Via Ali Esbati hittade jag en artikel i Haaretz, om vad israeliska soldater låter trycka på sina T-shirts. De gör ingen hemlighet av att de beter sig precis så som Israels försvarare säger att de inte gör.

Vad sägs om detta citat ur artikeln:

A shirt printed up just this week for soldiers of the Lavi battalion, who spent three years in the West Bank, reads: ”We came, we saw, we destroyed!” – alongside images of weapons, an angry soldier and a Palestinian village with a ruined mosque in the center. ”

Dock:

According to Y., most of these shirts are worn strictly in an army context, not in civilian life. ”And within the army people look at it differently,” he added. ”I don’t think I would walk down the street in this shirt, because it would draw fire. Even at my yeshiva I don’t think people would like it.”

Det är ju trösterikt, men övertygar knappast om israeliska militärers korrekta uppträdande gentemot palestinier.

Det här kan man också läsa i artikeln:

”These days the content on shirts is sometimes deplorable,” Ben-Tzedef explained. ”It stems from the fact that profanity is very acceptable and normative in Israel, and that there is a lack of respect for human beings and their environment, which includes racism aimed in every direction.”

IDF gillar inte de här trycken, hävdar man, och vi får väl tro dem – eller?

En sociolog säger slutligen följande om det aptitliga fenomenet:

Sociologist Dr. Orna Sasson-Levy, of Bar-Ilan University, author of ”Identities in Uniform: Masculinities and Femininities in the Israeli Military,” said that the phenomenon is ”part of a radicalization process the entire country is undergoing, and the soldiers are at its forefront. I think that ever since the second intifada there has been a continual shift to the right. The pullout from Gaza and its outcome – the calm that never arrived – led to a further shift rightward.

”This tendency is most strikingly evident among soldiers who encounter various situations in the territories on a daily basis. There is less meticulousness than in the past, and increasing callousness. There is a perception that the Palestinian is not a person, a human being entitled to basic rights, and therefore anything may be done to him.”
Could the printing of clothing be viewed also as a means of venting aggression?
Sasson-Levy: ”No. I think it strengthens and stimulates aggression and legitimizes it.

Länkar:
– Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques – IDF fashion 2009, Haaretz
– ’Shooting and crying’, Haaretz
– Rasstat, Eli Esbati
– Israels brott mot mänskligheten, Jinge