Israeli Border Police Videos Document Abuse of Palestinian Civilians

The Hebrew version of this article also notes in this video the police force the boy to say “I fuck you, Palestine.” For some reason, this is not in the English translation of the article.

Another video features a Border Police officer singing a song of praise for his unit: …[The] clip…opens with the caption, “And a little poison – C Company, the lions of the Old City”…The caption “Respect” [displays]…accompanied by an original soundtrack: “Let every Arab mother know that the fate of her children is in the hands of…C Company in the Old City; with bullet proof vests and clubs we [empty] gun clips on Arab mothers…C Company’s in the Old City, so let every Arab mother know.” (This is a play on a famous quote by David Ben-Gurion, who said that every Jewish mother should know that her son is in good hands in the army.) Blau interviews a Border Police officer who dismisses the abuse documented in the videos as insignificant compared to more serious physical abuse: “Blows, ’sit on my knees,’ ‘lower your head,’ ‘pull down your pants,’ ’strip.’ In my opinion, those are worse things than singing.”

We can easily assume that if this is abuse the interviewee will acknowledge publicly, there is far worse abuse he will not (see below). The article documents from many Border Police sources how prevalent the song is which the Palestinian boy is forced to chant. Yet a former commander of the force claims never to have heard of it: Major General (ret.) David Zur, who was commander of the Border Police from 2002 to 2004, says he is not familiar with the ditty mentioned above or the phenomenon of forcing Palestinians to sing it. Which makes you wonder how much he really knew about anything that anyone did under his command. Zur does, however, provide insight into the sociological analysis of the composition of the Border Police, which in turn tells us a great deal about how and why the abuse might occur: People who might not integrate in the army’s combat units integrate in the Border Police. Some people might say that is a bad thing, but some might say it is even Zionist service. There is a very high percentage of new immigrants. I offer this background in order to explain that in the final analysis, to introduce these people into the combat formation in a very short time is no simple matter and a great deal is invested there … There is an effort to root out phenomena like that, and all the types of abuse or of despicable behavior are dealt with … The Border Police does amazing work in the realm of education.” Apparently, not amazing enough.

The official Border Police reply is essentially non-responsive: Border Police spokesman Moshe Pintzi stated in response: “In recent years there has been a decrease of tens of percent in complaints filed against Border Policemen, both over the unauthorized use of force and inappropriate behavior. One can attribute this trend to educational efforts in cooperation with human rights organizations and a policy of zero tolerance. The Border Police has vowed to maintain values, first and foremost, human dignity and human rights, and the fighters are taught to respect these values.” The Border Police added in the statement that its officer for public complaints continues to deal with the matter of the videos, which it said have been on YouTube since 2008. This is sophistry. A drop in the number of complaints means nothing. It could mean that Palestinians understand it is meaningless to do so as they will be swept under the rug as the incidents portrayed in these videos have been. The fact that there are not one but many different videos online proves that many officers do not uphold the values as officially enunciated. The Border Police has a problem which they refuse to recognize. They are a bunch of thugs in uniform. To join you have to be willing to punish Palestinians physically, emotionally, in every way possible. You have to view Palestinians as cattle to be herded or dogs to be whipped into submission.

Israeli commenters on YouTube wrote such stellar observations as: What a poor stinking piece of Arab shit! They really should’ve shot him. Sons of whores! This commenter objected to those who are offended by the video: Just as it should be. Stop being such Ashkenazim. Another commenter seemed less concerned with the actual offense than the impact it would have on Israel’s public image: Silly children. You have no idea how much damage this will do to hasbara on behalf of our country.

This is not an aberrant view held by a few bad apples. Stories of murder, forced bestiality and more garden varieties of abuse are legion and have been documented here and at Lawrence of Cyberia and of course by human rights groups like B’Tselem. Let’s keep our eye on the prize here…when you refuse a settlement freeze as Bibi has done, when you maintain an Occupation for 42 years, this is what will happen. It must happen. That is why a settlement freeze is an important first step to get Israel out of the mess it is in. A word about the Holocaust image featured above. I took it from Idan Laudau’s blog. The caption here is Idan’s. It is shocking and breathtaking at the same time. Of course, the aberrant human behavior in both cases is similar. Of course the violation of human dignity is similar. The only difference (and it is a big one) is Israel is neither willing to nor capable of engaging in a genocide of Nazi-like proportions against Palestinians. But short of this, the parallels between the images are eerie and disturbing. H/t to Iris Hefets.





http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/06/20/israeli-border-police-offer-videos-documenting-abuse-of-palestinian-civilians/