[Salon] Israel's brutal storm troopers should have never been at Abu Akleh's funeral - Opinion - Haaretz.com

[Todd Pierce <tepierce@outlook.com>]

More "martial rule,” as I just sent.

This is why I’ve come to detest those Americans who always tout and call for “martial law,” as we saw with Trump and his devoted minions, especially retired Army officers. As I detest “National Conservatives” allied with Israeli Settler Yoram Hazony, and his Meir Kahane ideology, brought back to the US in the name of National Conservatism. 

I won’t name names of those Trump administration militarists who called for martial law on the “southern border” (which extends into the US 100 miles:
https://documentedny.com/2021/07/05/border-zone/, with millions of Americans living there who would be deprived of the Bill of Rights, as some Conservatives always longed for) and in US cities, except to name the fanatical Michael Flynn (Michael Ledeen’s co-conspirator: so much for Trump’s supposed ending "Neoconservatism” as some Trump enthusiasts claimed. Unless that meant putting them in high positions in the USG) who even wanted to declare martial law, take custody of the voting machines in some of the states he lost in, and rerun the election to put Trump back in office, under martial rule. Which would have amounted to a military coup. 

But what is taking place in Israel, is the highest, most violent form of martial rule:

"Let us call the thing by its right name; it is not martial law, but martial rule. And when we speak of it, let us speak of it as abolishing all law, and substituting the will of the military commander, and we shall give a true idea of the thing, and be able to reason about it with a clear sense of what we are doing.[14]"

This explains the affinity Trump and the Israeli “Radical Right” have for each other. 


https://mondoweiss.net/2022/05/israeli-police-attack-another-palestinian-funeral-in-jerusalem/
> "Israeli police attack another Palestinian funeral in Jerusalem
> "Israeli police attacked the funeral of slain Palestinian Walid al-Sharif in occupied East Jerusalem on Monday night, injuring dozens of funeral goers. Al-Sharif, 23, was shot in the head with a rubber coated steel bullet by Israeli forces on April 22 during an Israeli assault on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound."

> https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israel-s-police-are-storm-troopers-1.10799650?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_content=author-alert&utm_campaign=Gideon%20Levy&utm_term=20220515-03:21 <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israel-s-police-are-storm-troopers-1.10799650?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_content=author-alert&utm_campaign=Gideon%20Levy&utm_term=20220515-03:21>
> 
> Israel's brutal storm troopers should have never been at Abu Akleh's funeral - Opinion - Haaretz.com
> 
> Gideon Levy </misc/writers/WRITER-1.4968119>May. 15, 2022 2:58 AM
> No Israeli should have slept well on Friday night. Our police are storm troopers. Palestinians have long known this, but Israelis now have to understand this as well: Israel’s police have shed all restraints.
> 
> The blue-uniformed policemen and the green-uniformed Border Policemen have become storm troopers in the deepest and most loaded sense of this term; there is no other way of describing them. In a country that has a police force like this, every citizen should be concerned, even very frightened. It’s long been an issue that is not just for Palestinians to worry about; they have become inured to it and bear scars from it; now Israelis should be filled with anxiety too.
> 
> Anyone behaving with such barbarity at the funeral of a popular heroine <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israeli-police-launch-stun-grenades-at-palestinian-journalist-s-funeral-procession-1.10797839> of this land will behave in the same manner under other circumstances as well. Two days ago at a Palestinian funeral, tomorrow at demonstrations or polling booths in Israel.
> 
> It’s true that what drives police storm troopers is imperiousness, racism and the sense that Arabs are not human beings. But this trot down a slippery slope cannot be stopped. When there are no boundaries or anyone putting a stop to it – and there are none – everything will be breached much faster than one imagines. Ethiopians, the ultra-Orthodox and peace activists have already tasted some of this; it will soon spread to clubs, concerts and the home of everyone.
> 
> The Israel Police have a minister in charge, but all Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev had to say on the weekend was reprimand Joint List MK Ofer Cassif for an unnecessary blow he delivered to a policeman blocking his way, accompanied by some rude comments as well. If this is a minister for public security and this is his party, the Labor Party, we’re better off having Kahanist lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir fill the role. It couldn’t get much worse, and Ben-Gvir will at least evoke some objections. On Friday night, the so-called government of change, incompetent and indifferent, evoked a yearning for its predecessor <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-no-gideon-levy-we-wont-miss-netanyahu-1.5426642>.
> 
> It couldn’t get much worse than the brutal clubbing of people carrying a coffin <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israe-police-violence-at-al-jazeera-journalist-s-funeral-reveals-a-deep-problem-1.10799268> in which a revered journalist is lying, in the course of a national event. The fact that policemen did this in view of the world’s cameras only illustrates to what extent this is the only language they know, of which they’re not even ashamed. Forget for a moment these police thugs, who are heroes when confronting the weak in their hour of mourning. But what about their commanders? After all, senior officers participated in this revolting club-fest as well. No, this was not an “image disaster,” as some sanctimonious people claimed, it was a mega-disaster, a moral and political one. With such a police force in our capital, we don’t have a democracy.
> 
> They shouldn’t have been there in the first place. The minister should have instructed them to that effect, and the commissioner should have executed the order. But Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai has returned to being a commander of the Border Police, the sick and violent occupation force, allowing his policemen to strike out as wildly as they saw fit. They came there already with reinforcements, precisely so they could do what they did. Why are reinforcements needed at a funeral? Why have the police there anyway? Bar-Lev should have stopped it in advance, or at least stopped it as it was unfolding. But Bar-Lev is absent and the commissioner opted for this.
> 
> Biden: Israel Police actions at Abu Akleh's funeral 'must be investigated' </us-news/.premium-u-s-lawmakers-decry-israeli-police-violence-at-palestinian-reporter-s-funeral-1.10798343>
> Commissioner orders probe into Israel Police conduct at Al Jazeera journalist's funeral </israel-news/.premium-commissioner-orders-probe-into-israel-police-conduct-at-al-jazeera-journalist-s-fun-1.10799117>
> Israeli police violence at Al Jazeera journalist's funeral reveals a deeper problem </israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-israe-police-violence-at-al-jazeera-journalist-s-funeral-reveals-a-deep-problem-1.10799268>
> Nothing would have happened had the Palestinians been allowed to mourn their heroine in their city, as free people, even if only for a moment. She was someone the IDF had apparently killed, as they’ve killed other journalists in the past. Is there any point in noting that no Israeli journalist was ever killed by Palestinians in the occupied territories?
> 
> After this disgraceful funeral, it’s no longer important who shot Shireen. You may have killed her? The least you could do is let her people accompany her on her last journey. But no. As noted by MSNBC correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin, Israel not only doesn’t allow Palestinians to live as Palestinians, it also doesn’t allow them to die as Palestinians. Actually, it doesn’t allow them to die as human beings. It snatches and barters their corpses, and now its policemen knock down coffins from the shoulders of people carrying them. You couldn’t get a more morbid snuff act.
> 
> Storm troopers is a derogatory term for cruel occupier forces. This makes Israel’s police force storm troopers. Coming soon to your neighborhood.