From Haaretz (Israeli Nicko) Israel’s Violent Cowardice Faces Palestinian Protesters' Bravery

Israeli soldiers have gotten used to feeling heroic in their planes, tanks and armored jeeps, but now they’re dying of fear as vengefulness erupts.

When it comes to bravery and daring, the young Palestinian demonstrators are defeating the Israeli soldiers and Border Police. They are armed with agility and speed, kaffiyehs covering their faces. They are armed with stones and Molotov cocktails, while the soldiers — behind them military exercises — are armed with and protected by armored vehicles, drones, helmets, deadly weapons of various types and poisonous tear gas.

Against the bravery of the young Palestinians, the cowardice of the Israeli soldiers is exposed. They have gotten used to feeling strong and heroic in their planes, tanks and armored jeeps, in their detention and interrogation rooms and observation towers with sophisticated equipment, in their late-night break-ins into houses and their pulling minors from their beds.

Facing the kaffiyeh, stone and Molotov cocktail they are lost. Insulted. Then vengefulness erupts.

You, Israeli reader, should liberate yourself a bit from the Israeli media diet that makes the situation so shallow; you should liberate yourself from the language of the masters of “civil disorders and riots.”

Instead, watch the uncensored clips from the “battle” field: soldiers in jeeps running protesters over, a soldier spraying tear gas from point-blank range in the eyes of medics who come to evacuate the wounded. Soldiers setting on a store owner who brings in his wares while clashes are going on, and the soldiers kick him in an orgy of sadism.

This violent cowardice of Israeli soldiers comes on the orders of the higher-ups — military and political. It’s part of obligatory service in an army whose main role is to defend the colonialist expansion.

The bravery and daring of the Palestinians is against their will, forced on them as foreign rule has been forced on them. This courage is passed on by osmosis from generation to generation for as long as the reasons behind these traits have not been removed. And the adults look on in amazement at the young people: They have nearly forgotten they were once like them.

No top officer or political leader, no emergency reserve call-up order can force the Palestinians to go out to the military checkpoints and separation barrier in the villages trying to preserve the tradition of the popular struggle for more than a decade and cultivate the bravery and daring. If the unpopular Palestinian leaders have done something smart, it’s their order that armed Palestinians should not be allowed to come close to the protest sites.

The Palestinian demonstrators know they could be killed, arrested, tortured or put on a degrading show trial. But they are armed with justice. (And to be precise, not with “their” justice, postmodern and relativist, but justice. Period.)

We won’t say thank you that the soldiers in the West Bank aren’t spraying the protesters with live bullets and killing 10 at once, as they killed the protesters in Gaza. We can assume they received orders to try not to kill demonstrators.

It turns out that when the army wants to, it can operate without killing. Does this mean the soldiers and police received orders to kill anyone a few meters from them suspected of possessing a knife? Including a yeshiva student whom they mistake for an Arab?

True, in contrast to the bravery and daring of the many protesters is the desperation of others. Without orders from above they run to their deaths, waving a knife, because in such situations it’s clear the Israeli soldiers are dying of fear, and their cowardice is deadly.

Deadly by order? Because what is it to riddle a person with bullets who’s already lying wounded on the ground if not cowardice, murderousness, carrying out an order or all of them together?

Journalist Mohammed Daraghmeh published a courageous article that speaks to the hearts of many and angers others. The title: “Don’t go out to die, Palestine needs you alive.” Daraghmeh calls on the young people, as he says he tells his own children, not to let the despair and emotion of revenge cause them to lose their heads — and lives.

The politicians, he writes, fear losing their popularity, so they don’t dare come out publicly against the knife attacks. He calls on the intellectuals not to remain silent and not to fear; they should shout out against this contagious suicidal phenomenon and bring it to an end.

He calls on all Palestinian leaders “from the extreme right to the extreme left” to say enough is enough, seize the opportunity and channel the national anger toward mass protest against the occupation — “protest without death, protest that is all about life, revolution, hope and change.” The world, he writes, does not accept the knifing and car-ramming attacks on civilians, just as it opposed the “martyr operations” — suicide attacks.

He continues: “It is said: Did the nonviolent struggle bring an end to the occupation? And I will say: Has the armed and military struggle done this? Our cause is not local but international. The world has created the problem, and it is the one that will find the exit. But it will not do so if we keep silent [about the occupation], and it will not do so if we commit suicide. It will only do so if we preserve the human path of our national struggle.”

And we should add: The humanity and courage of those fighting for freedom stand out against the cowardice and lack of humanity of those who have stolen it.

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.683656

by Amira Hass, the daughter of two Holocaust Survivors

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.683656

Exactly right, they stand there with guns bristling from them, tanks, stun grenades, tear gas, high pressured skunk water and they quail because people fight back.

OMG defeating civilians by stabbing them?

What terrorist supporting drivel

They then add the moot point of her being the daughter of holocaust survivors, as if that makes her views any less vile and hateful

So it's ok to attack people for over 40 years with all of the above mentioned, as well as stealing their land, destroying their crops, killing and imprisoning their children, making them use different roads and footpaths, keeping them under military law while everyone else is under civil law, letting settlers burn them alive and stone them, but fighting back is not ok.  We know where you stand.

So more excuses for defending against terrorism, just like the other day when you tries again to defend a 72 year old terrorist who drove their car at people.
There would be no check points if like I said the Arabs had accepted Israel to exist. They still do not hence the attacks and the need for check points. There would be no check points if they accepted the right of Israel to exist, the point that always eludes you.
So why is it you defend the aggressor from the very start, the Arab nations?

Yes Didge, boring Didge, hasbara Didge, total rubbish Didge.

And as usual when sassy knows she cannot counter my points, she tries to derail the thread with lame immature insults

Which just validates my points.

And you condone every bit of terrorism by the IDF, every single bit.  And that old lady was on her way to her sisters for lunch, her sister phoned her son when she didn't arrive, after phoning to say she was on her way.  Absolutely something you would do if you were planning to kill people.  You swallow the lot and come back for more.  You're pathetic.

See, still defending a terrorist because they have been bought with lies they have read on the web. Its obvious she tried to murder and died because of people like you filling her head with fabricated views that end up inciting violence. I have condemn the IDF when they have been in the wrong, but how you not once condemn any of the attacks on the Israeli Jews or even comment on any of them, shows you have the stupid belief that these attackers are to you the victims.
That is disgusting and makes a mockery of the many Israeli's murdered and injured. At least I condemn wrongs done by Israel, you avoid at every turn condemning the vionece and attacks on Israeli Jews.

No, because I know from other sources.  You may be ignorant, I'm not.

I should add sassy, the way you try to make out the attackers are victims, would be like trying to make out the murderers of Lee Rigby were victims.
That I find disgusting on every level

sassy wrote:No, because I know from other sources.  You may be ignorant, I'm not.

Your sources just like you do all the time are liars.
They care little as you do for how you end up imflamming this copnflict with your fabricated claims made on the Israeli's. You do not care that it filters down to Palestinians on the ground who become inscensed by this claims and then try or do murder someone.
That is why you are so irresponsible

Absolutely nothing like and you know it.  Palestinians have been systematically abused by Israel for nearly 50 years, and long before that.  They have the right to fight back.

And you can be and emotive as silly as you like, I have a right to my opinion and all the abuse that you can find to heap on me for it will never change my mind, because I know the truth and you just know what you read from your Israeli bought sources.

Now I'm off out to a friends, have a good time posting your hasbara, they should pay you, they do everyone else they get to post it.

50 years?
Where did it all start sassy?
Hate from the Arabs, which has continued for 150 years in the area.
So stop denying the facts and truth here, it is hate of the Jews that continues to fuel this conflict.
It is the inability to recognise them and instead class Israel as in occupation, that drives and fuels hate from the very earliest age.
You again make out the aggressors are the victims from what they started and created. How is that?
You would only believe Israel is in all occupation to beleve as you do, if you think the Palestinians are victims.
That is the tell tell sign, you do not back the self determination of the Jews.
The Palestinians could have peace tomorrow, you need to start asking yourself why they deny themselves this