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Aug-04-2014 15:45TweetFollow @OregonNews Mowing The GrassJafar M Ramini Salem-News.com"They do not forget. All that endure the humiliation, abuse and murder of those they love do not forget." -Chris Hedges
(LONDON) - Today is Sunday and in the West it is a day of leisure. A popular activity is tending well-manicured gardens, enjoying the peace and quiet and mowing the grass. Mowing the grass in Israeli military speak has a different connotation altogether. ‘Mowing the grass’ is a recognized Israeli military strategy as defined by Professor Efraim Inbar and Dr Eitan Shamir, both of the Begin-Sadat Center of Strategic Studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. The grass they have in mind, particularly in Gaza, is every living thing and every standing structure. Professor Inbar and Dr Shamir are not bashful about this strategy. They say: ‘Against an implacable, well-entrenched, non-state enemy like the Hamas, Israel simply needs to “mow the grass” once in a while in order to degrade enemy capabilities.’ Have I got your attention? Then I shall begin. Just conjure up the image of a gardening nursery stocked to the brim with many plants, from tiny saplings to mature, not to say elderly, trees. Now change the plants to human beings. Because, horrifying as it may look or sound, this is exactly what has been happening in, around and over Gaza for the last four weeks. This is not a new policy. It has nothing to do with accusing Hamas of capturing the three Israelis squatters without a shred of evidence. It has nothing to do with ineffective rockets fired from Gaza. It is an unwavering Israeli military policy of land theft and resources and genocide in Palestine. According to the Oxford Dictionary Genocide is: ‘The deliberate extermination of a people or nation’. Note the use of the word ‘extermination’ and please be reminded of how a former Prime Minister of Israel and a former Israeli Chief of Staff described the Palestinian nation. "When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Occupation Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983. "The Palestinians" would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in a speech to Jewish squatters New York Times April 1, 1988. If ‘Mowing the Grass’ is repugnant to you, then another military maneuvre, known as the ‘Dahiya Doctrine’, also devised by the Israeli army, is remarkably similar. Used in the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, Israel Invasion Forces Northern Commander, Gadi Eisenkot recommended and got approval for the application of a military strategy that would target and destroy an entire civilian area rather than fight to overtake fortified positions one by one. The strategy calls for the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure in order to induce suffering and severe distress throughout the targeted population. The idea is to either make the indigenous population either flee or surrender or blame their own people. Does this sound familiar? Does it bring the current genocide in Gaza to mind? In my opinion there is no doubt, especially when you know that Commander Gabi Eisenkot, who masterminded the invasion in Lebanon is now Deputy Chief of General Staff. The Israelis have ‘mowed the lawn’ of Palestine since before the creation of their illegitimate entity. They kill, kill and kill again. And you know what? They blame the victims. This is what another infamous Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir had to say after another massacre in Palestine. “We cannot forgive the Arabs for forcing us to kill their children...” So when they kill our children it’s our fault. Fast forward to the current genocide in Gaza. This is what the incumbent Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu had the nerve to say on CNN two weeks ago: “They want to pile up as many civilian dead as they can because somebody said, and I mean, it’s gruesome, but they use telegenically-dead Palestinians for their cause. They want– the more dead the better.” This is the same Mr. Netanyahu who wrote a book about terrorism in 1986: ‘How The West Can Win’ in which he wrote: "Terrorism is the deliberate and systematic murder, maiming and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear for political ends.” Isn’t this exactly what he is inflicting on Gaza right now? Isn’t this what ‘mowing the grass’ and the Dahiya Doctrine both prescribe? On Friday last ‘The Times Of Israel’ published an article entitled ‘When Genocide Is Permissible’. A few hours later the article was removed but not before the Internet got hold of it. Written by Yochanan Gordon, who defended the move on his Twitter page, the article called for committing of genocide against the Palestinian civilians in Gaza. He said: "(Israel’s) hands are being tied by world leaders who over the past six years have insisted they are such good friends with the regime” He then added that “nothing, then, can be considered disproportionate” (in the fight against Gazans.) Abhorrent, I know. But for this madness to stop it is incumbent on the American people to call upon their government to stop supplying Israel with state-of-the-art armory, blanket political and diplomatic cover and huge amounts of money. No matter what. Another infamous defence minister, Moshe Dayan once said of the American people. “Our American friends give us money, give us arms and give us advice. We take the money, we take the arms and we decline the advice.” On Friday last, both Mr. Obama, the President of The United States and Mr. Kerry, the US Secretary of State blamed the Palestinians (unjustly) for the breakdown of the cease fire in Gaza while somehow condoning the fact that Israel was still continuing its ground offensive, ceasefire or no ceasefire. Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry demanded that the Palestinians release the ‘captured’ Israeli soldier, Second Lieutenant Hadar Goldin. Since then he has been found to have been killed in action and not captured at all. Does this indicate to you that your ‘fair minded’ government only has ears for Israeli propaganda and takes it on board as Gospel? There was no mention at the time by Mr. Obama or Mr. Kerry of the 1700 plus murdered Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children and the elderly. On the contrary, Congress on Friday hurriedly passed new legislation to reward Israel for its genocidal activities with more money. $225 million to be exact. Which replenished the $429 million a couple of weeks ago. Not to mention the annual gift of between $3 - $4 billion. In contrast, UN Human Rights Commissioner, Christopher Gunness who saw the situation for himself and in trying to describe the devastation broke down sobbing, “The world stands in shame for the universal carnage in Gaza” he said. Whereas Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry were only concerned about an Israeli soldier, whose job description included the possibility of being captured or even killed. Is this fair? Is this what has become of America under Zionist pressure? Is this what you pay your tax dollars for? Finally, let me remind you of what the former Minister of Defence of Israel, Moshe Dayan said back in the sixties: "Israel must be like a mad dog. Too dangerous to bother.” Isn’t it time this rabid, dangerous dog is muzzled and quarantined? Finally, this is a speech by an American Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Christopher Hedges. It was made after ‘Operation Cast Lead’ in 2010. He is not muzzled by Zionism, Congress or the corporate media. He calls it as it is. Please listen. _________________________________________
Jafar M Ramini is a Palestinian writer, commentator and analyst on Middle Eastern affairs living in London. He was born in Jenin, northern Palestine, was educated in England and spent the early years of his working life in the Arabian Gulf and Saudi Arabia. He has traveled far and wide, searching for the answer to a question that still eludes him. Why does the United States of America support the Zionist line in such a blind folded way while ignoring the legitimate rights of the indigenous Palestinian people? Particularly as the Palestinian people harbour no ill feelings towards America and its people nor has ever caused them any harm. It is, Jafar says, a conundrum. _________________________________________
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