This arrived in the ol' mailbox today from one my many mailing lists, it is a review of a book writen by a former Israeli soldier, who served for three years in the Gaza Strip.
I note that I can find nothing on the internet at large about this book or the author, except on sites which also display this story. The fact that I cannot find this book for sale on any of the usual online booksellers makes me deeply suspicious that the message is a hoax.
Do you believe this?
“ I ran toward them and punched an Arab right in the face. I’d never punched anyone that way. He collapsed on the road. The officers said that we had to search him for his papers. We pulled his hands behind his back and I bound them with plastic handcuffs. Then we blindfolded him so he wouldn’t see what was in the Jeep. I picked him up from the road. Blood was trickling from his lip onto his chin. I led him up behind the jeep and threw him in, his knees banged against the trunk and he landed inside. We sat in the back, stepping on the Arab…who was crying softly to himself.“His face was right on my flak Jacket and he was bleeding and making a kind of puddle of blood and Saliva, and it disgusted and angered me, so I grabbed him by the hair and turned his head to the side. He cried out loud and to get him to stop, We stepped harder and harder on his back. That quieted him down for a while and then he started up again. We concluded that he was either retarded or crazy.”
“One of the soldiers went up to him and kicked him in the stomach. The Arab doubled over and grunted, and we all laughed. It was funny. I kicked him really hard in the ass and he flew forward just as I’d expected. They shouted that I was totally crazy, and they laughed…and I felt happy. Our Arab was just a 16-year-old mentally retarded boy.”
It was originally posted on the www.palestine-info.co.uk website. Updates here if I get more news.
FULL STORY
Former Israeli soldier: “we behaved like animals, criminals, thieves” toward Palestinians
By
Dec 1, 2003, 01:19
Occupied Jerusalem - A former Israeli soldier who served three years in the Gaza Strip has described Israeli treatment of Palestinian civilians as befitting “animals, criminals, and thieves.”
Staff Sergeant Liaran Ron Furer has written a book on his experience as an Israeli soldier manning roadblocks throughout the Gaza Strip.
The book, Titled “Checkpoints-Twilight Zone,” contains personal testimonies and often brash accounts of the daily harassment and humiliation inflicted by young Israeli soldiers on Palestinian civilians.
Major publishers in Israel, including the famous Steimatzky bookstore chain refused to publish the book because, apparently because of its scathing criticism of Israeli army behavior.
“You can adopt the most hard-line political positions, but no parent would agree to his son becoming a thief, a criminal or a violent person. The problem is that it is never presented this way. The boy himself doesn’t portray himself this way to his family when he returns from the territories. On the contrary, he is received as a hero, as someone who is doing the important work of being a soldier,” says Furer in his book.
Furer describes several types of sadistic behaviors by Israeli soldiers including beating Palestinians and then taking souvenir pictures with them.
“ I remember how we humiliated a dwarf who came to the checkpoint every day on his wagon. They forced him to have his picture taken on the horse, hit him and degraded for a good half hour.”
Among the accounts narrated by Furer are stories of soldiers having souvenir pictures with Palestinians they had beaten up, soldiers pissing on the heads of a Palestinian because the man had the nerve to smile at a soldier and how one soldier, nicknamed Dado, forced a Palestinian to stand on four legs and bark like a dog.
One of Furer's most chilling confessions related to his abuse of a 16-year old mentally retarded boy.
“ I ran toward them and punched an Arab right in the face. I’d never punched anyone that way. He collapsed on the road. The officers said that we had to search him for his papers. We pulled his hands behind his back and I bound them with plastic handcuffs. Then we blindfolded him so he wouldn’t see what was in the Jeep. I picked him up from the road. Blood was trickling from his lip onto his chin. I led him up behind the jeep and threw him in, his knees banged against the trunk and he landed inside. We sat in the back, stepping on the Arab…who was crying softly to himself.
“His face was right on my flak Jacket and he was bleeding and making a kind of puddle of blood and Saliva, and it disgusted and angered me, so I grabbed him by the hair and turned his head to the side. He cried out loud and to get him to stop, We stepped harder and harder on his back. That quieted him down for a while and then he started up again. We concluded that he was either retarded or crazy.”
“One of the soldiers went up to him and kicked him in the stomach. The Arab doubled over and grunted, and we all laughed. It was funny. I kicked him really hard in the ass and he flew forward just as I’d expected. They shouted that I was totally crazy, and they laughed…and I felt happy. Our Arab was just a 16-year-old mentally retarded boy.”
Furer stresses that behaviors as such are by no means isolated but rampant in the Israeli army.
An Israeli army spokesperson refused to comment on the book.
The spokesman said “sorry, I haven’t read the book yet.”
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