Israeli Military Occupation: Daily Humiliations And Outrages in the Territories

Foreword and translations by Dr. Israel Shahak

Among many horrible features of the Israeli-military occupation in the territories, intensified to an enormous degree during the intifadah, are the continual humiliations of the Palestinians. These are coupled with total license given to Israeli soldiers, army employees, and settlers, although they are not mentioned in the passages translated here, to do whatever they want.

This totalitarian approach, which in the opinion of the Israeli "Arabists" is the "proper" way to treat the Arab population, is probably causing as much suffering and resentment as the murders of children, which are so frequent now.

This item is an insert in an article written by two Israeli army officers who returned from recent service in the West Bank and wrote about what they saw. It will appear, together with the article itself, in one of my future collections of translations.

Seeing and Being Silent

By Meir Amir and Micky Gar

Ramallah

It is a quiet day, but the traffic is moving slowly. The commander of the patrol decides to block the Jerusalem street. We stop the first (Palestinian) vehicle which arrives, shouting: "Identification card! "

The driver, a not-so-young man near whom an old woman is sitting, whips out his card.

"Move the vehicle so that it will block the road, says the commander. The driver performs the order.

About 20 minutes pass and the driver finally ventures in very good Hebrew: "Soldier, we are not from here."

"Silence!" shouts the commander, pulling the man over to stand with his face to a wall, and with his hands above his head. "Don't dare move!"

The old woman is shrinking in the seat of the car, which now serves as a makeshift roadblock. "Please soldier."

The commander, furiously and with the utmost force, begins knocking the man's head to the wall. Blood pours from his nose.

El-Jib

We stop a private car and we pull out the driver, shouting at him: "You! Identification card! Silence Go on!" A soldier, Hayim Moshe, with his air conditioner at full blast, drives full speed against the traffic. This daily delight of the reservist ends this time after only 20 seconds in a frontal collision. Result: two smashed cars, an Arab and the Israeli Army soldier in their respective hospitals.

Ramallah

A routine patrol in the new bus station. The villagers are putting up their sidewalk stalls. Is it prohibited? Is it permitted? It depends on the mood of the commander today. Soldiers begin turning over the stalls, one after the other like dominos. A villager loses control and throws a metal weight. Shots are fired at him but miss. The patrol catches the brother of the thrower and "blows him up" (beats him).

Beitunia

A stone is thrown at an Israeli car and hits a 10-month-old baby. No one knows what to do so we attack "street targets." We take over the whole village, ordering all of the inhabitants outside their homes. One of the inhabitants says something, and an officer of the border guards becomes angry. The inhabitant is beaten with a pointed stone until his flesh is badly lacerated. Many soldiers and officers stand around. No one stops it.

Beit Likya

We are performing "an initiated operation." At dawn we raid the village. The objectives are: remove the PLO flags, erase the slogans, dismantle the roadblocks. Stage A of the operation: Assemble the men 16 and older, in the center of the village. In a short time a very long row of boys, fathers, and grandfathers is lying down on the wintery road. They lie on their bellies with their hands on their necks. They are forbidden to move. From that point the operation is continued by only two persons, a lieutenant and a soldier. The lieutenant assembles work teams by stepping on the people or by a light kick to their heads. The soldier keeps order by shouting, cursing, and hitting them on their backs with a club. The rest of the force has departed to stand around the platoon's female clerk and drink coffee.