In this world there are few things more contentious than the Israel-Palestine issue. But whatever you think of the rights and wrongs of the geopolitical situation in the Middle East, surely we can all agree it’s wrong for any soldier anywhere in the world to mock the prisoners she holds captive? Talk about human fail.
That’s exactly what seems to have happened with Eden Aberjil, a young woman from the southern Israeli port town of Ashdod, according to an Associated Press story on Yahoo!. Naturally, given that we now run our whole lives online, it happened on Facebook.
Israeli news websites and blogs have run two photographs that the woman posted on Facebook from her time doing Israel’s compulsory military service. In one, she is sitting cross-legged beside a blindfolded Palestinian man and leaning toward him with her face upturned. Another shows her smiling at the camera with three Palestinian men with bound hands and blindfolds behind her.
The image alone is pretty bad, suggesting that she is taking pride and pleasure from her power over the prisoners. But perhaps the worst part is the comments by the woman and her friend, in an exchange below one of the comments.
“You’re the sexiest like that,” her friend wrote.
“I wonder if he’s got Facebook!” the woman in the photograph responded. “I have to tag him in the picture!”
Well. If there were any doubt about her attitude from the pictures alone, there’s not now.
Aberjil has reportedly not responded to requests for comments but an Israeli military spokesman condemned the photos. Captain Barak Raz said: “Aside from matters of information security, we are talking about a serious violation of our morals and our ethical code and should this soldier be serving in active duty today, I would imagine that no doubt she would be court-martialed immediately.” Given that she has finished her military service, this seems unlikely.
Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib said the photos showed a deeper problem — how Israel’s 43-year-old occupation of Palestinians has affected the Israelis who enforce it.”This shows the mentality of the occupier,” Khatib said, “to be proud of humiliating Palestinians. The occupation is unjust, immoral and, as these pictures show, corrupting.”
I have no doubt that it’s true that the compulsory military service does affect Israelis psychologically, though I’m sure each individual responds in different ways.
In one sense Facebook was just the forum for this entire incident – a neutral staging ground like a café. In another sense, that’s not true at all. I’m not suggesting Facebook is culpable but I do think it’s changing the way we interact. The ability to share online creates a powerful impulse to make something worth sharing. Would anyone have taken the photographs in the first place without the ability to share them online at venues such as Facebook? And does the ability to casually ‘like’ and comment on your friends’ photographs make people feel validated and help foster social interactions that favor humor over kindness?
Or was this just human nature all along and Facebook and the internet is exposing us for how we truly are, and always have been?
Photo credit: Photo originally posted by Eden Aberjil on Facebook, reproduced by sachim.tumblr.com blog and Associated Press. In the undated photo, an Israeli army soldier poses in front of blindfolded men identified in the Israeli news media as Palestinian prisoners. Israeli news media and bloggers have identified the soldier in the photos as Aberjil.
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no, FB is not the problem; rather,the self-isolation of Israelis from their Palestinian neighbors has erased the capacity for human empathy,and compassion, as well as willingness to find solutions that work for both peoples, This isolation is a deliberate policy of the right-wing government of Israel.
Comment by Diane Wallrich — August 17, 2010 @ 12:16 pm
Or perhaps we are not looking at the issue deep enough that goes much further Facebook and sharing our lives online.
It is abnormal for humans to kill each other and to go to war against each other. In order for this to happen, the military training system shapes the mind of the soldiers into hating the enemy. The military system conditions their soldiers by dehumanizing the enemy because otherwise, the soldiers would not kill.
This is just a reflexion of the macrostructural problems of what the war imposed on individuals.
It's horrible.
I have nothing against a military to defend our own land in case of an attack but I am against war. This is what war does to people.
Comment by Alphonse Bào — August 17, 2010 @ 12:23 pm
This isn't about Facebook. It's about us. Who we are.
And this is Eden Aberjil. Trivial compared to many IDF crimes.
Comment by Charles Frith — August 17, 2010 @ 12:27 pm
I wonder how you reacted when the appalling photos and videos of US soldiers terrorizing and dehumanizing their Iraqi prisoners were released? This is simply a photo of an Israeli female soldier (who has risked her life for her country) in front of a "prisoner" plain and simple – should he be allowed to roam free and easy? There is a reason he is being held, probably because if he WAS loose, he'd be tying on a suicide vest to blow himself up along with this female soldier and her friends, children and other innocents. When will the world's awful double standard when it comes to Israel finally end already. Why isn't the terrorist Gaza government posting photos of the new, heavily-stocked-with-goods shopping mall that just opened? Or the Olympic sized swimming pool? Just like the purported (but proven false) Jenin "massacre" it's all about the Palestinians hiding the true facts to gain the sympathy of the world. One day they WILL be caught up in their lies and deceits and awful treatment of their own citizens. . .
Comment by Ronnie Caplan — August 17, 2010 @ 12:32 pm
@Ronnie These men may or may not deserve to be prisoners – without knowing the specifics of their individual cases, none of us can really say. Regardless, I do think we have an obligation to treat prisoners as human beings. It's what makes us civilized and sets us apart from terrorists and other wrongdoers. And yes, I thought the example with the US soldiers and the Israeli prisoners was appalling – and much worse than this particular case. This incident with Eden Aberjil was a case of callousness and lack of respect and compassion. The Iraqi prisoners incident was a case of torture, degradation and cruelty. The AP story made a comparison – I chose not to because I thought that was overstating the case.
@Joseph You asked about the quote on "how Israel’s 43-year-old occupation of Palestinians has affected the Israelis who enforce it". Please note, that was not my words but rather a direct quote from a Palestinian leader. (You'll also see that I included a quote from the Israelis). You might also note that mathematically speaking, his reference to "the 43-year occupation" must refer to the 1967 war rather than the establishment of Israel itself. I'm glad that we agree that this soldier's actions were wrong – that was the sole point of my argument. I do happen to know quite a bit about the wider Arab-Israeli situation from my Masters studies in International Relations, however I do not see that as relevant here. I have not offered my opinion on this vexed issue and it's most certainly not what my post is about.
Comment by Caitlin Fitzsimmons — August 17, 2010 @ 3:05 pm
I don’t condone this soldiers actions. But what I do not understand is this:
“how Israel’s 43-year-old occupation of Palestinians has affected the Israelis who enforce it.”
The 43-year-old occupation ???
How it has affected the Israelis who enforce it ???
I think this article written by Sharon Nader Sloan, Esq., a Lebanese-American, shed’s light on a different viewpoint on the conflict in the Middle East. To say “the occupation is unjust, immoral and, as these pictures show, corrupting.” may be true. But I think Israel has shown GREAT RESTRAINT in the last 43 years as compared to the “Palestinians”. Read the article below and see it from another viewpoint.
The Big Lie
By Sharon Nader Sloan
(Sharon Nader Sloan, Esq., is a Lebanese-American.)
“The West Bank is occupied Palestinian land.” This phrase is frequently repeated, as a given, by all the governments of the world and by the entire news media.
This idea that the West Bank is occupied Palestinian land has been accepted by almost everyone. Yet it is, in fact, the greatest lie ever perpetrated on the whole of humanity.
If you think this is an outlandish statement, please read on and decide for yourself.
Palestinians claim that Palestine is their land, and that Jerusalem is their capital, and that Israel is occupying their land. To resist occupation, they assert the right to send suicide bombers into crowded bus stations, pizza parlors, etc., and kill innocent men, women and children. And all Arab and Muslim countries support them in their claims and actions against Israel.
Because of this alleged occupation of Palestinian land by Israel, because of this alleged crime committed against their Palestinian brothers, all Arabs hate Israel and want to destroy it.
To anyone who is familiar with the facts, and has an objective eye, all this must be fascinating. Because never before has a complete lie, on such a large scale, been so successful.
First, if Arab animosity toward Israel is based on their love and support for their Palestinian brothers – and in wanting their Palestinian brothers to have their own state – where was that love and support before the Jewish state existed? Where were they when the kingdom of Jordan ruled Palestine? Why were they not accusing Jordan of occupying Palestinian land? Why did not the Arab world and the United Nations call on Jordan to stop occupying Palestinian land? Second, where were the Palestinians themselves, with all their grievances and claims, when Jordan occupied the whole West Bank, including Jerusalem?
Did you know that? Did you know that for 19 years, Jordan occupied and ruled the whole West Bank, including Jerusalem? Why didn’t they clamor for a Palestinian state then?
All this time, did we hear a word about Palestine being occupied by the kingdom of Jordan? Did we hear anything about a Palestinian state? Or about Jerusalem being the capital of Palestine?
No, we did not.
Why not?
Because there never existed a Palestinian state.
And in the entire history of nations, Jerusalem was never the capital of any country other than that of ancient Israel and modern Israel. So how can there be a claim on Jerusalem as the capital of a state that never existed?
One of the problems here is that so few people know the history of the world. Hence, lies and more lies, repeated often enough, are assumed to be facts.
I have heard many scholars, including an Arab journalist, question the very notion of a Palestinian people. What, they ask, makes a people? Well, there are four elements that define a people: language, religion, culture and cuisine. For example, the Chinese and Japanese are both Oriental. Still, they are two different peoples, because they each have a different language, a different religion, a different culture and a different cuisine.
The Palestinians speak the same language, follow the same religion, manifest the same culture and eat the same cuisine as all other Arabs. They are really Arabs who happen to live in a region called Palestine.
Palestine is not – and never was – the name of a country, or the name of a people.
It is the name of a region – just like Siberia is a region, not a country. There is no Siberian country, nor is there a Siberian people. It is a region. Just like the Sahara is a region, not a country. There is no Saharan country, nor is there a Saharan people. The Arabs living in that region are Libyans, Moroccans, etc. It is a region.
Because Palestine is a region, not a country, England was able to carve out half of it and give it to the Arabs living on the other side of the Jordan River and call it the kingdom of Jordan. Because Palestine is a region, the United Nations was able to divide the rest of it between the Jews and the Arabs living there. Had the Arabs accepted the United Nations resolution, there would have been a newly created Arab state called Palestine. Instead, they rejected the United Nations compromise and went to war to destroy Israel. They lost the war. Hence, no Palestinian state.
Here are some cold facts.
King David built the city of Jerusalem, and King Solomon, David’s son, built the holy temple. This commonwealth of Israel lasted for a thousand years. There was only one break, when, 400 years after King David, the Babylonian invaders occupied the land for 70 years. Then, with the help of Cyrus the Great of Persia – yes, Persia – Israel came back to the land, rebuilt the temple and ruled for another 600 years.
Then, the Romans came and ruled the land, then the Crusaders ruled the land, then the Ottoman Empire ruled the land, then the British Empire ruled the land, then Israel returned to its homeland and built a modern Jewish state. It was never – repeat, never – a Palestinian state.
So what is all this talk about occupied Palestinian land?
They certainly have a right to live there freely and happily. Nobody wants to move them away from their land. But from where comes the right for a Palestinian state? Is it because they live there?
Imagine if the Mexican-American community in California, whose numbers are greater than the number of Palestinians in the West Bank, decides tomorrow to claim that the United States is occupying their land, because they live there and they want their own Mexican state. Imagine if, when the U.S. government says, “No, you can live here, but you cannot have sovereignty, you cannot have your own state,” they start sending suicide bombers, shooters, mortars, etc. into the rest of the country. What do you think would happen?
This is precisely why there was never any suggestion of a Palestinian state – not under the Romans, not under the Crusaders, not under the Turks, not under the English and not under the Arab kingdom of Jordan – until after Israel was again established in its homeland.
I believe it is the big lie of our generation, and we are all buying into it.
Whatever you believe, don’t you think these facts deserve to be raised when discussing Middle East policies?
Comment by Joseph Troll — August 17, 2010 @ 4:49 pm
One can only sigh. The world is afflicted by a swelling number of the morally illiterate, ignorant louts who simply have never learned to think, have no notion of compassion, and careen through life with the sophisticated of spoiled children. This woman's face is nightmarish in its smug and utter stupidity. After 40+ years of defending Israeli policies and its peculiar culture — I am a Protestant Yankee from a 17th-century family of English immigrants to Massachusetts — I have in recent years exhausted my faith in Israel ever grasping the lessons it should have learned from the Holocaust.
Comment by Mark Miller — August 18, 2010 @ 7:20 am
facebook is not the problem. Soldiers are under oath. inone of the picsand personal information are to be releasef at any time during a active or ex soldiers life. She broke that law. And to compare that with what the american soldiers did is dumb. There crime was more sever or was it. This lady is clearly mocking these prisoners. This goes against so much that we have tried to instill already. Her ass just wanyed attention. Trust me, she knew she would get it. I hope the army gives her exactly what she's looking for. Good ole fashioned attention.
Comment by licia — August 20, 2010 @ 6:42 am
The media likes to make little things a lot bigger than they really are in order to sell the news. What do they think those Palestinians do with their prisoners? I can bet they won't give a rat's a** on how to treat prisoner if and when they have prisoners.
Comment by Cujo — December 21, 2010 @ 5:10 am