Yesterday, Israeli forces in Hebron assassinated a 73 year-old Palestinian woman who was driving to her sister’s home for lunch. The Israeli occupation army claimed this was a terror attack and she drove at high-speed towards soldiers who opened fire and “neutralized” her.
The 11 second video above was ‘shot’ by an IDF soldier at the scene wearing a GoPro video camera. I don’t know how Palestinians managed to get it and upload it to YouTube. But I can tell you that the IDF is pissed–royally pissed.
Maariv writes:
…The security apparatus is extremely anxious because the video taken by a soldier somehow got to Palestinians. An investigation will be opened into the matter.
Not an investigation into the murder. But an investigation of the poor shlub who took the video and allowed it to get into the hands of the “enemy.”
The video shows that while the woman drove her car at a relatively high rate of speed she at no point intended to harm any soldier. The soldiers were easily able to get out of her way as she drove toward them. If she had wanted to hit them she easily could’ve swerved into them and done so. She didn’t.
Given her advanced age, she likely didn’t even realize what the soldiers wanted her to do. Or maybe she was talking on a cell phone or texting and not paying close attention to the road. There were no signs or markers indicating a checkpoint or that soldiers had established a location for inspecting vehicles.
At any rate, the soldiers wanted her to stop her vehicle and she didn’t. So they killed her. It’s as simple as that. Her family’s claims that she was on her way to lunch with her sister are correct. And she died for it.
Haaretz now reports that the IDF also claimed that it found a “commando knife” in her vehicle. If they found any such implement it was probably a paring knife she was going to use to peel fruit for lunch! But Haaretz says that this report is now considered suspect, as is the claim that the woman’s husband was killed in the first Intifada. Amos Harel, who is no Gideon Levy on Haaretz’s reporting staff, even says that the video shows the soldiers who killed her cannot legitimately claim they feared for their lives.
Frankly, I’ve never heard of any 73 year-old anywhere in the world perpetrating a terror attack of any kind (though there may be an exception someone can find). Usually 73 year-olds, thinking about their legacy, want to spend as much time as possible with their children and grandchildren, which is precisely what Tharwat Sharawi was doing.
Mainstream media reports say her husband was killed by Israeli forces in 1988 during the first Intifada, as if somehow she’s been nursing the desire for revenge for nearly 30 years and never found the right moment till now. The journalistic atrocity of reporting this killing is exacerbated by MSM headlines which offer the Israeli narrative, to the exclusion of the actual story offered clearly by her own family (and reported as headlines only in the Arab media, Israel shoots dead 73-year-old Palestinian ‘on her way to lunch’)–that she was on her way to lunch, not heaven.
I have twice been a victim of accidents caused by elderly women. Once, my bicycle was destroyed when a car crashed into a utility pole which toppled on my bicycle, which had been standing right next to me. The woman driver seemed confused and probably had some sort of problem with the medications she was using. Just three weeks ago I was waiting to make a turn at an intersection. When the car in front of me didn’t move on a green turn arrow I honked my horn. Then, the car, instead of moving forward, went into reverse and crashed into my own car. When I got out of the car I was met with a clearly disoriented, confused woman who probably shouldn’t have been driving at all.
Now, I don’t know whether this is what happened in the case of Sharawi. But I give elderly drivers the benefit of the doubt if at all possible. I don’t advocate executing them for their deteriorating driving skills. Israel appears to have different rules of the road.
Apparently, few in the MSM can do independent reporting or bother to question a fraudulent narrative that demands you believe an elderly grandmother would prefer to join the Intifada to kill Israeli soldiers rather than enjoy lunch with her sister. What are these editors and reporters doing? Phoning it in? Do they do any independent thinking at all?
She is the 78th Palestinian murdered by Israeli forces since October 1st. 11 Israelis have died during that period.
Corporal “Tom,” IDF’s “Terminator”
The IDF is bursting it’s buttons with pride at Cpl. T, stationed at Gush Etzion. Though he’s only served eight months with the Shimson Battalion of the Kfir Brigade, he’s already gotten three notches on his belt. Three confirmed “kills” of Palestinian “terrorists.” Though the IDF usually tries to protect the identity of its killers (aka soldiers), this time they made an exception and circulated a photograph of “The Terminator,” as they’ve dubbed him.
I consider him wanted for murder. If anyone has any information that would identify him please let me know. An Israeli who reads social media sites reported that he’s been identified as having the first name “Tom” (comment 21, censors don’t bother deleting because I have a screenshot) and is an Orthodox Jew.
השטות הזו של פרסום תמונתו של חייל שירה במחבלים וההתפארות בכך, מביאים את הצפוי.הוא “מבוקש”.”תיקון עולם” בשירות הטרור https://t.co/S0BPRhwrfu
— Danny Zaken (@danizaken) November 7, 2015
When I tweeted a Wanted poster of him on Twitter, a news producer at Israel’s Reshet B, Dani Zaken, accused me of putting a target on T’s back. Which is ironic given that the soldiers has been doing precisely this to Palestinians for at least eight months. Zaken also smeared me by saying I was “serving terror” in publishing the photograph. He didn’t realize, stupidly, that the IDF itself had published the photo and that the Jewish Press, Meir Kahane’s very own preferred publication, had published it proudly. Making the IDF itself a “servant of terror.” Or perhaps Zaken meant the IDF was a servant of Israeli terror, in which case he’d have been correct.
New York Times’ Fictional Israeli “Center” Triumphs
I’m sure you’ll be relieved (as I was) to know that Israeli politics is increasingly turning toward “the center.” Gone are the days of left and right according to the NY Times’ resident Israeli political scholar, Isabel Kershner. Now, we’ve reached a nice accommodation between the two poles, or so Kershner opines:
…The more mainstream Israeli right and left have gravitated over the last two decades toward a less ideological center, approaching some kind of consensus on the Palestinian issue. For many here, the struggle now is more about how to balance Israel’s security needs with democracy, and the battle against incitement versus free speech.
…Two decades ago, the Israeli right and left were sharply divided between those dreaming of a Greater Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea and the supporters of Mr. Rabin, who subscribed to the formula of land for peace.
Israeli analysts say that neither of these paradigms are relevant anymore…
“Israelis are in an age of pragmatism,” said Yoaz Hendel, a former director of communications in the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “It was very clear in Rabin’s time — you were either for or against giving up territory.”
Today, he said, “very few people here believe you can achieve a utopian peace treaty.”
Pay close attention to this argument, such as it is. There were two extremes, extreme left and extreme right. Now neither are relevant. What is relevant? The center. And what is the center when you poke and pull at it a bit? The position formerly known as the extreme right.
The extreme right position of a unitary Israeli-dominated state from the “river to the sea” is precisely the paradigm that has triumphed in Israel. The only development that hasn’t yet occurred to formally realize this vision, is that Israel has not formally annexed the West Bank. But in the current situation it doesn’t need to. It pours new settlements and settlers into the area at will. It steals more and more Palestinian land and water. It controls what it wants and needs and leaves the dregs to the rump “Palestinian Authority,” which has little credibility among Palestinians and almost no “authority.”
If Kershner had been honest she would’ve written that the Israeli right’s narrative has prevailed. And it is a far-right narrative, not a centrist one.
Further Kershner “proof” of Israel’s new centrist political paradigm:
Mr. Netanyahu, of the conservative Likud Party, is serving his third consecutive term and heads a government coalition dominated by right-wing and religious parties. He has reined in the more hard-line politicians in his cabinet who are trying to promote legislation that their critics consider anti-democratic, like curbing the powers of the Supreme Court. Unlike some of his ministers, he has endorsed the idea of a Palestinian state, with caveats…
Who has Bibi reined in? This is the most racist, extremist government in Israeli history. Every serious observer except Kershner seems aware of this. Yet, because Bibi raps a few extremist ministers on the knuckles with a wink and a nod, this means that “Big Poppa” is really a centrist but his naughty kids have wandered off the reservation. They do so try his patience. Thus, he can’t be blamed for their naughtiness.
She wrote this just a day or two before Netanyahu appointed as his chief media/hasbara advisor, a settler who said Pres. Rivlin (viewed as a traitor by the rabid Israeli right) was too insignificant to be worth killing. When Rivlin and the U.S. State Department (Ran Baratz had derided Secretary of State Kerry as someone who should do stand-up comedy at Israel’s African refugee camp) howled over the appointment, the leader who “reined in the more hard-line politicians” in his circle said he would “review” the appointment–but only after returning from the U.S.
Anyone who has observed Bibi for any length of time (as Kershner should have) knows his modus operandi. He plays bad cop, worse cop. He is the bad cop and his ministers are worse cops. You don’t like the hate and swill of the worse cops? Well, then you turn for reassurance to the politician who’s merely a bad cop. Not a good one, certainly. But not as bad as the worst. Thus, Kershner buys into the fraudulent narrative which Bibi has spun throughout his career: I’m the grown-up; the other guys are clowns. But don’t pay any attention to them because I’m the real deal.
The claim that Bibi supports, not a Palestinian state, but “the idea” of one, is ridiculous. Bibi doesn’t even support the whisper, the shadow, or evanescence of a Palestinian state. And I do love the qualification she adds, “with caveats.” What are those caveats? Only that the Palestinians must first recognize Israel as a Jewish state, renounce their claims to all Palestinian lands to which Israel has claims, including not just the settlement blocs but the Jordan Valley, and renounce the Right of Return. Those are some “caveats.” If I could convert them into Bitcoins, I’d be a wealthy man.
Kershner continues with her centrist fairy tale:
In some ways it is [Israeli President] Mr. Rivlin, whose role is chiefly symbolic, who exemplifies the redrawing of the political map. A veteran Likud parliamentarian who has long opposed territorial partition and supported Jewish settlements, he has emerged as a strong voice for tolerance and coexistence.
This is all well and good. Rivlin does seem a politician of principle. But in her very own words she indicates Rivlin is virtually powerless to realize any of his views or principles (“whose role is chiefly symbolic”). Presidents do not make or implement policy. At best, they are offered a modest bully pulpit from which they may exhort the nation to behave better. They are a slightly more energetic version of the British monarch. They can speak publicly about political matters. But must do so in a tightly constrained fashion.
So it doesn’t matter ultimately whether Rivlin is a voice for tolerance or “coexistence” (and what does this term even mean?). It cannot be a “strong” voice as she claims because it cannot suggest policy. In fact, Rivlin’s is a still, very small voice which has absolutely no impact within the ranks of the Likud MKs. They have long abandoned his principles for an outright racist, fascistic political agenda. To posit Israel’s president as the locus of some imaginary Israeli center is sheer fiction.
Kershner marshals further evidence to support this claim, saying that Israel remains centrist because it retains its preference for democracy:
Yehuda Ben Meir, an expert on national security and public opinion at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University said despite its [Israel’s extreme right] heightened exposure on social networks…it has not grown significantly, and studies show that a clear majority of Israelis still view democracy as an essential characteristic of their state.
Virtually everything about this passage is false. Israel’s extreme right has not only grown exponentially, it governs the country. But what has happened ever since 1967 and the days of Meir Kahane is that the definition of left and right have changed. What once was extreme right (and even outlawed in the case of Kahane) has become the ‘center.’ What was once the center is now called the ‘left.’ As for the unnamed “studies” Kershner cites, I don’t know who or what she’s referencing. Repeated Israeli studies I’ve cited here over many years prove that Israelis in huge numbers, often resounding majorities (or pluralities in some cases), reject democratic principles.
If you asked an Israeli, even many extreme right-wing Israelis, whether they view democracy as essential to their state, many would answer yes. But that doesn’t matter. If someone agrees that democracy is essential to their nation but rejects almost every tenet of democracy in practice, they can no longer be called democrats or centrists. They are anti-democratic and right-wing. And certainly deluding themselves as well.
What is Kershner’s definition of the Israeli Middle Way? The Jewish Home political platform. That’s right, the platform of the party that seeks to annex the West Bank and endorses ethnic cleansing-lite:
…Many Israelis appear to be seeking a more moderate middle way. The right-wing Jewish Home party, which sits in the governing coalition and promotes settlement construction, proposes annexing about 60 percent of the West Bank and allowing some kind of autonomy for the 40 percent heavily populated by Palestinians, analysts say.
So the New Israeli Center endorses annexing most of Palestine and leaving the spoiled bits under, not a state, but “some kind” of autonomy. On which planet has this ever been called centrist?
In short, Isabel Kershner and the entire NY Times coverage of Israel and Palestine is a fraud. I’m not telling most of you readers anything you didn’t already know. But it’s important periodically to expose the most egregious examples of this fraud for as many to see as possible.
hysteria du jour – Nethanyahu will present to O the “steps” he is willing to take to ease the situation and move forward. – should i have a laugh or cry attack – is this benevolence or charity from a master to his slave.
the Haaretz item should start with O WILL DEMAND THAT THE FOLLOWING STEPS BE UNDERTAKEN AT THE EARLIEST BREVITY. (O’s steps demands not N’s charity) we’re beyond charity we’re into murder i sincerely hope that O will not fall for it AND FOR THE LIFE OF ME I DO NOT SEE THE OPPOSITION STOMPING YELLING SCREAMING A LA TRUMP ANY TIME SOON.
no i think i’ll cry as usual
Video cam of 73 year old woman failing to stop and possibly attempting to ram soldiers with her vehicle.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4722071,00.html
@ Hopper: When you’re 73 & accidentally put your car in reverse or forward & lurch forward like this I hope you’re executed in the same way so you can know what your justification of murdering the Palestinian elderly really means.
Accidentally… lol. you’re so naive it’s almost cute 🙂
You’re argument would make sense if driving into Israelis wouldn’t happen on regular basis every day.
They are accidentally trying to kill a lot of people. Lol
I’m sorry for them.
Don’t drive into other people. You might get shot
@ Anonymous: Israel doesn’t have to “drive into” Palestinians. It drops a bomb on them and kills 100 times what a sole vehicle can do. Israel accidentally kills six times more Palestinians than Palestinians kill Israelis.
As for your concern troll “sorrow,” I’m sorry you’re wasting our time with useless hasbara.
I have a rule about snark, especially when it derides victims who die. Try it & you’ll die your own death here as a commenter.
@Richard
“I don’t advocate executing them for their deteriorating driving skills. Israel appears to have different rules of the road.”
You presume that the soldier(s) who fired the fatal shots could identify the driver prior to opening fire.
@ Hopper: You don’t shoot a target you can’t identify. I’m sure they didn’t or couldn’t identify her–which is yet another indictment of this execution.
“You don’t shoot a target you can’t identify. I’m sure they didn’t or couldn’t identify her–which is yet another indictment of this execution.
In the US if someone breaks into your home and you shoot and kill him you are basically exonerated. In Israel if you do that you have to prove the the intruder’s intent was to kill you. So I ask is one supposed to make the intruder a cup of coffee and ask his intentions?
In the present situation where things happen in split seconds and a car moves fast and there is no time to identify and ascertain who is driving or their intent they shoot first and ask questions later.
In the US there is a saying ‘better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6’ or in Hebrew הנכוה בחמים נזהר בפושרים or”someone who has been scolded by hot water is careful with lukewarm water”
So your whole argument about the 73 year old woman holds not ‘water’ given the conditions the army has to deal with.
and BTW you have probably seen the poll that most Israeli’s opt for killing the terrorist on the spot because obviously that was his/her intention when the confrontation took place.
Israel is not the US, the conditions are diff so your value system is irrelevant here.
I suggest you come and live in Jer for a while and maybe walk around the streets and into the old city and form a more objective opinion.
@vorten:
Not only is this a gross distortion of U.S. law (which is different in virtually every state or jurisdiction on this matter), but it has nothing whatsoever to do with murdering a driver on the road. Even U.S. police who murder drivers in similar fashion are being charged with murder. It happened yesterday regarding a poor 6 yr old boy with autism who was murdered by police. The 2 officers have been charged with 2nd degree murder.
The video proves there was no danger at all to the soldiers. She did not want to harm them & she didn’t. She easily could have but didn’t.
That sounds like a saying that may’ve been popular in the days of the Wild West. I assure you no one uses it today and haven’t for years if not decades.
No, your lack of values compared to other western countries is perfectly relevant because you wish to be judged in their company. But you can’t be because you’re a primitive murderous society–or at least your army is.
I have lived in Israel for two years and spent many hours walking Jerusalem’s streets. I don’t need to do so now to know that what you’re doing is murderous & grotesque.
Well that is the law in NYS and and no one would expect an intruder to be welcomed by anything but a counter-attack. פיקוח נפש דוחה את הכל אפילו ספק=’the possibility of the loss of life allows one to take the necessary steps even when there is a doubt”
That video does not prove anything as nothing is clear and the slight turn of the steering wheel would kill. They wanted her to stop and she didn’t.
Even today, Sunday morning, a woman seemingly around 40 yrs old attempted to get by a security guard and board a bus in order to kill people. Being caught she slightly wounded the guard and was shot and that is separate from another car ramming incident this morning that injured 4 people.
When you lived in Jer the conditions were entirely diff. Come today and sit at Damascus gate and drink some coffee with the locals and explain your leftist views and see what comes of it.
Curiously you don’t take offense to the Arab population randomly willing to kill anybody standing at the side of the road. Just a week or so ago in Beit Shemesh an Arab tried to board a school bus with kids between 5-8 years old-we are not dealing with ‘regular’ people here so your rebuttal is insignificant.
IDF soldiers routinely break into Palestinian homes. Do you support the right of Palestinians to shoot them?
Whether you recognize the Israeli soldiers as the ‘authority or occupying’ forces’ the analogy is not correct.
My example was that of a private home and an intruder. The Israeli forces intrude either because there is a suspect terrorist or weapons cache etc and when there is often a fire fight ensues.
I would agree with you that this an unpleasant experience for the others in the family but the situation in Israel is diff than is most of the world and operations like these probably happens 10 times more than the news spits out.
Hebron where this woman was killed or the night raids by the Israeli army are not taking place in Israel but in Occupied Palestine so you definitely are the intruders, your hasbara BS can’t change that !
@vorten: As Amos Harel wrote in Ha’aretz, there was danger and no doubt. The soldiers were not under threat. There was no danger to them. Therefore they had no right to shoot.
The video peoces wverything as there was no slug hr tirn of rhe wheel. The soldiers easily moved out of hwr way. No one was on jeopardy except Granny who was murdered. I find it deeply disturbing that you justify the murder of a grandmother. Is this what Zionism is coming to? Justification of murder of the elderly?
I do not accept racism in the blog comment threads here. Saying that Palestinians are “not regular people” is racist and objectionable. If you make another such comment here, you will be moderated.
As long as you refuse to end Occupation & grant Palestinians the their rights they have ever right to resist the occupation. Doing so is what Israelis did before Independence and what any regular people would do under the circumstances.
“In the US there is a saying ‘better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6’ ”
I heard that saying a lot when I worked up in the Bronx. It’s commonly used by urban poor and helps to explain the carrying of an illegal weapon for self defense.
@ Hopper: The Bronx is almost totally Hispanic & you never heard that Englush language phrase there unless it was decades ago.
I watched the video 10x.
I see a vehicle slowing down, than accelerating slightly. I see the car bearing down on a phalanx of checkpoint soldiers, and @00:08, and the soldiers getting out of the way fast because the car doesn’t stop. Than they shoot.
What did I miss?
Hopper: “I see the car bearing down on a phalanx of checkpoint soldiers, and @00:08, and the soldiers getting out of the way fast because the car doesn’t stop. Than they shoot.”
Well, heck, if they managed to get themselves out of the way then they shouldn’t shoot because – du’oh! – their lives are only in danger if they are still in the way.
Hopper: “What did I miss?”
The legal implication of you noting …”the soldiers getting out of the way”…
Legally, they have to be “in harms way” to justify shooting, and you just admitted that they weren’t.
“Legally, they have to be “in harms way” to justify shooting, and you just admitted that they weren’t.”
In as much as their job is to guard and defend junctions being in harm’s way is a given even if they are 100 meters away and see something suspicious their job is to hinder any attack.
@Vorten: They were not guarding a junction. They were a mob in the middle of the street. There was mo attack to hinder except the Granny’s murder, which alas no one hindered.
“In as much as their job is to guard and defend junctions being in harm’s way is a given even if they are 100 meters away and see something suspicious their job is to hinder any attack.”
There doesn’t appear to be a “junction” anywhere in that video.
It looks for all the world like an IDF patrol, you can even see the soldier with the web cam motioning the soldiers on his left to keep up.
I see no evidence that there is a checkpoint, or that these soldiers were “guarding” anything.
They were out on patrol. Two of them at least were walking in the middle of a road while out on patrol, and therefore putting **themselves** at risk of being hit by a car.
But they were not at risk when they opened fire; the car was already gone past them and HAD NOT HIT ANYONE.
*sheesh*
Open your eyes, dude.
Hopper, there are couple of soldiers on the sidewalk and two on the road. She slows down, the soldiers move aside (one is behaving panicky, but that little hero was never even in her way) and she just DRIVES ON. She does NOT excellerate. You are trying to plant that idea in our minds but it is simply not true.
Have you ever NOT tried to excuse the killing of a Palestinian?
And have you ever said anything good about Israel?
If my memory serves me correctly you stated you are Dutch and religious{Christian, I assume from your words}.
Were not the Dutch the biggest Nazi collaborators in Europe?
@vorten: There is no rule here requiring readers to say good things about Israel, Palestine or anyone elde. There may be such a hasbara rule, but not here. Hasbara rules do not apply here.
As for the “biggest collaborators” with the Nazis, that would be the French, by far the largest group of collaborators in Europe. But of course there were collaborators everywhere in Europe and even, depending on how you define it, Zionist collaborators in Palestine with the Nazis.
@vorten
I know a bit about the Dutch and WWII … You are so far off the mark, it’s just bunk what you posted. Unbelievable stupidity, I need not ever take anything serious you convey with such warped knowledge of recent history. Don’t bother with evidence of anything, certainly not from thousands years ago.
Just a reminder about the hasbara gang roaming the Internet making utter fools of themselves, living in a fantasy world …
○ A Harvard student posting as #hambaconeggs
@ Oui: This could’ve been a much better article if it expanded its focus & encompassed the massive ring of people doing precisely what one guy was doing to Common Dreams. Instead it only focussed on one poor shlep & one publication.
My grandparents hid a Jewish girl during the war, so your despicable hasbara smear totally misses the mark. I will adopt Oui’s attitude towards you from now on.
@ vorten
So what was YOUR former pen name here ? I mean you just arrived, and you seem to know a lot about Elisabeth.
Nice try; but this blog is about Israel, not Holland, anyway if the Dutch collaborated with the Nazis, it was the Mufti who asked them to do so …
Deir Yassin, I noticed that too, and I believe he is ‘Walt’, ‘Growler’ or ‘Yonathan’. They were the hasbarists around here at the time when I mentioned to Pea that I was religious.
@ Elisabeth
I don’t know who “vorten” is, but he’s clearly a reincarnation of some former Hasbarista here, and I guess Hopper is too. When people arrive, and post many comments right from the start, and attack Richard, it’s probably becase they know the site.
Anyway his words about the-Dutch-being-the-biggest-blahblah (even if it’s supposed to be a question) is a new low here.
Reminds me of the Israeli demonstrating with Pegida in Germany, whitewashing their neo-nazi orientation (and the German past):
“Addressing a recent rally in Frankfurt, a self-identified Israeli man equated Muslims with Nazis, murderers and rapists, and implored the crowd to “never feel ashamed” of Germany’s past.”
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/video-israeli-man-describes-muslims-nazis-far-right-rally-frankfurt
(video embedded)
@Hopper: You missed murder. And this was no checkpoint. There no signs indicating one. No lane markers. Just a ragtag group of armed men.
@Richard
“Not an investigation into the murder. But an investigation of the poor shlub who took the video and allowed it to get into the hands of the “enemy.”
The YouTube video was posted the very same day that Ynet published it on their news website.
For all you know, whoever posted it on YouTube may have gotten that video from Ynet.
@ Hopper: Except that Israeli media have noted that the video was first circulated by Palestinians, not Israelis.
@ Richard
It’s even written clearly in the Ynetnews-article that Hopper posted himself further up the.
“A video posted to Palestinian social media (…)”
Hip-Hop is clearly on a Hasbara-mission here.
We could do without the ageist stuff about what 73-olds think, do etc. You wouldn’t say that a 20-year old would probably be drunk or thinking about sex and thus distracted from driving properly
@ Yuval: Don’t be stupid. I’m only a few yrs from that age myself. I was also conveying actual experiences i”ve had with olders drivers.
And there will come a time when both you & I should not be driving. I will recognize & accept it & not endanger others. Will you?
My suggestions about her possibly being distracted while driving had nothing to do with ageism. Every driver of any age may sometimes be distracted.
If the car had been driven by an elderly settler woman no shots would have been fired as the car would have easily been identified as an Israeli car by the license plate. The IOF saw a Palestinian license plate so they shot it up without a second thought, a second thought that they would have had if it had been an Israeli car. That is the crux of the problem, The IOF never think twice to shoot Palestinians, it’s Israeli policy, whereas they regularly protect the illegal squatters when the squatters attack Palestinians. The illegal squatters are Israel’s first line of attack in the West Bank.
Oui. Thanks! I lived in the Netherlands (Amsterdam) during WW2. We all knew that there were then two major classes of collaborators. The first were the economic collaborators such as our milkman who sold milk to the German soldiers which lived in a nearby (requisitioned) school or workers of the Fokker company which repaired German planes. That class existed in every Nazi occupied state and was probably the largest of the two. The other was the class of true Nazis who, for example, volunteered for the Waffen-SS to fight for Hitler. I do not have actual numbers for the Netherlands but I doubt that these SS volunteers were much more than 1% of the population which would have been approximately 50,000 at that time. Belgians were a large group of Waffen-SS volunteers and so were the French, Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians.
There is actually a third “class” of collaborators namely governments which actively handed Jews over to the SS. On that count the vile champion is the French Vichy Government.
When one studies the number of persons honored by Yad Vashem who have tried or actually saved Jewish lives in a Nazi occupied state Poland is at the top of that list immediately followed by the Netherlands. My mom is on the Dutch list.
Vorten is a total ignoramus. He is also a person with a fascistoid mentality by linking you with Dutch Nazi collaborators of WW2. If this miscreant would ever dare to do that to me I will bury him under the complete anti-fascist history of my family.
Dieter, he was actually trying to smear me and/or my ancestors or whatever. Another hasbara fail.
It is interesting that Vortex seeks to smear one of the contributors by talking about the alleged Nazi-collaboration of her country of origin. He seems to be completely unaware that it is he, and people who think like him (of which there appear to be a great many in Israel), who keep the Nazi-mentality alive in the Western world – and have infected the USA in the process.
Richard…when you wrote :
“There were two extremes, extreme left and extreme right. Now neither are relevant. What is relevant? The center. And what is the center when you poke and pull at it a bit? The position formerly known as the extreme right.”
……Your statement reminded me of ‘process’ I’d learned about back in ? 2008 or earlier, where hard right political manipulation, under the moniker of “Overton’s window” was revealed. Named after Joseph Overton a founder & VP @ Mackinac Ctr for Public Policy evolved since late 80s.
Their concept was to PUSH the public HARD to the extremist right, —then pull back somewhat, which might (by comparison) seem an “acceptable” conservative perch. That’s what you’ve identified (in that quote)…and i think you are spot on. “Overton’s Window”.
This issue has been worrying me, since noticing how many reactive comments certain phrases I’ve written provoke. For instance, even suggesting that the ‘shoot to kill’ Netanyahu directive against stone throwers is a form of genocide, garnered me a few verbal attacks– reminding me that ‘Netanyahu, if he wanted to, could wipe out Gaza’ —or “come back and complain to me, when it’s 60,000′ one post read!!
Incremental genocide is what we now observe..who will stop savage brutality?!
The public needs to be educated about this (incremental) Extremism– that you’ve pointed to here..thank you!
Richard, if you feel nauseated by Kershner’s recent fraudulent nonsense then you really aren’t going to like Jodi Rudoren’s latest:
“Obama and Netanyahu: A Story of Slights and Crossed Signals”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/us/politics/obama-and-netanyahu-a-story-of-slights-and-crossed-signals.html
It’s only saving grace is the comments section, where NYTimes readers overwhelmingly show their understanding of an obvious fact that (inexplicably) appears to elude Rudoren: this isn’t a partnership of equals and so her “one the one hand, on the other hand” equivalency is utterly inappropriate.
One man is the leader of The Worlds Only Hyperpower, and the other man is merely a unrepentant liar who happens to be the leader of a small unimportant country in the middle east.
The former need not be conciliatory towards the latter, nor does he need to treat the latter as an equal precisely because they are not equals.
Rudoren only thinks that they are, and (apparently) can’t understand how they are not.
Must be a tribal thing…..
Tom the Terminator already shot 3 to death within 2 month.
Do they really want to follow the script of this movie?
Terminator 1 : Our brave hero , the cyborg assasin was sent back to the past to kill a young woman.
Terminator 2 “Judgement day”
Terminator 3 “Rise of the machines”
Is he gonna salvage Israel with his next kill?
Terminator 4 ; The title “Salvation -The future begins” was changed into “Salvation-The end begins” during the shooting.(no kidding)
Nomen est omen.
Maybe they should have called Tom “Damien”.
At least that has a happy ending for the kind of people running Israel,and their heroes.
The video very clearly shows the car veering from the road and almost running over the soldiers. Was the firing later justified? Arguably, maybe indeed not.
BUT.
BUT, Silverstein- the moment you completely ignore the VERY CLEAR EVIDENCE in the video that the car DID veer off and DID almost run them over, you prove yourself again as the one-sided, disingenuous, possibly lying fool/asshole that you are.
AGAIN you have an opportunity to present a fair and balanced opinion, around a very valid argument, and again you miss it and make yourself the widely known joke that you are. KUDOS.
@ Badly done old hasbarist: All I can say is, to quote The Who, “that deaf, dumb and blind kid, sure plays a mean hasbara:” the car “veers from the road?” Nonsense, the car doesn’t veer at all. If anything it veers away from the soldiers. The soldiers are in the middle of the road. She slows down so as not to hit them. They move out of the way. SHe continues. THey murder her. Plain & simple.
The soldiers could not have been “run over” even if she had hit them since she wasn’t going fast enough to run anyone over. The plain truth is that not a hair on a soldier’s head was mussed. Yet Granny was murdered. I find it deeply offensive that you are justifying the murder of a grandmother.
I couldn’t be more delighted to be considered a joke by you. I hope it is the most stinging, uncomfortable ‘joke’ you’ve ever heard. Since you’ve added unnecessary invective & insult in this your first comment here, AND this is a comment rule violation, you are now banned.