{"content":[{"text":"Life on Planet Hebron - Defence Viewpoints from UK Defence Forum \n Sunday, 03 July 2016 10:38","bbox":{"left":0.071899,"top":0.013031,"width":0.5996329999999999,"height":0.035087}},{"text":"been reduced to a thick and noxious paste. And Palestine's realities are not different from our \n own.</p> <p><br />In a footnote, he explained, \"As I write this, demonstrators are shutting \n down freeways to protest the killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown by police in New York \n and in Ferguson, Missouri.\" The connection is closer than he realizes, as Jeff Halper \n demonstrated in War Against the People: Israel trained police from both New York and \n Ferguson in crowd-control tactics honed on the West Bank.</p> <p>An Israeli soldier named \n Eran attempted to build a bridge to Palestinian children near his checkpoint by offering them a \n Cheez Doodle-like snack called Bamba. One boy accepted. Eran, who had been troubled by the \n treatment his fellow soldiers meted out to Palestinians, \"felt ecstatic. He could finally be the man \n he wanted to be, a soldier who was loved for his kindness.\" That night, he took part in raids on \n Palestinian houses, \"to make sure they never lost the feeling of being chased,\" and to map the \n interior of the houses. After searching two houses, his officer went after a third.</p> <p>They \n forced the family outside into the snow and went in and started searching. Eran opened the \n door to a child's room � he remembered seeing a painting of Winnie-the-Pooh on one wall � \n and had begun sketching when he realized there was someone in the bed. A young boy leaped \n out from under the covers. He was naked. Startled, Eran raised his gun, aiming at the child. It \n was the kid from the checkpoint that afternoon. \"He started peeing himself,\" Eran said, \"and we \n were just shaking, both of us.\"</p> <p><br />When the boy's father tried to protect him, the \n officer arrested the father and made him sit in the snow. Then the officer told Eran to forget \n about the map, which was not important. At this point in another book, Eran might have joined, \n like many other young Israelis, Combatants for Peace and denounced the occupation. The truth \n for Eran was, \"I didn't stop doing the things I did, I just stopped thinking.\"</p> <p>If the \n Palestinians endure such treatment, it is because they have no option. And yet, writes \n Ehrenreich:</p> <p>It wasn't all sadness. People laughed a lot. Or perhaps I should say that \n sadness has many faces, and laughter is one of them, though that's not quite right either. It's \n just that grief was not something special. There were greater and lesser sorrows, but sorrow \n was a given.</p> <p><br />The early 20th-century Colombian writer Jos�Mar� Vargas Vila \n wrote in La Muerte del C�dor, \"When life is torture, suicide is a duty.\" Yet for these people of \n whom Ehrenreich writes so elegantly, the duty is to remain. The Palestinian poet Tawfiq Ziad \n wrote:</p> <p>we shall remain,<br />guard the shade of the fig<br />and olive trees,<br \n />ferment rebellion in our children<br />as yeast in the dough.</p> <p> </p> <p>Review first \n published in The Intecept June 2016 <a \n href=\"http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=349f815120864d73f22786e0f&id=3359d6d9bc&e= \n 243f87c329\">http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=349f815120864d73f22786e0f&id=3359d6d \n 9bc&e=243f87c329</a></p>","bbox":{"left":0.071899,"top":0.087836,"width":0.856054,"height":0.628586}},{"text":"2 / 2","bbox":{"left":0.881206,"top":0.952395,"width":0.026151999999999953,"height":0.015203999999999995}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}