Police vehicle shot up, having just brought wounded to
hospital.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=267169&contrass
ID=2&subContrassID=14&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Twilight Zone /
In the line of duty
By Gideon Levy
A Palestinian medic was
wounded by IDF fire as he tried to tend to an injured
man. The medicwas shot five times; the injured man died.
The IDF spokesperson: We have no reports of this incident
Whenever they hear the sound of the IDF approaching, the
medical teams in Gaza get into their ambulances and head
out into the field. On the night shift of the Palestinian
police clinic in the northern Gaza Strip, a team made up
of two doctors, two medics and a driver was doing just
that late last Sunday night. Among them was medic Majd
Majdalawi, who was brought to Sheba Medical Center.
 Having spent five years on the
job, Majdalawi, 30, has seen it all. "I've seen
people wounded from bombs and gunfire, from shells and
tanks, assassinations, rockets, mines, you name it. Head
wounds, chest wounds, stomach wounds, and in the legs
like me. A lot died and a lot survived. I've seen
hundreds, many hundreds." That night, the
experienced medic lay bleeding on the ground for a long
time before his colleagues could get to him. The bright
orange vest he wore and the lights of his ambulance
didn't stop him from coming under fire. He was shot at
after he and his fellow medic tried to come to the aid of
a wounded man lying by the side of the road, between a
house that had just been blown up and a row of nearby
trees. The man may have been an armed suspect, wanted by
the IDF.
Last Sunday, at the police clinic, at around 11pm, the
sound of the Israeli tanks were first heard. "When
we heard it, we knew there would be trouble," he
says. A little before midnight helicopters filled the sky
and they could hear tanks on the move. Then the second
floor of the clinic, which was empty, came under fire.
The orchards and the abandoned posts of the Palestinian
security forces near the building are always targets.
The shooting intensified, and the team hurried out of the
building: Dr. Faisal Ashkar, Dr. Ismail Najjar, medic
Mohammed Abu Shanar and driver Abdullah Maqawi joined
Majdalawi in the ambulance. They quickly headed toward
the center of town.
Their director instructed the two medics to head back
north with the driver, because there were wounded there.
On the way, they got reports from other ambulances that
had already been to the area under fire. At 2:30 in the
morning, they heard a loud explosion. They were told that
the house of a suspect in the Tawam neighborhood had been
blown up. They also heard that there were wounded people
near the house, and that it would be dangerous to try to
get close to them.
They took a roundabout route and arrived in Tawam,
finding other ambulances and a television crew out. They
formed a little convoy and made wary, in halting
progress, forward. Suddenly, a tank came over a nearby
hill: "Then we knew that that's where the danger was
and the demolished house and the injured people."
They stopped and waited. Two people suddenly ran across
the dark street and shouted to them to get away because
tanks were coming. Soon after, they heard firing coming
from the direction of the tank. Majdalawi told the driver
to turn around quickly, but then they heard cries for
help coming from inside one of the houses. They carefully
moved toward the house. The two medics got out of the
ambulance. In the darkness, Majdalawi saw that someone
was lying by the side of the road. "At that moment,
I stopped thinking. I forgot about the tank. I just
wanted to evacuate the wounded person," he says.
They approached the man, saw that he was breathing and
decided to try to carry him to the ambulance. Majdalawi
took his hands and Abu Shanar held his legs.
The shooting started right away. They had just begun to
move the wounded man when the first bullet struck
Majdalawi's left leg and he fell to the ground. Then Abu
Shanar was wounded, also in the left leg. Abu Shanar
began to crawl as fast as he could toward the ambulance;
he was not as seriously injured as Majdalawi, who was
struck a second time, this time in the arm.
He began shouting for help to the other ambulance crews,
which weren't very far away, but they shouted back that
they couldn't get to him because of the gunfire. He lay
wounded on the ground, futilely calling for help. "I
was covered with blood. I tried to crawl a little
further. I'd just started moving when another bullet hit
me in the left leg. At this point, I'd almost lost
consciousness. Everything was hazy. I was lying between
the wounded guy behind me and the other ambulance teams,
who'd taken cover behind the house. All I could think
about was how I was going to get out of this."
Finally, one of the ambulance drivers parked his vehicle
so it could act as a buffer between the tank and
Majdalawi, and he was taken into this ambulance along
with the other injured man, who appeared to have died in
the meantime.
The tank opened fire again and a bullet struck one of the
ambulance's tires. Another ambulance was placed as a
buffer, and he was transferred there on a stretcher.
Toward daybreak, they reached Shifa hospital and that
evening he was rushed to an Israeli hospital, Sheba,
where he was in surgery for 18 hours. He was shot five
times in all - in the right leg, the left leg, the arm,
the abdomen and the back. The worst injury was to his
right leg, where the bone was shattered and the nerves
damaged. His doctors hope that he'll be back on his feet
eventually, though he has a long way to go. This week, he
was transferred back to Gaza, much to his dismay. He had
hoped to remain here for his future operations and
rehabilitation.
Majdalawi says he has no doubts that he and his
colleagues were fired upon to prevent them from
evacuating the wounded man."I'm a person who never
hated Jews and never thought about hating Jews. I was
always sure of what I was doing and I always thought that
if an Israeli soldier got wounded near me, I would take
care of him like I would anyone else. That's why I
expected to be treated well here, because we're all
involved in saving lives. And I have been treated well.
"We know that we can also become targets - a friend
of mine who's a medic lost his leg a few months ago - but
we're determined to do our job, to save lives. God
willing, when I recover, I'll go back to the same place,
to the same job."
The IDF replied to enquiry: "During this action, the
forces came under fire. IDF soldiers returned fire toward
the sources of the gunfire. In checking with sources in
the field, there was no claim of someone from a medical
team being injured. It should be noted that no complaint
about such a matter was received by the coordination and
liaison offices." 
According to the Red Crescent, since the start of the
intifada, there have been 231 incidents of Palestinian
ambulances coming under fire: 109 ambulances were hit and
27 were totally destroyed; 187 Red Crescent staff -
doctors, medics and drivers - were injured in these
incidents and three were killed by IDF fire.
The IDF's Slippery Moral
Slope
By Neve GordonŠjanuary 2003
Jerusalem: Following my last military reserve
duty, I was kicked out of my unit, the Israeli
Defense
Force’s (IDF) educational corps.
There was a surrealistic dimension to the whole
experience. I had driven a few hours to a base
located near the Egyptian border after having
been asked to lecture about
“Leadership” to 60 soldiers of the
Givati infantry brigade who were about to begin
officers’ training course. These young
men are the military’s future commanders,
its elite.
I decided to concentrate, in the lecture’s
first part, on the relationship between
leadership and moral virtue, examining the
characteristics distinguishing leaders such as
Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot from others like
Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther
King. In the discussion that followed, the
soldiers concluded that all of the leaders
mentioned possessed charisma, intelligence, and
rhetorical skills, but only the latter three were
guided by universal moral values -- the equality
of all people.
The second part of the presentation focused on
leadership within the IDF. My main
contention was that so long as the occupation of
Palestinian territories continues, the Israeli
military will not produce worthy leaders.
The argument was mainly structural, namely that
within the context of the occupation even the
most humane officers would find themselves
trampling human dignity. To substantiate my claim
I offered several examples in which IDF soldiers
committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip, an area
well known to my audience.
Following the lecture, the soldiers contested my
analysis concerning IDF leadership, raising two
major objections.
First they argued that the IDF’s primary
objective is to protect Israeli citizens, and in
order to accomplish this goal it must, at times,
violate human rights and international law.
 “In
order to save lives in Tel-Aviv, I have to detain
Palestinians at a checkpoint,” one soldier
exclaimed, and then added: “If, for example,
in the process an infant dies because of delayed
access to a hospital, then so be it.” When I
asked if the same rationale applied to two,
three, or more babies, he replied in the
affirmative, without batting an eye.
The soldiers then went on to claim that the
“IDF is the most moral army in the
world.” While several thought this to
be axiomatic, others felt it necessary to offer
evidence.
“Several months ago we entered a refugee
camp to apprehend a ‘wanted’
Palestinian,” one said. “We could
have ordered a helicopter to bomb the house where
the suspect was hiding, but we decided that the
platoon would enter the camp despite possible
risk to our soldiers; we did not want to harm
innocent people,” he explained.
Other soldiers also presented examples to show
how on numerous occasions the IDF could have
employed more brutal means, but refrained from
doing so in order to minimize the number of
innocent Palestinians casualties. Theirs was the
voice of the military establishment, and while
these two arguments are powerful, both suffer
from a common fallacy of moral relativism.
Regarding the logic underlying the first claim --
the hypothetical death of the child at the
checkpoint -- Jewish political philosopher Hannah
Arendt once said that when the end justifies the
means, then everything is permitted. And indeed,
during the past two years we have seen the
dangerous and devastating implications of a moral
position that lacks an anchor.
It began with the unremitting curfews, followed
by reports of babies dying at checkpoints and
snipers shooting children. This was just the
beginning; the military continued its moral slide
as soldiers demolished homes with their residents
still inside, and Israeli pilots bombed populated
buildings located in town centers.
The soldiers’ second claim suffers from a
similar error of moral relativism, simply because
there is no limit to human cruelty, and it will
always be possible to argue that the IDF could
have behaved more brutally in a given
situation.
The soldier who detained a sick woman for seven
hours at the checkpoint could have beaten her and
prevented her from passing through at all; yet
this in no way justifies a seven-hour
delay. The pilot who dropped the one-ton
bomb on the populated houses, killing nine
children, could have destroyed an entire
neighborhood, but the “mercy” he showed
does not in any way make his act moral.
The chain of events since the outbreak of the
second Intifada suggests that the IDF has
employed more and more force against a primarily
civilian population, and that every action is
justified by comparing it to more brutal actions
the IDF could, theoretically, have carried out.
In the absence of a universal moral approach --
whereby there are things that one simply does not
do, regardless -- one is left with a tribal or
relativistic worldview. Here the right to human
dignity is contingent on national, ethnic, or
religious affiliation, rather than on membership
of the human species.
Because the IDF has rejected the notion that
human beings are created equal, every young
commander who follows its codes will inevitably
slide down the slippery moral slope. And as the
soldiers themselves seemed to understand at the
outset of the lecture, universal moral values are
what distinguish corrupt from worthy leaders --
an axiom that must be applied to the IDF too.
Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion
University and is a contributor to The Other
Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent (New Press
2002). He can be reached at ngordon@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
In These Times, www.inthesetimes.com
********************************************************************
Joan W Drake wrote:
> The message that I am forwarding is from my
friend, Noah Salameh, a former
> student at the Institute for Conflict
Analysis and Resolution with whom I
> have stayed in touch over the past 5 years
since his return to the West Bank.
>
>
> Subject: we are not your
enemy
> By Noah Salameh
> We are not your
enemy
>
> We are Palestinians, we are Arabs, we
are Muslims and we are human beings but we are
not your enemy, we have different culture, we
have different opinions than you, but we are not
against you.
>
> Looking to these machines, fully
equipped by America, arms passing every day
beside my house and killing my people, and
thinking of all the Americans I know. I say to my
self these arms is not from my friends, my
friends are against killing and arming.
> I don't want to believe that these arms
which kill my friends and destroyed our houses
are American, because you are not my enemy and I
don't want to hate you. Keep your arms far from
my house and far from my children, I'm not your
enemy, so whydo you send all these arms to kill,
and destroy; and why is your tax money used to
build settlements on my land ??
> I'm not against you, I don't hate you, I'm
not your enemy, so stop making me angry and
planting hate in my children hearts for you. I
want to be free from hatred and violence
>
> After they find the world busy with the
war on Iraq, Sharon will declare a new war
against the Palestinian people. Every day more
than 15 Palestinian are killed, and thousands
bereft, without houses, in Nablus and Gaza. The
tanks are invading the old city of Nablus which
has very narrow roads, destroying all the ancient
historical houses, and the world stays silent on
these crimes.
> I hope that the American president can
understand that and give some of his time for
those innocent people, the relatives of all who
died or those who became homeless.
> We are not your enemy and we don't want to
hate you or hurt you, so help us not to hate you,
help our children<
>
The Israeli tank destruction inters
the old city in Nablus for which it is famous,
its narrow roads and all the old houses whichare
considered a historical treasure. In addition to
the fact that thousands of unarmed citizens live
in those houses, having nothing to defend
themselves with.... so where is the world, where
is the American president who defends democracy
and human rights. Or is he selling us few words
and "promises", and also Mr. Tony
Blaire, and giving arms and tanks to Israel to
destroy our houses and kill our children??
> So, why is he doing that? What did we do to
America? Were we ever USA enemies? Or is he
inviting us to be enemies?
> Neither can I understand how the USA can
collect all this army to kill the Iraqi people
>
> These wars just bring destruction and
more killing of thousands of innocent people, and
all this under the slogan of Peace !!Does Peace
mean killing, violence, destroying houses,
discrimination, and prejudice??
> They are only planting hatred, and
furnishing the floor for more waves of violence
and terrorism. If the world does not move, if the
peace lovers do not move, we will all suffer, we
will all become victims to this and grow to hate
each other... if we don't stop this wave of
hatred between east and west.
>
> Yours in peace &
reconciliation,
> The
Center for Conflict Resolution &
Reconciliation - CCRR
> Director
> Noah
Salameh .Thu, 27 Feb 2003
> E-mail:salamehn@hotmail.com
..RECEIVED THURS.6TH MARCH
FROM NOAH:>>>>
March 6, 2003
This is not on my name
Dear friends, peace activists, and all human
being in the world, The bombing in the bus in
Haifa is not on my name, I condemn it and I
don’t agree of this way of protest. It is
against my morals values, principles, and ethics,
I’m against killing civilians from any kind
and from any side, I’m against violence,
killing, or shooting from any side, and from any
person, I’m very sorry for the killing of
the civilians and I’m not supporting any
killing and think that killing is the same and
the values of human life are the same, and in
this context I would like to remind that
according to Palestinian Red Crescent Society
records and Defense of Children International
that since January 5th 2003, 154 Palestinian
civilians including 17 children have been killed,
and the world passed them without condemnations.
I’m here condemning this killing and every
killing by individuals, groups, and
government’s terror, in the name of defense,
or religion, or nationality or any kind of
justification, it is not accepted to me and I
refuse all reasons for killing and violence.
The only way to live together is not the balance
of violence, or killing, it is the peace with
justice, respect, recognition, and cooperation
for human equality. So I hope that we all stand
against violence on the same basis and condemn
all violence from any side and for any reason.
I’m writing this letter and listening to the
news: “until now 11 Palestinians were killed
in Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza, and 145
injured”, I hope that the world will condemn
in the same level the killing of Palestinians as
it did when things happen at the Israeli side.
Killing is the same and humans are the
same….
Yours in peace & reconciliation,
The Center for Conflict Resolution &
Reconciliation - CCRR
Director
Noah Salameh .
> E-mail:salamehn@hotmail.com
|
|
