Taxi's Articles

Dignity or Death

An Israeli Jew, seeing a brown-skinned man walking down his street and assuming him to be Palestinian: lunged forth and stabbed him in a revenge attack – only to discover that the man he critically injured was actually Jewish.  Such is the level of ethnic paranoia permeating the Israeli psyche today.

Reciprocal stabbings between Palestinians and Zionist Israelis have been erupting on the streets of towns and cities and increasing in frequency and violence as the days pass.  The Zionist Israeli media is carrying forth Netanyahu’s propaganda message to his people:  ‘Arabs are attacking us with knives on the streets and we have the right to defend ourselves’.  Other loon Israeli media outlets are warning that the Palestinian stabbers are Daesh announcing their arrival into Israel.  The politics of fear is king in the holy land today.

Multiple and organized attacks by Palestinians on settlers are occurring – two fatal Israeli settler casualties have so far been announced today; 21 injured, 3 of them in intensive care – caused by knife stabbings and a single gunfire attack.  The Palestinians are fighting back hard:  they are answering every street crime against their brethren and sisters with a violent act of resistance:  some have already substituted the rock for the knife.

Who is more afraid?  The Palestinian youth that today have taken their protest to the Qalandia Checkpoint – that miserable human cattle-sifter run by sadistic Zionists?  Or the Apartheid Israeli forces manning the Qalandia Checkpoint itself?  The answer to this question is the side that has nothing to lose is indeed the fearless one.

For days now global media has been asking: ‘well, is this a Third Intifada, or not’?  Yes, an air of confusion has permeated Palestine media analysts because the current protests have not been called by any political party – not Hamas and not the PA, not others either.  This ongoing protest was initially called by WB and Jerusalem students – and continues to actively constitute of nothing but young students.  So far it’s more akin to a youth revolution than a collective Intifada.  Their nervous leaders are demanding they empty the streets for their own safety but the protesting youth are ignoring them and calling for immediate and effective action to end the occupation – calling for a collective Intifada eruption.   Refusing to just go home and carry on being oppressed daily as per usual, they are putting their lives on the line, they are getting beaten and gassed on the streets by the IDF – they are refusing to empty the streets while the occupation continues.

Netanyahu’s response to the young Palestinian protesters is to execute them on the streets – 6 unarmed youths, including two females have been gunned down on the streets in the last 48 hours, being wildly accused of attempting to stab ‘Jews’, or of actually stabbing ‘Jews’.  Needless to say, no knife or other such evidence has been found on the bodies of the State-slain Palestinian youth.  The Israeli security apparatus is literally shooting first and asking questions later.  This is naturally inciting more Palestinian youths to take to the streets.

These youths may or may not be able to fire up a full-on Third Intifada – we have yet to determine this as events unfold – but analysts are today saying that unless Netanyahu can show that he can return ‘security’ to the streets of the holy land as soon as possible, the political wing of the settler movement will start baying for his blood, dropping out of his already fragile coalition – causing for a sudden need for a new election.  Analysts are saying that unless Netanyahu crushes these protests and does it swiftly, we may see a collapse of his government within days.

Analysts are also predicting that Leibermanism will win the next election.  Leiberman, let us remember here would very much like to see Arab Israelis, who represent 20% of Israel’s population removed from Israel proper and relocated by force of arms to the gates of the WB, Gaza or Jordan.  Violent ethnic cleansing of Israeli Arabs in exchange for emptying out a couple of strategically inconsequential Jewish settlements in the WB is not only against International law, but indeed is a poor trade-off for the Palestinian side.  Libermanism, currently and arguably the most popular ideology in Israel calls for total separation from the Palestinian other, by any means possible.

The Israeli voter, today rattled and paranoid wants the state to take harsher measures, wants the IDF to use overwhelming violence against the Palestinians – but how much more violence can Netanyahu order his army of thugs to deal out without inciting even more Palestinian violence in return?  It’s an incredibly slippery slope to tackle wearing glass shoes.

In other words, Netanyahu has no effective and sure plan that would actually stop the protests or the violence – and Leibermanists are not exactly famed for their patience…

The Palestinian youth may not have voting ability in Israel proper, but they may surprise the world when  their sheer will for freedom and their bodily sacrifice indeed become powerful enough to actually topple a sitting government.

If this were to happen, we would then define the current protests as a successful youth revolution.  If the crisis evolves drastically and the whole of the Palestinian populace joins the youth in street protests, we can then safely call this event: an Intifada.

“Dignity or death” – this is the message that young Palestinian protesters are delivering to their people, to their leaders, to their occupiers and to the world at large.

Dignity or death.  Non negotiable.

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19 comments:

  1. Bornajoo says:

    Indeed it is dignity or death. And as usual Palestinian deaths will greatly outnumber Israeli ones because there are many Israelis who are using the current atmosphere to simply murder innocent Palestinians, then claiming they were about to stab someone. This is clear from your example above where an Israeli critically wounded another Israeli by mistake. All they need to do is carry a spare knife and leave it by the executed body of a murdered Palestinian and hey presto you have a dead terrorist and an Israeli “hero”. The odds are so one sided they don’t deserve to be called odds. Israelis have guns, soldiers and police. The Palestinians have stones, knives and potato peelers

    Thanks for writing this piece Taxi

  2. Judgment Day. Is this it?

    We in the west have wrought this current state of mayhem by aiding and abetting the criminals in Israel and continuing to do so despite our complete awareness of what we are helping them inflict on innocents struggling to survive in the world’s largest prison, bereft of food, clothing, and shelter – something we would not deny a stray dog.

    We have tolerated the Israel-firsters in our country and allowed them to roam free on our streets while watching them take down our republic, brick by bloody brick. We have tolerated the Jewish 5th column in our government, media, finance, academia, and pretty much all seats of power and influence (yeah, call that a canard, I dare ya!) to the detriment of this once-great nation.

    We have watched the rise of jewish mafias in this country (while pointing the accusatory finger of guilt at Sicilians) and the dizzying climb to financial power by the likes of Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers, Madoff, and uncountably many more, with their criminal empires of fraud, gambling and prostitution, and having reached that pinnacle of absolute fiscal potency, we have impotently watched them destroy the very fiber of our political process and the foundations of our democratic aspirations, while our innocent citizenry strains under the yoke of poverty, homelessness and undeserved despair, as the American dream is wrested from their feeble grasp.

    We have watched the perpetrators of moral corruption from the likes of Epstein, Dershowitz, Polanski, Woody Allen, and the teeming multitudes that remain hidden from our shocked stare, while they spew their venom into the air we breathe and the water we drink, and rape our children and steal their youth.

    We have watched their sayanim kill our greatest president and his brother and watched their hand on the bomb levers that brought three soaring towers tumbling down, like the starter’s gun for the race to war in the Middle East. We have allowed them to control our media and entertainment and tell us what we should believe and brainwashed us with their demonization of those whom we should hate, while sheltering the most deserving of our hatred by deceit and guile.

    We have watched, tolerated, and let them live, because we are basically good and generous and they have exploited our feelings of guilt for not preventing a horror that befell them – a tale weaved from whole cloth that doesn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny, and one for which they are solely responsible, while ignoring the hundreds of thousands of our kin that died to save them from their self-inflicted fate in a war half way across the world that we had no hand in starting,

    We have watched as they told us who was “electable” as our leaders, and whom we should shun for their reluctance to stand with them, and allowed brave patriots to fall before the corrupt might of these nocturnal forces. Sanders or Clinton? Tweedledum or Tweedledee? Would you like fries with that?

    We have paid in taxes with our earnings from the sweat of our brows and the fruit of our toils, so that they could use it to bribe our corrupt officials to help them steal even more from us, while sacrificing our sons and daughters to the grist of war on foreign soil for their cause, with people who had no quarrel with us, losing us all our friends, when, before they came along, we had no enemies in those lands.

    I cry with tears of grief and rage at my impotency and the absoluteness of a cataclysm in progress that I don’t know how to stop. It is destroying me and my ability to think, and an inferno rages in my soul. What started as disgust has now transformed into anger and is fast sliding into unmitigated hatred. Yes, I hate all those who do this and all those who have helped them do it, and my hatred is destroying me while leaving the objects of my hate untouched, unimpaired, and completely unimpeded. Spare me the lecture on the wrongness of hate.

    Meanwhile, in a land decreed holy, another child is murdered, another Olive tree is uprooted, another piece of land is stolen, and another mother wails to a merciless god that has forsaken her.

    Judgment Day? Whither justice and the promise of redemption? There will be no peace and haunting nightmares will trouble our sleep. We are damned as we are doomed. No peace, no love, and no milk of human kindness will flow from the city on the hill.

    Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

    --- A very despondent Cloak and Dagger.

    • Bornajoo says:

      Very passionate comment C&D. I really understand your anguish and despondency

      Here we sit on the sidelines watching it all happen and powerless to stop it. It’s enough to drive anyone completely crazy

      And all we get for our troubles and concerns is to be labelled as anti semitic white supremacists

      It’s enough to turn one ever so slightly radical!

    • Walid says:

      “… What started as disgust has now transformed into anger and is fast sliding into unmitigated hatred.” (C & D)

      A very eloquent post, C & D, you’ve covered it all. I have already reached the hatred-for-Israel stage..

      • seanmcbride says:

        Walid,

        You wrote: “I have already reached the hatred-for-Israel stage.”

        If I may express a contrary opinion — I don’t hate anyone. Hatred tends to poison one’s system and destroy one’s capacity for rational thinking and effective action. It can destroy your life — burn your soul to cinders.

        If someone is trying to harm you, look for the most effective solution to the problem with as cool a head as possible. This doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t be passionate, dedicated and relentless in developing that solution.

        Messianic cults in particular are time bombs that need to be carefully — even scientifically — dismantled. Wailing away on them usually doesn’t produce good results.

        Others here will disagree. Fine.

      • Bornajoo says:

        Sean. Interesting point. What you say does make sense.

        However, I’ve been trying to work out what my feelings actually are. I’m not sure if they are extreme frustration, extreme anger or extreme hate.

        I’d really like to think it’s a combination of the first two, but I just need to be really honest. There’s definitely a lot (i mean a LOT) of hate in there too. I wish it wasn’t the case, but it simply is.

        It just does that to you in the end.

      • Taxi says:

        Annie Robinson here would agree with you, Sean. In my universe there are two types of hatred: senseless hatred, and righteous hate. The later does not take possession of your senses, but in fact, it prompts you into action to redress the wrong that you so ‘hate’. Righteous hate can often be an agent for change.

        You can experience a righteous hate and simultaneously maintain a cool-headed demeanor, addressing the cause with effective action.

        I know I absolutely hate injustice. In all its forms. Yeah I feel that strongly about it to emotionally arrive at ‘hate’. And I don’t have a problem feeling it.

        Semantics and descriptions of human emotions can cause much philosophical convolutions. I’ve discussed this topic a few times with others in real life and in the virtual world and I still find myself quite comfortable to feel hate towards an injustice.

      • Walid says:

        I respect your opinion, Sean, I’m not usually a hater of people but in the case of Israel, it’s hard not to. I’m counting the days before Israel comes down hard on the Palestinians of the WB and Gaza and there’s no doubt it will happen. Egypt has already killed 3 Palestinians in the tunnels. For now, the Gazans have been able to hold back the rockets but it will take only a few more assassinations of young Palestinians before the rockets start to fly and you know what would happen next. Israel is choreographing the whole thing and it’s hard to not feel hatred for this wicked evil country..

      • seanmcbride says:

        Taxi and Bornajoo,

        Hating injustice is natural and good. Hating the perpetrators of injustice is also fully natural and human — most of us feel those emotions well up when confronted with injustice.

        But I’ve noticed that any inclination towards hating groups and individuals has toxic effects on my system — on my ability to savor what is joyous in life. So I always work to resist that siren call (not always successfully).

        For instance, I feel very strongly about animal rights — and am quickly enraged by any account of animal cruelty. When I read the story about that dentist who shot Cecil the Lion, I went ballistic emotionally and imagined numerous suitable punishments for this monster. But then I tried to tamp down those feelings and expunge them from my system. What is necessary is to develop effective international law that protects animal rights and which punishes abusers of animals in a measured way.

        The level of unjust abuse that Palestinians have had to endure for the last century is impossible for most comfortable Americans to grasp. I certainly wouldn’t presume to lecture them about how they should respond emotionally to this suffering. When your homes are destroyed and your family members are murdered, you are probably not going to be able to quell your rage. But if you want to prevail politically, you need to keep your mental balance.

      • Taxi says:

        Beautifully put, Sean.

        I too cannot bear even the thought of animal cruelty. I fell into a wretched melancholia over Cecil the lion’s death. I just could not understand why anyone would do something like that. And I still don’t understand it. That level of low consciousness utterly mystifies and disturbs me.

      • Walid says:

        “Annie Robinson here would agree with you, Sean. ” (Taxi)

        Is that the same lady who Jesus loves more than she will know wo wo wo?

      • Israeli society is by and large imbued with hate, so I wouldn’t go so far to indulge like they do. But I tend to hate schemers, dishonest hucksters and shady operators – And all of the greasy Zionists seem to possess these traits. They embody poison to me.

  3. Taxi says:

    Israeli Gun Owners Rush to Shooting Ranges Amid Wave of Attacks – William Booth, Ruth Eglash/The Washington Post

    GIVAT ZEEV, West Bank — The phones have been ringing nonstop at the Gun Hill shooting range, following a week of daily knife attacks by Palestinians and a clarion call by Israeli politicians requesting that permit holders should carry their pistols on their hips to help protect the citizenry against terrorists.

    “It’s a madhouse,” said Yair Yifrach, general manger of the training center and gun shop here at a Jewish settlement north of Jerusalem.

    Perhaps not the best choice of words for a shooting range. “But people are going a little crazy,” Yifrach said.

    Israelis are frightened by violent demonstrations and daily attacks by Palestinians, not only in the West Bank but also in the heart of Israel. On Monday, Palestinians staged three stabbing attacks against Israeli civilians and police in Jerusalem; two of the attackers were shot dead, Israeli police said. One victim was a 13-year-old boy.

    Yifrach, a gun instructor, does not think it is a good idea to have a bunch of undertrained, anxious Israelis rushing to own guns. But he does support the idea — as do most Israelis — that civilians who are veterans of military service trained in responsible use of firearms are a “force multiplier” on the streets.

    “In truth, getting a gun permit in Israel is not easy — that’s what I tell people,” Yifrach said.

    Most will not meet Israel’s criteria, he said. In that case, Yifrach offers them pepper spray: “very, very strong pepper spray.”

    How many cans of spray has he sold? “Hundreds” in the last week, he said.

    Herzl Kabalo, head of the firearms department at the Ministry of Public Security, said there has been a sharp increase in the number of people requesting to renew permits or applying for new permits to carry a gun.

    The spike in gun interest comes amid a spate of attacks by Palestinians against Israeli forces and citizens — assaults carried out by knives, stones and vehicles. In several instances, Israeli civilians have shot the perpetrators; in most, however, police and soldiers have done the shooting — sometimes in controversial videotaped events that Israeli human rights activists have called disproportionate and Palestinians have called extrajudicial killings.

    Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat was photographed last week carrying his Glock 40 with an Israeli-made Roni carbine extender that turns a handgun into a rifle, while visiting a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

    “Given the current escalation in the security situation, those with a licensed firearm who know what to do with it must go out. It’s an imperative,” Barkat told Israel’s Army Radio.

    Barkat waved off criticism of possible vigilantism or bad optics, even though Jerusalem’s No. 1 industry is tourism.

    “This is something Israelis understand, appreciate and feel secure with,” the mayor told the Associated Press. “In America and in Europe, if you see civilians carry guns you get scared. In Israel, it’s exactly the opposite.”

    Barkat was probably not speaking for the Palestinian residents of the West Bank or East Jerusalem, who are not allowed to possess firearms. Jewish settlers living nearby are permitted to carry.

    “We can only expect that more violence and oppression will arrive in the coming days,” Palestinian chief peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said about Barkat’s call for Jewish Israeli civilians to carry their weapons on the street.

    “Against the cowardly Arab terrorism, a wave of Jewish courage is rising to defeat it,” said Naftali Bennett, Israel’s education minister. He applauded swift action by armed Israeli civilians.

    An Israeli parliamentarian, Yinon Magal, told Army Radio, “I’m not saying we should take the law into our hands and lynch people,” but “whoever is trying to kill us should be taken out.”

    At the shooting range and gun store here, the shop manager pointed out how hard it is to get a permit in Israel. Laws in the United States are far more permissive — “they’re cowboys,” he said of the Americans. In the background, the pistol fire in the sound-muffled underground shooting range sounded like a hammer pounding nails: plunk! plunk! plunk!

    About 260,000 Israelis have permits to carry a firearm, or about 3.5 percent of the population. Half of the permit holders are private citizens, and half work for security firms.

    Israeli applicants must submit paperwork, military records and medical reports, and must justify their need to carry a weapon. Approval takes 30 days. Aresident of Tel Aviv will not be given a permit, though residents of a Jewish settlement in the West Bank will be. So will retired army officers, former police officers, firefighters, ambulance technicians, special forces vets, licensed public transportation drivers and residents of militarily strategic buffer zones, as well as those who live or work in Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem — including the Old City — and the West Bank.

    The Public Security Ministry requires gun owners to fire 50 rounds with a licensed instructor. The permits are good for three years and must be renewed.

    Akiva Isaac was at the store to buy a more compact pistol. He lives in Ofra, one of the first Jewish settlements built in the West Bank in the 1970s. “You don’t have to persuade me it’s a good idea to carry a gun,” he said.

    But Isaac said Israel should not lower standards or make gun ownership easier. Carrying a gun did not necessarily make him feel safe. “It is a burden and a responsibility,” he said.

    Moshe Fidler, a retired undercover police detective, lives in Jerusalem and always carries his sidearm, a Glock 21-C, which he called the “limousine of handguns.” He also did not think that widespread permitting of guns was the solution, even though in civilian life he fired the weapon to scare off Palestinian rock throwers.

    “You don’t need to throw gasoline on the fire,” Fidler said. “Guns are serious things. One split second of stupidity can cause a lot of damage.”

    Asaf Sela, an army veteran and resident of the Jewish settlement of Beit El, was undergoing six days of intensive firearms training to work as a security guard at his community. He agreed that it is a good idea for all Israelis with gun permits to carry their weapons, but he stressed they should be properly licensed.

    “A lot of untrained Israelis running around with weapons would be a big mess,” he said.

    Israeli gun owners rush to shooting ranges amid wave of attacks – The Washington Post

  4. Taxi says:

    Kerry Blames Settlement Construction for Terror Outbreak

    A “massive increase in settlements” built by Israel in recent years has led to the “frustration” and “violence” now stoking its decades-old conflict with the Palestinians, US Secretary of State John Kerry said at Harvard University on Tuesday night. Kerry earlier condemned the latest terror wave against Israel. He said he would soon go the region to try and reengage the situation “away from this precipice,” lest the two-state solution “be stolen from everybody” if violence in the region were to spiral out of control.

    Kerry blames settlement construction for terror outbreak

  5. Bornajoo says:

    “Israel is choreographing the whole thing and it’s hard to not feel hatred for this wicked evil country.”

    Couldn’t agree more Walid. Its a GENOCIDE! it’s choreographed, it’s meticulously planned, it’s incremental and it’s a Fucking genocide

    And I’m supposed to be able to control my hate?

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