That soldier, who tied a Palestinian to the hood of a car, is your son

Wounded Palestinian transported on the hood of an IDF vehicle in Jenin, June 2024

Tamer Nafar writes in Haaretz on 25 June 2024:

It’s not only Israelis’ hearts that October 7 has made impervious, but also their senses. Cruelty toward Palestinians is one of the cornerstones upon which Israel was built and on which it still stands. If we peruse quotes from before and after October 7 (and even well before), we won’t find major differences in true intent.

In January, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said: “We must advance the solution encouraging Gaza’s residents to emigrate. It’s the correct, just, moral and humane solution.”

A long time prior to that, in 1938, senior Zionist politico Arthur Ruppin said: “I don’t believe in the transfer of an individual. I believe in the transfer of entire villages.” To which David Ben-Gurion was quick to add: “I don’t see anything unethical in that.”

These aren’t quotes from “the ugly Israeli.” These were things said by the country’s beautiful faces, which can be printed on a stamp or banknote, whom universities and colleges and streets are named after.  And between 1938 and 2024, one can find tens of thousands of racist and cruel quotes from leaders with power, leaders whose racism wasn’t just a personal sentiment but a call to action.

So there has always been cruelty, supremacy and acts of slaughter against the Palestinians, but they were concealed under layers of makeup of wisdom, strategy and public relations efforts. Israel has always known how to do both – how to be a military` dictatorship controlling an entire population with an iron hand. and also looking like the only democracy in the Middle East; committing war crimes and also promoting the slogan “the most moral army the world”; a country purportedly treating everyone equally and also the country of the Jews.

But after October 7, you lost it. Not the cruelty. The cruelty was boosted by a factor of a million as a response to October 7. But you’ve lost your senses and strategy. You’ve really lost them.

Here’s a small example. A military vehicle is traveling around the West Bank city of Jenin in the height of the heat while across the hood of the car, a shirtless Palestinian lies tied up. Initially it’s not clear from the video if he’s alive or dead, but if you look hard, you see he’s trying to raise his bleeding head, and you hear a soldier speaking into a microphone while driving. “Let’s go, fast,” he says in Arabic.

He’s saying it to the occupants of two nearby Palestinian ambulances, prompting them to pull over to the side – leading you to think that maybe there’s no room in the military vehicle, so they were taking the Palestinian to an ambulance. But the military vehicle passes the ambulances and continues on with the bleeding Palestinian still tied to the hood. That leads you to think that maybe they’re using him as a human shield, even though there’s no shooting in the area.

I don’t know the soldier who was driving. He may be the nice-looking young man at the supermarket who gave up his place in line to an elderly woman, or maybe the ugly young man who attacked an elderly man at a soccer match because he was a fan of the opposing team. I’m not sure who the young man is. But I’m sure he’s your son.

The saga of the Palestinian tied to the hood is truly shocking and heartrending, but it’s not why I’m writing this. I don’t think this is the time for us to appeal to one another’s hearts. That path is impassable until further notice. So it’s better to be frank and practical and find other ways. I appeal to you from one mind to another, and the first thing that occurs to me is: Why?

Forget that tying a wounded person to the hood of a car is an immoral, inhumane act, forget all the superfluous verbiage that the Western world has taught us without explaining to us that these are words which are exclusive to a certain color.

Use your senses a bit and think about yourselves, about the hostages, for example. Imagine now that you’re a Hamas member in an apartment in Gaza with a hostage, and you see soldiers on television who tied up a wounded, blindfolded person and they’re driving around on the streets with him. Wouldn’t it occur to you to tie the hostage up to a hood and drive around in a neighborhood that the Israeli army is bombing?

It would have been possible to arrest the guy and beat him inside the vehicle, where no camera could photograph what was happening. It also would have been possible to shoot Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in the leg and actually convince the world it was a mistake.

It would have been possible to free all those innocent Palestinians who “only” testified about beatings that you could deny – instead of their emerging with severed arms, severed legs or in body bags.

Or maybe the time has come to admit that it’s impossible to have it both ways. It’s impossible for 75 years to both repress a people and maintain a pretty picture. Maybe the time has come to accept the ugly Israel in all of his hues, iterations and positions, and then find ways to correct the situation.

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