January 06, 2006

When man ceases to be human(e)...

"Oh look! A real terrorist!"

It's a new year and I'm sure you haven't made plans for the holidays yet. Some of you will go visit your families and others will probably end up somewhere warm with a beach, but those of you who find life's normality a tad bit grey, here's the trip that will guaranteed spice up your life!

Shurat HaDin, or the Israeli Law Center, arranges three trips per year under the name "The Ultimate Mission to Israel". Swedish journalist Peter Kadhammar writes about his trip in an article in Aftonbladet. During six days you get to travel near the border of Lebanon staring Hezbollah in the eye, and you also, among many other exciting things, get to witness the trial of a suspected terrorist to the background music of his mother and father crying. 10 000 Palestinians enjoy the comforts of Israeli prison and 750 are currently in administrative prison which basically means they haven't committed a crime but might do so. Better to be safe than sorry ey? Why not just imprison all Palestinians, then we can all live safely?


Perfect photo op! Father of 8, Iad Abiat charged with membership in a group who killed 2 civilians.

Later on one gets to enjoy a moonlight boat cruise on the Sea of the Galilee followed by dinner at Decks, the finest restaurant on the Sea of the Galilee. It's important to have energy enough to be able to continue contributing to a better world or as The Israel Law Center themselves further explain:

Participants are also required to make a tax-deductible donation to Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center to aid in the fight against Arab terror.

Next on the agenda is witnessing how Israeli police arrest and shoot potential terrorists (all staged of course).

After that one will be taken to an extremely important lecture by the Israeli Secret Service's former Head of the Department of Interrogation, Chaim Ben Ami. After 9/11 he was brought in by the US Administration to advice on methods of interrogation. Ben Ami explains that he doesn't like the word torture.

-The first thing I said to them (the US Administration) was; stop using the word torture! What is torture? To prevent someone from sleeping 24 hours? 48? 72?

-No!!! yelled the audience.

Ami continues to explain the legal term "necessity according to needs". You see sometimes fighting terrorism can be tedious and complicated. E.g. when a Palestinian terror group was about to commit an act of terror in Tel Aviv, two Palestinians were caught wandering the Jordan River and the Police quickly and effectively interrogated them. But, what were they to do with them later? It couldn't be known that they were missing or arrested for that would warn their group. Ami stretches out his arms demonstrating how he holds someone down with his hands.

- Blub blub blub, he says.

The audience laughs.

-Blub blub blub.

Drown them! That's a solution- it looks like an accident.

But this is all so academical, it's a holiday after all and even though the thought of Israeli police drowning terror suspects is extremely amusing (apparently), let's continue enjoying the sights and sounds of this modern day Colosseum...

...No, these are not Roman citizens cheering on their Emperor as he signs with his hand indicating the sign of death for the Gladiator on stage. These are American-Israeli tourists, nurses, dentists, lawyers, "citizens of civilization" on a mission...the ultimate mission...

In an article in The Washington Post, the following was written about the trip:

People are really giving it a bad rap -- unfairly," complained Yehoshua Klein, who heads the Gush Etzion Tourism Association. "So people are coming, visiting settlements, looking at what's going on here, taking a Jeep tour. It is not like they are going into some Arab village and shooting at people."

Yet...

Ps. Iad Abiat recieved 21 years in prison, to the cheers and applauds of everyone in the group.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's sick! What has the world come to?

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Hey jim. I am inclined to agree with you. The moment we demonize humans, we have infact killed off a part of humanity and a part of ourselves. How anyone can laugh at the thought of killing someone regardless if it were the murderer of one's own family or someone elses... It is many things, but it is not a laughing matter, that's for sure...leaves a disturbing taste in ones mouth.

Anonymous said...

Well I don't condone palestinians killing civilan israelis either, that's just wrong i mean two wrongs don't make a right you know?

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Sure, two wrongs don't make a right jim but comparing the two would not do justice to either side. Killing civilians per se, is never ok, and more so for a government to exercise liberties beyond their given rights is far worse. If governments who preach democracy do not live by it, and tailor it according to their fancies, then there will be no respect or honouring of that government by people around it, this enabling for extremes within the other party to take hold of something they normally would not have been able to.

BuJ said...

all these philosophical rambles are a waste of time, so is civilised debate! i want to be a dictator and abolish israel and establish a country called The Holy Land Republic where both Arab and Jew can live there and who rules will be dictated by numbers, ya3ni democracy.

Immigration will be open, so if you wanna bring in Jews from Russia then Palestinians from Lebanon will also be welcome.

It will be a mess for a few years, but eventually equilibrium will ensue and I will achieve fame as the dictator that solved the Arab/Israeli conflict. Of course elections will be cosmetic, only to please the USA and the UN :)

Pictures of me will be everywhere, and statues of me will be built.

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Yes, and you should hang your pictures in public toilets as well, just to make sure people remember that you're president..I saw that in Damascus once...Both Hafez and Bashar joined me as I was fixing my hijab in the ladies room... :)

BuJ said...

ughhhhh.. that's disgusting thank you very much!
in the toilets i'll place pictures of my predecessors only!

Inshalla when I complete my dicatorial quests I will offer you the post of Minister for Foreign Affairs, I do hope you accept, but we have a bais towards Oxbridge grads...

Anonymous said...

Plz keep on writing about such things that we don't usually find in the news here. It is terrible what's going on and the worst part is that we don't know half of the things happening there.

Anonymous said...

disgusting.

whenever I read such articles, I tend to think like Buj.

Afterall, the whole middle-east problem started with the birth of this baby now turned into a WMD-holding macho.

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

Indeed subhan... disgusting it is. Welcome by the way...