{"id":15417,"date":"2012-11-19T07:12:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T12:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=15417"},"modified":"2012-11-19T07:12:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-19T12:12:00","slug":"likening-palestinians-to-blades-of-grass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2012\/11\/likening-palestinians-to-blades-of-grass\/","title":{"rendered":"Likening Palestinians to Blades of Grass"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Exclusive:\u00a0<\/strong>Israeli hardliners joke about the periodic need to decimate\u00a0each\u00a0new generation of Palestinian militants as \u201cmowing the grass,\u201d a process\u00a0underway again in new bombardments of Gaza. This ugly\u00a0metaphor has also penetrated the think-tank world of Official Washington, as ex-CIA analyst Elizabeth Murray learned.<\/span><\/p>\n

By Elizabeth Murray<\/span><\/p>\n

In early 2010, one of Washington DC\u2019s most prestigious think tanks was holding a seminar on the Middle East which included a discussion of Israel\u2019s December 2008-January 2009 assault on Gaza which killed about 1,300 Palestinians. When the death toll was mentioned, one expert on the panel smiled enigmatically and intoned: \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate, but every once in a while you have to mow the lawn.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The remark, which likened killing hundreds of men, women and children \u2013 many of them noncombatants \u2013 with trimming the grass, was greeted with a light tittering around the room, which was filled with some of Washington\u2019s most elite, highly educated and well-paid Middle East experts.\u00a0Not a single one objected to the panelist\u2019s black humor.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the contrary, several analysts and experts were grinning at the reference to Israel\u2019s strategy of mounting periodic attacks on the Palestinians to cull each\u00a0new generation of militants. Such is the nonchalance of Washington\u2019s policy-advising cognoscenti toward the ongoing and systematic genocide of Gaza\u2019s oppressed\u00a0population.<\/span><\/p>\n

The cavalier language is symptomatic of the policymaking community\u2019s increasingly pervasive tendency to disregard and disparage the humanity of Palestinian victims of Israeli attacks, which are often waged by Israel\u2019s high-tech drones and U.S.-supplied F-16\u2019s. There is also a tendency to ignore or downplay Israeli war crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

This dangerously sociopathic attitude is prevalent whether cloaked in a cheap joke or reflected in the failure by the State Department spokesman to condemn or even acknowledge the criminality of Israel\u2019s latest aerial and sea-based bombardment of Palestinian civilians, at least 18 of whom have been killed in the past 48 hours. Three Israelis also have died in retaliatory rocket fire.<\/span><\/p>\n

After the latest attacks, the State Department\u2019s statement justified Israel\u2019s bombardment of Gaza as Israel\u2019s \u201cright to defend itself\u201d against the launching of relatively primitive rockets, mostly by radical groups, from inside Gaza. Yet, while the State Department urged both sides to avoid civilian casualties, nowhere was there mention of the Palestinians\u2019 right to defend themselves from various attacks by Israel.\u00a0Apparently only one side is granted that privilege, according to the U.S. statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

The relegation of Palestinians to a less-than-human status by Israel and the United States \u2013 especially the inhabitants of Gaza who are perpetually locked into an open-air prison\u00a0and subject to an Israeli\u00a0blockade \u2013 was noted by MIT professor Noam Chomsky after a visit to Gaza to attend an academic conference. In comments broadcast by \u201cDemocracy Now\u201d on Nov. 14, Chomsky remarked:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of amazing \u2026 and inspiring to see people managing somehow to survive \u2026 as essentially caged animals subject to constant, random, sadistic punishment \u2013 only to humiliate them \u2013 no pretext.\u00a0They [the Palestinians] would like to have dignified lives, but the standard Israeli position is that they shouldn\u2019t raise their heads.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of a serious effort to reach a peace acceptable to both sides, Israel seems to prefer a state of endless\u00a0conflict with the Palestinians. After all, the prospect of peace might require the Israeli government to treat their neighbors as equals and withdraw from territory occupied since 1967.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, rather than making meaningful concessions, some Israeli hardliners simply promote the idea of periodically \u201cmowing the grass,\u201d i.e. killing the latest generation of Palestinian militants who sprout up from the injustice all around them. Perhaps that is why Israel broke an informal ceasefire on Wednesday by assassinating Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari in an air strike.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jabari was killed hours after he received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the ceasefire, according to Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, who helped mediate talks between Israel and Hamas for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jabari was a key Palestinian interlocutor in the release of Shalit, and an important intermediary for truce negotiations with groups such as the PFLP and Islamic Jihad.\u00a0Such a relatively moderate figure may have been perceived as a threat to Israeli leaders who prefer to portray Hamas as rejectionist toward any peace.<\/span><\/p>\n

These developments and the U.S. response to them are a chilling omen for those who had hoped for a change in U.S. Middle East policy after the U.S. presidential election \u2013 namely, increased pressure on Israel to halt its cruel\u00a0oppression of Palestinians and obey international law.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is still a window of opportunity for the U.S. to shift its approach before the violence spirals out of control. One also can hope that President Barack Obama is working the phones to rein in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But Obama\u2019s eerie and reprehensible silence during the Israeli assault on Gaza in December 2008-January 2009 must not be repeated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Murray served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East in the National Intelligence Council before retiring after a 27-year career in the U.S. government, where she specialized in Middle Eastern political and media analysis. She is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exclusive:\u00a0Israeli hardliners joke about the periodic need to decimate\u00a0each\u00a0new generation of Palestinian militants as \u201cmowing the grass,\u201d a process\u00a0underway again in new bombardments of Gaza…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,21,97,119],"tags":[228,197,226,200,204,227,345,211],"class_list":["post-15417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discrimination","category-international","category-us-news","category-war","tag-colonialism","tag-imperialism","tag-imperialist-war","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-racist-oppression","tag-reactionary-watch","tag-zionism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Israeli_15417_bd2fa.jpg?fit=460%2C276&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}