23 thoughts on “Israeli Border Police Brutally Assault Black Hebrew – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. “The total number of Border Guards is believed to be about 6,000 soldiers and officers. The branch is renowned for including a large number of soldiers from minority backgrounds, being a particularly popular choice with Druze recruit, but also includes many soldiers from Circassian, Arab-Christian and Bedouin background.” (Wikipedia)

    If this is correct I wonder how this unit that seems to be addicted to the abuse of power deals with racism respectively ethnic prejudice within its own ranks. I also wonder whether those of minority backgrounds feel compelled to surpass their mainstream Israeli colleagues in brutality. Something similar has been claimed for German respectively Japanese auxiliaries during the Second World War.

    1. I wonder who added that “fact” to Wikipedia. It seems to be a quote of Anthony H. Cordesman’s book from 2006. Normally these kind of ethnic statistics of the police force are public, obviously not in Israel. So we must rely on a 11 year old “data” picked from a US made book to prove, that Jews in Israel are not racist, the minorities there are violent and racist even when working for Israeli Jews.

      It is absurd to try to avoid Israeli Jewish (mainstream Israelis in your slang) responsibility, by claiming more or less directly, that the violence is done by the minorities and they compete by lifting the violence above their Jewish “brothers”. Could we say that Germans had little or no responsibility because Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Poles, French etc were “more violent” as concentration camp guards and in SS’s murder units. Come-on. Israeli Jews lead the border police, define its policies, create the tactics, give order etc. Can you prove that Jewish bosses do not order the minority members to use excessive force in style “break a kushim’s skull weekly and we allow your brother to walk free or else your wife will …”.

      Soon we are obviously told that Bedouins and Druze Israelis were giving in secret the black Jewish women birth control drugs without the women knowing, not “mainstream Israelis” by orders given by their “mainstream” government like it in reality happened. Or that the chief rabbi who called in public black people as kushims is in reality a undercover Muslim and a Druze. Or all those thousands who shout death to Arabs on Jerusalem Day with flags of Israel are drunken Bedouins. Israel is a incredible racist country and it is getting worse day by day. No need to blame the minorities, Holocaust, etc the normal “reasons”. In Jerusalem Post was news how a settler rabbi just said “Paris attacks are payback for the Holocaust. The attacks in Paris were deserved due to what Europeans “did to our people 70 years ago.””. Hmmmm could our priests say in same style what …

      1. @ SimoHurtta: If Cordesman wrote that passage his summary about the Border Police was completely useless. To claim that it is multi-ethnic or representative of Israeli society because of this is beside the point. If the Hitler Jugend recruited Jews or gays or Communists would that make it more palatable?

      2. @SimonHurta

        What a remarkable reaction. You are having a go at me as if I were a neophyte hasbarist on this blog. You obviously have never taken the trouble to read other posts of mine.

        “It is absurd to try to avoid Israeli Jewish (mainstream Israelis in your slang) responsibility, by claiming more or less directly, that the violence is done by the minorities and they compete by lifting the violence above their Jewish “brothers”. Could we say that Germans had little or no responsibility because Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Poles, French etc were “more violent” as concentration camp guards and in SS’s murder units”

        Yes that would indeed be absurd and therefore I never claimed it. My supposition was merely this: if it is indeed true that this police unit is of this mixed ethnic composition wouldn’t there be a certain degree of competition between these groups? And what would they compete in? In their stock in trade I would imagine viz. brutality. And wouldn’t some among these minority groups try to outdo “mainstream Israelis” (if you have a better term go ahead – your Jewish “brothers” won’t do though) in violence, just to prove their “loyalty”? Well you might find this an absurd supposition but you go a lot further than that.

        Somehow you seem to read here that I declared that the “Jewish”brothers” “ had no responsibility for this violence and that I allegedly claimed “more or less directly, that the violence is done by the minorities”. You top this off by ascribing the opinion to me that the Nazi Germans “had little or no responsibility” for their crimes. Oh my.

        I had to think here of a saying by the 19th C. Dutch author who called himself Multatuli: “No author is intelligent enough to adequately gauge the stupidity of his readers.” I am sorry I wasn’t.

        1. @ Arie
          I don’t think Simo was ‘having a go at you’ but rather at wiki which is clearly making the Hasbara point here.
          There are some 4000 Circassians in Israel, military service is not obligatory for neither them nor the Bedouins or the other Arabs, only Druze have to complete their military service. We know that the IDF try to recruit Arab Christians (who according to Yair Levin are not Arabs but Arameans …) but it doesn’t work that well in spite of their ‘high profile’ advocates such as Father Gabriel Nadaf (who’s been kicked out of the Orthodox Church fot the same reason).

          1. …”military service is not obligatory for neither them nor the Bedouins or the other Arabs”

            That statement is not strictly true. Israeli law is clear on this issue: military service is obligatory, everyone can be called-up and nobody can refuse a call to report for duty.

            That’s what the law says, but what that law also says is that the Minister for Defence has the discretion not to call up any “group or individual”.

            And since the founding of the state each and every Minister for Defence has exercised that prerogative by “not choosing” anyone who’s identification card marks them as “Arab”.

            But that’s purely an administrative decision: Ya’alon could reverse that tomorrow.

            And if he did (he won’t, but if he did) then every single Arab who received a call-up would have to report for duty, because that is, indeed, “obligatory” for everyone.

            …”We know that the IDF try to recruit Arab Christians”…

            Completely unnecessary. Ya’alon can make the decision that he is going to call up everyone who has “Christian” marked on their ID Card, and all those Arab Christians would be reporting for duty the next day.

            He doesn’t need to entice them, he doesn’t need to recruit them, he doesn’t need to do anything except drop his own decision that He Doesn’t Want Them.

            Think of it this way: for years and years Druze did not serve in the IDF, then one day they did.

            Q: Did the Knesset have to pass some new legislation to make that “obligatory”?
            A: No. All it took was for the Defence Minister to change his policy on who he wants by including the “group” called “Druze” in his I Want Them List.

          2. @ Yeah Right
            “Think of it this way: for years and years Druze did not serve in the IDF, then one day they did.”
            Well no, that’s NOT exactly the way it happened; compulsory conscription became obligatory for the Druze male population is 1956. If you want to know more about that 972mag and Electronic Intifada have many articles on the topic (972mag posted a documentary on the Druze in 3 or 4 parts a while back, the compulsory military service is one of the topics).

        2. Arie, your points are totally valid. I have heard something similar said of female soldiers at the checkpoints: That they are more abusive towards the Palestinians because they have to overcompensate for not being male.

        3. Arie your claim consists of
          1) there are plenty of minority members serving in Israeli Border police
          2) they are for competition reasons (maybe) more cruel and violent than mainstream Israeli collages.
          Part 1) is picked from Wikipedia, based on a claim on the page 131 in a US book 11 years ago and the second part is pure speculation based on your own “theory” enforced with your own comparisons to Japan and Germany in WW2. Still both claims are rather serious. What is the real proof? Are there really many minority members serving in that questionable racist police force? Are the minority members really more violent because of “competition” reasons than their Jewish collages? So serious claims demand a bit more than evidence than what you offer us. This your minority theory can (and must) be used also in other forces under “stress”, if you do not want to claim, that only Israeli (Muslim) minorities are ready to compete with the use of violence and racism (against their own). Are you really ready to say that blacks and Jews as minority members are more violent while serving in US army than their mainstream American collages because of competition reasons? If we would make such claims I am certain that most normal people would ask – REALLY?

          For what reason do you bring up this kind of “cruel minority” notion especially when the racism of Border Police is the topic? To decrease the racism and responsibility demands for “mainstream” Israelis and shifting the moral blame partly back to the victims = minorities? That is the only way it can “read” your first comment .

          What if I would use the change and say that based on Elisabet’s comment (November 15, 2015, 5:44 AM) here, Israeli Jewish women are more abusive than Jewish men as road block guards. Is it really so? I seriously doubt also that thesis. What Elisabet claims is a opinion based on “I have been told so” level data. Well we all have been told hundreds of times in the media and real life, that women must be tougher than men on their workplaces in order to overcompensate not being males. But is it so and are they? Yours and Elisabeth’s level of violence claims could be true in some very few individual cases but are hardly enough solid to make them as general rules.

          Israelis means all citizens of Israel, like Finns means all those living as citizens in Finland (including Finnish Jews and Muslims and us “mainstream” versions). So Israelis (which is not equal to the term Israelites) in that sense how we Europeans understand it, includes the Druze, Bedouin, Palestinian etc citizens, even those non-Jewish former Finns who are listed as an old minority in Israel. Mainstream Israelis simply means the majority in other words Israeli Jews. Why try to hide the fact of what is the present “mainstream”? If Israel is demanded to be acknowledged to be the Jewish state and the homeland of Jews, then let’s be so courageous and say who are the “mainstream” Israelis, instead of using different circumlocutions to hide who and what they are. The reason why I use instead of Israelis often the term Israeli Jews is simple. I can say Israelis like football, but I can not honestly say, that Israelis like West Bank settlements – surely the Israeli Arabs who are also Israelis do not like them even when the majority of Israelis – the Jews like them. Surely I can understand, that many non-Israeli Jews are offended when their sect/religion is mentioned in these numerous less nice circumstances, but the problem is how the religion, Judaism, is integrated, used and allowed to be used in and around Israel.

      1. @You seem to have no concept what “on topic” means. This is now your firth off topic comment in as many days. I put you on notice that the next such one will bring moderation.

        The notion that Israel brought Falashas to Israel as a celebration of its multi ethnic, tolerant society is belied by the horrendous manner in which Israel treats the Falasha, or any dark-skinned ethnic groups for that matter.

        1. Richard.
          I’m tired of your entirely subjective definition of ‘off topic’ and the hypocritical way you apply that comment rule.

          If you don’t like my dissenting opinion, than just ban me, and stop with the pretense.

      2. The black Hebrew’s are not recognized by the state as descendants of Jews while the Falash Mura are. That in itself is a racist criterion.
        You seem very fond of those gimmicks of yours (‘ring-ring’, ‘cricket sounds’ etc.), but let me tell you that they are not very succesful, as it is totally unclear what they are supposed to convey (if anything).

        1. For the sake of definition: the so called ‘black Hebrew’ are Afro-Americans{non Jews} who came to Israel in the ’70’s and were illegally in Israel. There was an attempt to send them back to the US but word came out that if this happened there would be repercussions against the Jewish community in Chicago where the black Hebrews originated from. So they were left alone in Dimona with an ambiguous status.
          As far as the Ethiopians they had only the written Torah but no oral traditions but they practiced Judaism as written in the Torah and there were/are many opinions whether or not they are Jewish some saying no, some yes, and others doing a token conversion to clear up the entire situation.
          They are mainly accepted very well in Israeli society but as always there are exceptions.
          IMO their integration into Israel was not handled correctly because they are agricultural in general and could have be put onto kibbutzim or the like and would have slowly integrated into the Israeli society in a more normative manner.
          What happened was that the women integrated well in all sorts of employment while the men being accustomed to a more patriarchal mode of life did not succeed as well which begot many a problem.
          They are a very fine, well mannered group with the difficult task of integrating socially not uncommon in any society.

          1. @ ilan: Your account of the Black Hebrews is at best, incomplete. The Israeli government did not desist from efforts to expel them because of any fear or repercussions in the U.S., but rather out of fear for the PR disaster it would cause & black eye it would give Israel. Also, the Black Hebrew religion is far closer to Judaism than you acknowledge.

            Their status in Dimona is far worse than “ambiguous.” They are criminalized. They are oppressed. They are subject to harrassment or anything anyone in power wishes to do to them.

            If you think the Ethiopians are “accepted very well in Israeli society” you must be talking about an Israel in some parallel universe. Because that’s not how real Ethiopians are treated in the actual Israel. The one that exists, rather than the fantasy you’ve spun.

            IMO their integration into Israel was not handled correctly

            Thanks for your opinion, white man. Every white man has an opinion about how every non-white man should be treated and live.

            the women integrated well in all sorts of employment

            You forgot the little problem with them being forced to take Depo Provera by the Jewish Agency, didn’tcha??

            They are a very fine, well mannered group

            The noblesse oblige & racist condescension is startling…

      3. “Israel okays immigration for last group of Ethiopian Falash Mura.”

        Which is supposed to prove what exactly “Hopper”. More cannon fodder is needed; when it comes to preserving the status quo and keeping the Palestinians under the zionist thumb, the Ethiopian people will fill the bill. I guess you didn’t see the video of the Ethiopian soldier being stomped on by border patrol. Were you on the moon last summer that you missed all the demonstrations against racism by the Israeli government toward Ethiopian Jews? Of course you weren’t. It’s just fun to play games. Crickets indeed.

  2. @Deir Yassin
    I don’t think the Wiki text I quoted allows Simon’s reading either.

    @Elisabeth
    I have vaguely thought along that line myself, most recently when I saw this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju42VwBZMh4

    Of course according to the author of Checkpoint Syndrome, res.Sergeant Furer, all these very young people try to outdo each other in nastiness towards Palestinians at the checkpoints. It helps to determine their place in the pecking order. Only a year ago I quoted Gideon Levy’s interview with him a propos of Richard’s account of the nasty things the U.S. had learned from Israel:

    “Furer is certain that what happened to him is not at all unique. Here he was – a creative, sensitive graduate of the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts, who became an animal at the checkpoint, a violent sadist who beat up Palestinians because they didn’t show him the proper courtesy, who shot out tires of cars because their owners were playing the radio too loud, who abused a retarded teenage boy lying handcuffed on the floor of the Jeep, just because he had to take his anger out somehow. “Checkpoint Syndrome” (also the title of his book), gradually transforms every soldier into an animal, he maintains, regardless of whatever values he brings with him from home. No one can escape its taint. In a place where nearly everything is permissible and violence is perceived as normative behavior, each soldier tests his own limits of violence impulsiveness on his victims – the Palestinians.”
    More:
    http://www.haaretz.com/twilight-zone-i-punched-an-arab-in-the-face-1.106307

  3. @SimoHurtta
    You wrote:

    ▪ “Arie your claim consists of
    ▪ 1) there are plenty of minority members serving in Israeli Border police
    ▪ 2) they are for competition reasons (maybe) more cruel and violent than mainstream Israeli collages.
    ▪ Part 1) is picked from Wikipedia, based on a claim on the page 131 in a US book 11 years ago and the second part is pure speculation based on your own “theory” enforced with your own comparisons to Japan and Germany in WW2. Still both claims are rather serious. What is the real proof? “

    You have done it again. You set up a straw man to picture things I merely wondered about as claims. What did I write? This time I will put the parts that take the ground from under your straw man in capital letters. I first quoted a claim I found in Wikipedia (you didn’t have to mention it came from there – I had already done so) and then went on:

    “IF THIS IS CORRECT I WONDER how this unit that seems to be addicted to the abuse of power deals with racism respectively ethnic prejudice within its own ranks. I ALSO WONDER whether those of minority backgrounds feel compelled to surpass their mainstream Israeli colleagues in brutality. Something similar has been claimed for German respectively Japanese auxiliaries during the Second World War.”

    Do these look like “claims” to you? To me they look much more like questions and if you know more about this subject you would have obliged me to treat them as such. Instead you insist in seeing in these few sentences an attempt to put the blame for Israeli as well as German Nazi violence on ethnic minorities rather than on the Israeli Jews or Hitler’s “Herrenmenschen” (didn’t it seem strange to you that I supposedly wanted to act as a hasbarist for both categories?)

    You also wrote:

    “ “This your minority theory can (and must) be used also in other forces under “stress”, if you do not want to claim, that only Israeli (Muslim) minorities are ready to compete with the use of violence and racism (against their own). Are you really ready to say that blacks and Jews as minority members are more violent while serving in US army than their mainstream American collages because of competition reasons? If we would make such claims I am certain that most normal people would ask – REALLY? “”

    And “most normal people” would be right to react that way. The American army of recent times has no history of systematically suppressing these minorities. Nor has the American state, But there is no question that Arabs (Including Bedouins) in Israel belong to oppressed minorities. So I can imagine that if Arabs (including Bedouins) join an outfit as the Border Police, with such a bad reputation in this regard, they might be regarded as “quislings” by their own ethnic community. And, at the same time, their loyalty might be doubted by the outfit they serve in. I therefore wondered (not claimed, wondered) whether they might feel compelled to demonstrate that loyalty by acting more harshly towards other Arabs (including Bedouins).

    You seem to regard that question as a slur on all (muslim) Arabs? During the German occupation of Holland quite a few Dutchmen (but yet a very small minority) volunteered for the SS or the “Landwacht” ( a form of Dutch “Feldgendarmerie”). They were feared and loathed and regarded as “tuig” (scum) by the large majority of the population. Would a similar question as I asked for those minorities in the Israeli Border Police about these Dutch quislings have offended the large majority of the population? Not a bit.

    However I must say that my question was based on the idea that these minorities volunteered for the Border Police. But that might only hold for the Arab Christians of which that Wiki-quote spoke. The other ones might have been drafted in which case my question does not apply to them.

    You also wrote:

    “For what reason do you bring up this kind of “cruel minority” notion especially when the racism of Border Police is the topic? To decrease the racism and responsibility demands for “mainstream” Israelis and shifting the moral blame partly back to the victims = minorities? That is the only way it can “read” your first comment” .

    Well I am not responsible for the limitations of your reading capacity. A final note about the term “mainstream Israelis”. You believe I should have said “Jeiwish Israelis “ or “Israeli Jews”. Why? The word “mainstream” also includes the Arab population of Israel. But to speak about the “large majority of Israelis” would have been better.

    And now If you want to hassle me further about this topic you are free to do so but I will not waste any more time on it.

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