Israel’s Military Speak Out 1-30-13

1-30-13 Israel’s Military Speak Out

An Oscar-nominated documentary, "The Gatekeepers" provides a stark admission by six former heads of Israel’s internal security (akin to our FBI and CIA) of their agency’s methods of targeted killings of militants and civilians in the Occupied Territories, including torture and the suppression of mass protests during two intifadas.  All six former heads are now critical of the methods they were assigned to use to subjugate the Palestinians and they warned that successive governments have undermined Israel’s future by refusing to make peace. A former head, Carmi Gillon, admits that “We are making the lives of millions unbearable, into prolonged human suffering. Another -  Avraham Shalom adds, “ we have become a brutal occupation force similar to the Germans in World War II." Israeli forces have begun the year with a spate of killings of unarmed Palestinian civilians. A 21-year-old Palestinian woman was the latest victim – gunned down at a West Bank School. Israeli human rights group B’Tselem castigated Israeli Defense Forces accusing them of "extensively and systematically violating their own rules of engagement when suppressing protests in the West Bank.” Dror Moreh’s powerful documentary might jump start the moribund peace process aided by Israel’s recent election which tilted power from right wing extremists to the center. It is now up to President Obama to show leadership in brokering a lasting peace and usher in an independent Palestinian state. Failure to do so will surely lead to unending conflict.