant raising an eyebrow.

The footage of the ugly incident near Jericho shows Eisner walking up to a man taking part in a bicycle ride in the Jordan valley, and without warning, hitting him in the face with his M-16 automatic rifle.

The Danish activist collapsed and was carried off by fellow protesters.

The attack was "condemned" by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Peres and Defence Minister Ehud Barak.

However, it is highly likely that these denunciations are disingenuous and only meant to mislead and deceive European public opinion. Needless to say, when it comes to deceitfulness and mendaciousness, the Israelis are masters in their own right.

In their commentaries on the "public relations disaster", most Israeli pundits and commentators condemned Eisner for his stupidity and tactlessness, not brutality and savagery.

One noted commentator, Eitan Haber, wrote in Ynet: " I would send him (Eisner) packing for stupidity alone."

Haber suggested that Eisner's blunder was not striking an unarmed peace activist in the face per se, using his M-16 rifle, but doing this in full view of TV cameras.

Indeed, since time immemorial, Israeli soldiers, paramilitary border policemen and settlers are rebuked, not for the brutal ugliness of their assaults on Palestinians and international peace activists, but rather for failing to make sure there were no cameramen nearby who would film the often barbarian act.

Likewise, I'm nearly absolutely sure that what has driven Israeli leaders, such as Peres, to strongly condemn the incident is not their concern about the excessive and unjustified violence and savagery, but the public relations damage Israel's image would suffer.

After all, it was Peres who around this time in 1996 ordered the Israeli army to bombard a UN Peace-keeping Forces' shelter in Southern Lebanon, where hundreds of Lebanese civilians had sought refuge from Israeli bombing and air-strikes, killing and maiming more than a hundred innocent civilians. The gruesome carnage was only one of the numerous Nazi-like atrocities identifying and characterizing Israeli conduct.

What is even more important is that Peres, who is often celebrated around the globe as a man of peace and moderation, has consistently refused to apologize for the deliberate mass murder. Not even a simple Mea Culpa has been uttered by the old man's mendacious mouth.

I have chronicled hundreds if not thousands of "incidents" in which Israeli soldiers and settlers behaved even worse than did Eisner. Some of these acts are quite cannibalistic and worthy only of wild beasts. But, at the end of the day, every thing is swept under the carpet because the wrong-doers, the perpetrators, belong to the Master Race, the Chosen People, whereas the victims, whether they happen to be Palestinians, or British, or Danish, are children of a lesser God, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses.!!!

In a certain sense, really don't blame Eisner. This is all he has learned, this is all he has been taught, this is all he has been raised and trained to do.

Eisner puts a small kippa on his head, which suggests he is affiliated with the so-called religious Zionist camp. This camp, with which most settlers are affiliated, is racist to the bone. They believe that non-Jews are infra-human beings or quasi-animals, who are not entitled to human rights or human dignity. Indeed, the lives of non-Jews, according to these Talmudic fanatics have no sanctity, which should enable Jews to murder these goyem with utterly no compunction.

Similarly, it is likely that Eisner graduated from Merkaz Ha'Rav, the notoriously racist Talmudic college in West Jerusalem, where students are indoctrinated in Jewish fascism and supremacy.

There the students are taught that Jesus is the Hitler of Bethlehem and that Palestinians are Amalek who ought to be exterminated from the face of earth because so says the Lord.

For those who don't know, Merkaz Ha'Rav, which means the Centre of the Rabbi, was named after Abraham Kook, who considered non-Jews unhuman and utterly evil.

According to Kook (1865-1935), "The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews—all of them in all different levels—is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle."

With this in mind, one can imagine how Eisner approached Andreas Las. He, too, may have been instructed by his neighborhood synagogue that the lives of non-Jews, including Europeans, have no sanctity and that they can be killed rather nonchalantly.

How would or could fanatical Israeli Jews, indoctrinated in Tanya or Chesronot Shas think otherwise. In the final analysis, it is futile to expect Israel to behave "normally," meaning in a civilized manner. After all, one can not give what one has not.

Again, I am sure Israel, which locks down innocent people for more than 10 years without charge or trial and murders school children on their way to school because someone somehow hurled a stone toward an Israeli tank or armored vehicle, will not change or amend its modus operandi, which is based on brutality, prevarication and deception.

In public, they argue that Eisner has been dismissed for two years and that his conduct will not be tolerated. But in private and away from the eyes and ears of the world, they will tell him not to worry at all, "we only want to shut up these anti-Semitic bastards in Denmark and the rest of Europe."



The footage may be also viewed at the following link:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...jKBKc



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