‘It’s a shame they didn’t kill him’: Israelis react to video of soldiers kicking Palestinian child

Ali Abunimah 2 July 2012

Eden Oreus (Gedera Regional High School): Channel 2, you are the garbage of the state, all respect to the Border Police officer and it’s a shame he didn’t put a bullet in the head of the son of a bitch videographer who documented it.

This posting from a high schooler was one of hundreds by Israeli Facebook users reacting with pride and joy, and incitement to violence and murder, on seeing a video of Israeli occupation soldiers in Hebron kicking a young Palestinian boy as he screams in pain.

The video, shot by a Palestinian videographer and released by B’Tselem, was widely reported in the Israeli media, and shows Israeli occupation soldiers in Hebron, occupied West Bank, violently assaulting a child whom B’Tselem identified as Abd al-Rahman Burqan, aged 9.

B’Tselem described the incident captured on film as follows:

The video shows a Border Police officer ambushing a child from around the corner. As the child walks past, the officer grabs him by the arm and says: “why are you making trouble?” The officer then drags the child, who is screaming, on the ground for a few seconds. A second Border Police officer then appears and kicks the boy. The officer then lets the child go. He runs away, and the two Border Police officers leave the scene as well.

Jessica Montell, the director of B’Tselem, said Israeli occupation authorities had opened an investigation into the incident, however in practice such investigations almost never lead to accountability and punishment of routine violence against Palestinians.

On Facebook: Calls for the child to be shot

On the Facebook Page of Israel’s Channel 2, dozens of Israeli Facebook users posted comments congratulating the soldiers and calling for more violence against children.

Avishy Nappe, for example, wrote that he would have put “five bullets through the head” of the boy.

Many Facebook users justified the violence against the child, claiming – without any evidence whatsoever – that he must have thrown rocks and therefore deserved the kicking.

Eliran Zarbiv wrote:

This boy threw stones a few minutes before the two soldiers, and wounded one of them in the head (the soldier who kicked) then the other soldier just managed to catch him, I have a friend in the [army] unit there – all honor to the IDF you are doing a great job Keep at it! If it were me, I would have smashed a [concrete] block on his head! Not just a kick!

Racist comments pervasive

It is important to emphasize that these kinds of racist and violent comments are not exceptional, but are pervasive and common. There are hundreds of them – far too numerous to translate and on Channel 2’s Facebook page they appear to far outnumber opposing sentiments.

Of course some Israelis expressed “shame” at the violent and racist comments, and on many occasions were denounced as “lefists” or worse for doing so. On the Facebook page of “100,000 Protestors Against the Occupation,” which drew attention to the racist comments on Channel 2’s page, for example, there were comments by a handful of Israeli Facebook users strongly condemning and lamenting the racism and calls for violence.

These are a few of the earliest comments posted in response to the Channel 2 item on the video:

Daniel Deri: It’s a shame he didn’t smash his face, the son of a bitch threw stones before. I wish each and every member of B’Tselem would die, those human scum.

Dan Malka: This should be done to all those children

Tal Avraham: Look at what you are writing … racists. Do you understand that what you are writing here is inhumane… You are disgusting and inhumane, sorry, but that’s the truth.

Kfir Levi: This time the little terrorist got off lightly.

Ariel Davidpur: The Border Police are the hero! It’s a shame he didn’t kill him with the kick.

Shira Oktan: Why all respect? It’s a child

Aviran Ezer: Since he’ll grow up to be a terrorist, it’s a shame he wasn’t killed.

The racism and incitement widely expressed online following this video echoes an incident earlier this year when many Israelis on Facebook expressed joy over the deaths of Palestinian children in a road accident.

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Comments

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Uri Horesh replied on

Call it a quixotic act, but it only took a few seconds: I reported a few of these (before reading Ali's post) to Facebook, as "credible threats of violence" (there is such a category in FB's reporting scheme). I doubt they'll do anything, but at least I did.

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911dust.com replied on

Yes, but my FB was shut down FIVE times when I was in Israel, after replying to my cousin who is an Israeli (and a racist bigot). They deleted nothing from my page, cause it was the most benign, factual, and truthful thing you could encounter.... But my FB was shut down 5 times, and the first time lasted 12 hours, and included my friend's FB page in NYC as well. FB is a tool for the US and others, including Israel. The page freezes have a clear political motive. At the same time, when mine was frozen, a revolutionary I know in Aswan, Egypt was unmolested, despite actual questionable content on his page. I use Facebook, but I also know where the info goes, and who can shut it down.... ~Jewish heritage American who knows what is up (9-11?)

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Steveaustin1971 replied on

Someone should organize a campaign to send lots of cheap durable video cameras to the people of Palestine so the world can see for themselves what really goes on there. I have seen it firsthand and it opened my eyes. Israel counts on secrecy to carry on the way they do. Lets remove the veil.

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ADTWF replied on

Unfortunately, the cameras wouldn't make it through Israeli customs. It's hard for them to even get textbooks for their schools.

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refaat replied on

how peacefully cute israelis are!

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Dena Bugel-Shunra replied on

The Torat Hamelech book is a halachic treatise dedicated to the question of when it is legitimate, under Jewish Halacha law, to kill a gentile. The book became notorious because of its attitude about killing children or infants, who are declared to be innocent in and of themselves, but liable to be killed because of the likelihood that they will grow up to become effective enemies of Jews.

The book is chilling, but the fact that its thesis about how and when to kill Palestinian children has trickled into public facebook comments by people unafraid to say such things in their own names - that's concerning.
Especially when one keeps in mind that such commenters will be given weapons and spend 2-3 years at checkpoints, with life and death power over actual Palestinians (children and of every other age.)

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Sheryne replied on

Come on. I don't think they are religious anymore to afford to follow the law.

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Abigail replied on

Maybe these inciters and transgressors of Torah. The Jews were not even allowed after hundreds of years of enslavement to rejoice at the drowning of the then Egyptian (ancient Egypt) army who came after the Jews to drag them back and/or kill them. I wonder what must happen with these kind of people and why Facebook allows this open hatred and racism. I bet if someone impersonating or really being a Palestinian spouting this kind of vituperation and hatred on Facebook vis-a-vis Jews or Jewish children, it would be world headlines and Israeli government spokesman Regev or Netanyahu to take the opportunity to "show" the world what Israel is up against. These people who rejoice in someone's maltreatment are wicked. Distorted minds. How about complaining about the nazis once more? What exactly is the difference between hatred and hatred?

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daniel565 replied on

Shocking, so the Israeli's dislike the people who fire missiles at their homes or detonate themselves in their buses. I am so amazed.

I see those soldiers grabbed him, gave him a kick or two and let him go. Yeah, eh, bad. In Syria they would have cut him up and made his parents eat his genitals.

Focusing on Israel is such an important moral imperative.

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Avril replied on

how dare you think that is ok you cretin.To abuse any child is evil and there is never any excuse for it. We are not debating Syria here so why bring it into the equation?
Of course you would like us to concentrate our gaze elsewhere whilst you continue to commit attrocities....but guess what, we will continue to see, hear and publish via the internet all that you do.You have no shame even and to actually put in print your nastiness is proof of your warped minds.

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Abigail replied on

Hear hear! I agree with Avril wholeheartedly. To indulge in racism, wanton hatred and torture says everything of the sick soul of that person. Syria? Isn't that the state some other countries' intelligence agencies (i.e. warmakers) keep busy as to either prepar for war (Iran) or whatever is on the agenda most cannot know? And who are providing all those weapons and getting rich? The West, maybe Saudi Arabia including all those weapon producing countries including Israel? Ethnocentrism and wanton hatred: hmmm. I see the thirties. Mirror image? Shame on the shameless. Most soldiers today in IDF are settlers: an abomination for the Jews anywhere. In any case: this all is a desecration of God's name (Hillul HaShem). Including Israel being an occupying power with the will to disperse and expel the native population. The underworld rules. Also in the USA.

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Che Guevara replied on

You mean that nine year old fired missiles at Israeli homes?? I doubt it..., but don't doubt that you are a cretin, criminal, and degenerate!

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Steveaustin1971 replied on

Our outrage at a country that we FUND with tax dollars is a far cry from one we do not. I am offended that my country does not speak out against atrocities in Palestine because it give the world the idea that we, as Canadians agree with it. The VAST majority of us do NOT. I do not agree with Palestinian rockets either, but I have been around for the bulk of the conflict and I do not forget as easily as the media does. If Israel wants to be legitimate, they should act the part. No settlements, no murders, no torture.

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Rhonda replied on

The outrage should go above and beyond what you mentioned. I just want to clarify one very important fact, ISRAEL has NO RIGHT to exist. They stole the land from the indigenous Palestinian people. Everything that was once the real and true history and customs of the Palestinian's, has been hijacked by the stolen land that is now known as Israel, and the people who call themselves, Israeli's. They have taken everything from Palestine and made it their own, when in fact the Palestinian people have been on that land since the beginning of time. Israel is a thieving terrorist
state. It has no right to exist. If the people of the world could only be made to know exactly what Israel is, the crimes Israel does, and the crimes Israel is responsible for from the not so distant past, the whole world would be up in arms and completely against the existence of the state of Israel. As for what happened to that little boy, that was horrible, however, that doesn't even scratch the surface of the inhumane behavior and down right torture, that's been perpetrated on the Palestinian people, men, women, and children, for years and years and years. The Israeli's think that the Palestinian people are pigs, and that they have no right to live, and they won't be happy until they kill every last one of them. Actually, that is their plan, to exterminate them little by little. And they're doing a damn good job of it.
They've literally killed at least 100,000 people, tortured hundreds of thousands, wounded, tortured and imprisoned millions, uprooted millions of olive trees, demolished hundreds of thousands of homes and desecrated countless holy and cultural sites, many of which were thousands of years old and held all their precious history. The wonderful Israeli's have taken the life of the Palestinian people and put it in a blender and ground it up. But the Palestine's have a tremendous love for their country, and they keep on fighting for their life,even with all they've lost..........

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Abigail replied on

When I read your a bit too outraged comment to be real angy. I get a bit uneasy.
A. Israel has all the right to exist. That is number one. When you want to distort history i.e. official counting votes in the United Nations, that is your problem then. But to ignore that is either as a result of ignorance or willfully done since your dislike of Jews translates in a hatred of Israel's existence since unfortunately, this state is behaving abominally since at least 1967 but since you prefer not to know history, let's drop that now.
B. With your disgust and alleged outrage and anger you would have to denounce a lot of countries'histories. Most countries did not get into nationhood sipping tea. Lots of countries commit horrific atrocities even toward their own population. Including in the West.

So much for gratuitious and shouting. Gives one to think twice.

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kate be replied on

The U.N., who's regulations Israel has ignored, should have the power to dismantle this failed, racist colonialist experiment, if that is what you base legitimacy on.

The Zionists have no need to usurp Palestinian land when they have already colonized and control the USA.

Too bad you cannot have legitimacy unless the indigenous Christian, Muslim and Jewish Palestinians residing in Palestine or in exile or under occupation decide to give it to you. That is the deal.
And that abused little boy will grow up and remember the gratuitous kicks & blows him and his family have endured, and he will count himself lucky if they've survived..You expect he will welcome you to the neighborhood, with your reputations?

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Terri Knoll replied on

The Israelis don't deserve to have missiles thrown on their homes? They should be able to steal land and kill innocent people and have candy and flowers instead of missiles? Quit making excuses for racists.

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John Watson replied on

You're absolutely right; especially in a land they stole from the original inhabitants whom they keep ' genociding' with the help of the Yanks---------not the Americans-----------; after all, Israel is a rogue and Apartheid State.So wherefore the outrage?
And, of course, belonging to an inferior race, the Palestinians, who, incidentally are Semites too, should simply bow and acquiesce, and not try to imitate the Indians against the Brits or the Algerians against the Toad-eaters.

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Popsi replied on

Not all that long ago there was a time Jewish kids, adults too, were kicked in the street. Their businesses were boycotted and they were made into social paraiahs. After that, they were exterminated by the million.

So, tell me, where will this 'minor inconveniencing' of these 'existential enemies' of Israel stop?

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Mubeen replied on

this is the reason why Ahmedinijad says what he says. Wake up you ignorant people. WAKE UP!

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PB replied on

I assume you mean the things he actually says, not what lying Israeli translators tell us he says.

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Abigail replied on

I do not believe that he said what he said. You said that and a lot of mainstream media said that he said what he said but the mainstream media are owned by the war industry and they always plan ahead decades sometimes. So, maybe to scare the Jews some intel agency/war maker says that he said what you said he said.

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daniel565 replied on

"is a halachic treatise dedicated to the question of when it is legitimate, under Jewish Halacha law, to kill a gentile. "

Be glad the Jews discuss the issue. For most nations killing a foreigner is not even worthy of debate!

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Saief Abbassi replied on

To justify an evil act by comparing it to other evil acts is stupid. You should look to stop evil wherever it takes place.

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JHS replied on

This: "For most nations killing a foreigner is not even worthy of debate!"

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Abigail replied on

I have never heard of such a treatise but be sure that the antisemites among us who do not even know a iota from Judaism suddenly come up with their hating minds. Been there, done that. That was why we had IDF to begin with. Not what the state has descended into. Go to www.breakingthesilence.org.il. There are enough Israelis with a conscience. And lots of human rights organizations within Israel who solely work for Palestinians also court work, esp. court work sometimes. Including Physicians for Human Rights and Rabbis for Human Rights, HaMoked, BTselem, New Profile, and lots of others. So to only see Israelis/Jews as monsters is to embark on a wrong road, maybe giving your own bias room.....

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Robert replied on

I hope that people are long-term tracking these violations, large and small, so that, just as Jews have done the world over in obtaining justice and reparations for the Holocaust, some day this man will have to make restitution for his violence, indifference and inhumanity.

Public restitution must be made. Violence is no solution to anything...the Bible is right in telling us that violence only begets more violence...and it is unlikely the kicked child will learn, from being kicked by an Israeli soldier, that Israel is a wholesome nation peopled by wholesome human beings just like us. So, surely in the course of that hard, cold, inhuman man's life, kharmic justice will be served, but a private, unseen justice isn't enough. The world needs to see the restitution he must make.

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dickerson3870 replied on

PERHAPS THIS HELPS TO EXPLAIN IT: "Academic claims Israeli school textbooks contain bias" ~ By Harriet Sherwood, guardian.co.uk, 8/07/11
Nurit Peled-Elhanan of Hebrew University says textbooks depict Palestinians as 'terrorists, refugees and primitive farmers'
EXCERPT: Nurit Peled-Elhanan, an Israeli academic, mother and political radical, summons up an image of rows of Jewish schoolchildren, bent over their books, learning about their neighbours, the Palestinians. But, she says, they are never referred to as Palestinians unless the context is terrorism.
They are called Arabs. "The Arab with a camel, in an Ali Baba dress. They describe them as vile and deviant and criminal, people who don't pay taxes, people who live off the state, people who don't want to develop," she says. "The only representation is as refugees, primitive farmers and terrorists. You never see a Palestinian child or doctor or teacher or engineer or modern farmer."
Peled-Elhanan, a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied the content of Israeli school books for the past five years, and her account, "Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education", is to be published in the UK this month. She describes what she found as racism– but, more than that, a racism that prepares young Israelis for their compulsory military service. . .
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl...

• <b>VIDEO of interview with Peled-Elhanan (08:48) - </b> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

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American replied on

So are Israeli allies are quite capable of terrorizing children... And I was just beginning to wonder for what purpose giving them $3 billion of our tax dollars was for...

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Debra McDaniel replied on

And Israelis wonder why the world is turning against them and their racist treatment of the true citizens of Palestine.

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Koolz replied on

This is the psychology taught by Priests in Israel but it is not how all think.
Still this is very disturbing and really shows why the US is going To Hell.
Most things now are controlled by Israel in the US.

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kate be replied on

This video is the epitome of 'the banality of evil.' If the outrageously racist FB comments were directed against Jews the accusations of 'anti-semitism' would be voluminous. Probably up to and including being banned from FB to being sued in an actual court of law.
The working definition of anti-semitism leaves almost no room even for a critique of Israeli policies. But these crimes are pervasive and these are real children screaming in pain and fear.

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Guliver replied on

It is obscene to read these reactions against the Jews for such a petty action when a few miles away from this scene, men, women and children are overtly tortured, raped and killed on a daily basis. Don't people have some sense of dignity sometimes ?

Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.