donderdag 15 november 2007

De Israelische Terreur 274





Sonja emailde me dit bericht uit Haaretz:


'My god, what did we do?
By Dalia Karpel

One night, Tamar Yarom was awakened by one of the soldiers in her unit. He said he wanted to show her something in the basement of the abandoned building where they were staying. "Before we opened the door, I heard this awful noise from a generator and there was a strong smell of diesel fuel. I saw a middle-aged Palestinian detainee lying with his head on the generator. His ear was pressed against the generator that was vibrating, and the guy's head was vibrating with it. His face was completely messed up. It amazed me that through all the blood and horror, you could still see the guy's expression and that's what stayed with me for years after - the look on his face." Yarom, now a film director, made two films following her army service as a mashakit tash (welfare officer) in an infantry company in the territories. She was drafted in 1989 and served at a basic-training base near Jerusalem until her unit was transferred to Gaza. She accompanied the recruits from their first day in the army and felt close to them, and they told her about what they did in the territories. "I tried not to judge them. Mostly I was glad that they were feeling good and finally had self-confidence." That's how it works, she adds: "When you're told things that you don't see with your own eyes, you can prettify them in your mind." But then she was taken to that basement. Why did the soldier take her there? "He wanted to share the horror with me," she says. "Maybe he hoped that I'd do something, that I'd raise an outcry. I don't remember how we left there or what happened afterward. The next day I asked one of the commanders what happened in the basement and he politely explained to me that I mustn't interfere in things that were none of my business. That detainee I saw taught me something about myself that I would never have learned in years of university. And he's imprinted in my memory, engraved in every cell of my being. I saw a person in the lowest, most suffering state. A victim of cruelty I didn't know existed. And I stood there unmoved, apparently."

Sandler cleans bodies In 2002, 12 years after completing her military service, during the second intifada, Yarom directed the drama "Hatza'it dema'ot" ("Sob Skirt" - a nickname for a female welfare officer), based on her experiences during the first intifada. It won the best drama prize at the Haifa Film Festival that same year, but Yarom felt she hadn't yet given full expression to the trauma - "the real thing," as she calls it. Now Yarom was ready for the real thing. Her second film, "Lir'ot im ani mehayekhet" ("To See If I'm Smiling"), is a documentary. It focuses on the testimonies of six female soldiers about their service in the territories during the first and second intifadas. Yarom spent four years working on the film - to be aired on November 15th on cable Channel 8 - which won the best documentary award at the most recent Haifa Film Festival. "I wanted to make a film that shows admiration for these girls, who are coping with crazy pressure and have daily responsibility for human lives. I got to know female soldiers who served as lookouts, operations sergeants, whose job was to apply make-up to soldiers going undercover as Arabs. A whole world of women on the 'second' line, in 'combat support.' I was impressed by the way they grappled with the difficulties and the psychological pressures. One of the comments I most identify with was by Meytal Sandler at the beginning of the film: 'Sometimes I think that I'm insane, because I have memories that are not connected to reality and maybe never happened. But I know that they did happen because of the intensity with which I feel them today.'"




De Nederlandse regering weet dit allemaal. Het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken wordt regelmatig op de hoogte gehouden van de Israelische terreur door Nederlandse diplomaten in Israel en Palestina. De Nederlandse regering sanctioneert stilzwijgend de Israelische schendingen van het internationaal recht.

1 opmerking:

Anoniem zei

Stan - hoe simpel ook, je aap-vergelijking van hieronder helpt enorm met het begrip van de wereld. Zonder ironie gezegd. Misschien moeten we maar domweg erkennen dat de bewoners van Israel tot de hoofdapen zijn gaan behoren.
Want iedere keer dat je gezond verstand zegt: "Hou eens op met die geweldadige oog-om-oog tand-om-tand onzin, wie denken jullie wel niet dat jullie zijn?" word je steeds van alle kanten tegengesproken.
Eigenlijk mag Israel alles. Je mag wat ze doen niet met een bezetting vergelijken, je mag het niet met treiteren vergelijken, ze mogen atoombommen hebben zonder ooit één verdrag te hebben getekend, ze mogen martelen, economisch afknijpen, havens verwoesten, water stelen, boomgaarden rooien, VN-resoluties negeren, noem maar op. Ze zijn de baas en dat weten ze. Zij schieten per ongeluk met scherp op kinderen die stenen gooien en ze komen er mee weg.

Peter Flik en Chuck Berry-Promised Land

mijn unieke collega Peter Flik, die de vrijzinnig protestantse radio omroep de VPRO maakte is niet meer. ik koester duizenden herinneringen ...