As one former head of Israel’s secret service, Shin Bet, states “We won every battle, but lost the war.”
Recently released on DVD, The Gatekeepers is a series of interviews with six former heads of Shin Bet. They acknowledge that a strategy did not exist in their organization for dealing with Palestinians. Shin Bet relied upon tactics of fear, intimidation, targeted kills, and deathly torture, in response to rock throwing and more serious responses to occupation. Shin Bet leader Avraham Shalom recalls that control of Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank was the goal and it was easy to achieve. While listening to these powerful Israeli men, I thought about our yearly payments to Israel of $3 billion that probably finances the military, into which almost all Israeli men are recruited. It takes money to put into place all the military apparatus with which to control an occupied people.
Of course, in order to understand why the Palestinians would rebel, this might be informative.
Another revelation concerns the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. We may not remember that the Prime Minister was killed by a young Orthodox Jew of the belligerent religious right. Rabin was seeking an end to settlements in occupied territories. But ultra conservative rabbis were successfully urging huge rallies of followers that were calling for violent removal of Rabin from power. This sector of Israeli society wanted no end to settlements in Palestinian territory. One former head of Shin Bet from that period of history states that the settlements of Israelis in the West Bank were never approved by the Israeli government, yet no government ever stopped them; this most obviously because politicians realize that they need that sector in their corner in order to remain safely in power.
Considering that our Congress seems to love showering Israel with financial aid, in spite of recession here, I believe The Gatekeepers a worthy use of time. Apprise yourself of current events.
-Janice Gintzler, Acorn patron
No comments:
Post a Comment