Summary: The Israel-Palestine war is an open sore in the Middle East, poisoning our relations in the region and adding to its numerous tensions. Here Israel’s Minister of Justice, Ayelet Shaked, shares a perspective about the war that has widespread support in Israel. It shows why peace remains a dream for the Middle East. People in America and Europe have been and will be collateral damage to its conflicts, unless we find ways to help end them.
“They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”
Introduction
Below is a post by Ayelet Shaked on her Facebook page. Posted 1 July 2014; since deleted. It provoked an international outcry. Elitzur makes some powerful points. Most importantly, America and our allies provide ample precedent for Israel’s use of force. Of course, we weren’t doing a gradual conquest of Germany and Japan. Neither Ayelet nor Elitzur mentions the colonization of Palestine by Israeli “settlers”, backed by Israeli vigilantes and military.
Like many Old World conflicts, it has raged for generations — with the original rights and wrongs lost in the dust of history. Nor does America or Europe have clean hands, so we should hold the righteous criticism.
A translation of her Facebook post (red emphasis added)
“This is an article by the late Uri Elitzur {pro-settler journalist}, which was written 12 years ago, but remained unpublished. It is as relevant today as it was at the time.
“The Palestinian people has declared war on us, and we must respond with war. Not an operation, not a slow-moving one, not low-intensity, not controlled escalation, no destruction of terror infrastructure, no targeted killings. Enough with the oblique references. This is a war. Words have meanings. This is a war. It is not a war against terror, and not a war against extremists, and not even a war against the Palestinian Authority. These too are forms of avoiding reality. This is a war between two people. Who is the enemy? The Palestinian people. Why? Ask them, they started.
“I don’t know why it’s so hard for us to define reality with the simple words that language puts at our disposal. Why do we have to make up a new name for the war every other week, just to avoid calling it by its name. What’s so horrifying about understanding that the entire Palestinian people is the enemy? Every war is between two peoples, and in every war the people who started the war, that whole people, is the enemy.
A declaration of war is not a war crime. Responding with war certainly is not. Nor is the use of the word “war”, nor a clear definition who the enemy is. Au contraire: the morality of war (yes, there is such a thing) is founded on the assumption that there are wars in this world, and that war is not the normal state of things, and that in wars the enemy is usually an entire people, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.
“And the morality of war knows that it is not possible to refrain from hurting enemy civilians. It does not condemn the British air force, which bombed and totally destroyed the German city of Dresden, or the US planes that destroyed the cities of Poland and wrecked half of Budapest, places whose wretched residents had never done a thing to America, but which had to be destroyed in order to win the war against evil. The morals of war do not require that Russia be brought to trial, though it bombs and destroys towns and neighborhoods in Chechnya. It does not denounce the UN Peacekeeping Forces for killing hundreds of civilians in Angola, nor the NATO forces who bombed Milosevic’s Belgrade, a city with a million civilians, elderly, babies, women, and children.
The morals of war accept as correct in principle, not only politically, what America has done in Afghanistan, including the massive bombing of populated places, including the creation of a refugee stream of hundreds of thousands of people who escaped the horrors of war, for thousands of whom there is no home to return to.
“And in our war this is sevenfold more correct, because the enemy soldiers hide out among the population, and it is only through its support that they can fight. Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. Actors in the war are those who incite in mosques, who write the murderous curricula for schools, who give shelter, who provide vehicles, and all those who honor and give them their moral support.
“They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”
There are slightly different versions of this text, and different translations.
Saked’s sad and revealing response to criticism
See the response by Ayelet Shaked to the controversy sparked by her essay. She completely ignores the reasons why the Palestinians attack, stated so often by UN resolutions — Israel is taking their land, which is illegal under modern international law. She also ignores a consequence of the logic used by Uri Elitzur: if terrorism (killing civilians for political gain) is a legitimate tool for Israel, it is equally so for Palestinians. Hers is the voice of a nationalist, seeing only her people’s needs, the kind of leaders that have drenched human history in blood.
About Ayelet Shaked
“Ayelet Shaked (born 1976) is an Israeli politician and computer engineer. She has served in the Knesset for The Jewish Home {religious Zionist party} since 2013, and as Minister of Justice since 2015. Although representing a religious party, she identifies as a secular politician.
“From 2006 to 2008, she was office director for the office of Benjamin Netanyahu. In 2010 she established My Israel with Naftali Bennett and led it until May 2012. …From the end of 2011, she campaigned against illegal immigration from Africa to Israel, saying that it poses a threat to the state and also involves severe economic damage. …In January 2012 Shaked was elected to serve as a member of the Likud‘s Central Committee; however, in June 2012 she resigned and joined the Jewish Home.” {She was elected to the Knesset in 2013.} — From Wikipedia.
About Uri Elitzur (1946-2014)
A politically active journalist, he was a strong voice supporting the “settlers” — aggressive Israelis taking Palestinian’s land. His obituary in the Times of Israel describes his career. It ends by quoting his call for conquest and citizenship of Palestine (below). This contrasts oddly with his call for mass extermination of Palestinians in the unpublished note above written 12 years earlier.
“In recent years, Elitzur shifted his positions to became a vocal supporter of a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling for annexation of the entire West Bank and the granting of equal rights as well as citizenship to all Palestinian residents in the area. In a series of articles, Elitzur explained that such a move would guarantee Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, and would quell international concerns over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.”
How would Palestinians react to Israel conquering the rest of Palestine. Would they consider it better or worse than Israel’s gradual absorption of the West Bank?
For More Information
Please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information see all posts about Israel, about Palestine, and especially these…
- We can only watch as the nation of Israel slowly commits suicide.
- Israel becomes its enemy.
- The Fate of Israel — A prediction.
- Israel learned from its patron the art of righteous theft and killing.
- Martin van Creveld: A history of the turmoil in the Holy Land (you can’t understand the action without it).
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