Fear and loathing at IDF checkpoints: There is nothing more fitting than to fight fire with fire - by Douglas Altabef

The idea that foreign nationals are allowed to harass soldiers protecting their own country seems inconceivable, yet until recently it has been a common Israeli reality, devoid of pushback.

Douglas Altabef..
JNS.org..
12 March '19..

A critical function of the Israel Defense Forces is to secure borders and sensitive locations, in addition to the transition points in and through such areas.

Guard duty is deceptively routine and simple. Like other military functions, most of the time there is a familiar routine that can seem mind-numbing to the casual observer.

However, the trained soldier knows all too well that the seemingly mundane and insignificant can be a ruse—a cover for something intended to be deadly. Therefore, vigilance and skepticism are part of a checkpoint soldier’s professional DNA.

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to see groups, often from Europe, hovering around checkpoints with a very different orientation and objective from those who come to support soldiers with pizzas and good wishes. These folks come with loathing, and an unvarnished hatred of who the soldiers are and what they are doing.

These people are there to play the game of “gotcha.” They come armed with video cameras, often planted just inches from the face of the guarding soldier, and hope to catch the soldier doing something—anything—that can, out of context, look like some heinous act.

Whether it’s a scowl at an uncooperative Palestinian passing through a checkpoint or an attempt to search a suspicious-looking person, there are ample opportunities to create a context in which the soldier appears to be the personification of an oppressive Israel.

This is cynical manipulation, but sadly, with the Internet, social media, and Photoshop and other apps, we live in a world increasingly filled with such out of context videography.

Yet the situation at a checkpoint is far more fraught with risk, rather than just embarrassment from manipulated misrepresentation.

There are life-and-death implications at checkpoints, and no one knows that better than the soldiers on duty. Besides obtrusive and invasive cameras, there is often verbal harassment as young soldiers are being demonized for doing their duty.

(Continue to Full Column)

Visit Im Tirtzu. Join the Aim Click and Shoot Campaign!

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Palestinian Arab with bag full of bombs is stopped at a racist, hateful security checkpoint ...

many lives are saved. Is this worth reporting?..

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
04 September '12..







You hear and read a lot about how cruel and oppressive Israel's system of barriers and security checkpoints is. The far-left activist women of Machsom Watch generate a good deal of the negative reporting on this theme, and to their credit they explain in a direct and clear way why they do it:

We regularly document what we see and hear. The reports of these observations are published on the Machsom Watch site, and sent to public officials and elected representatives. Through the documentation which discloses the nature of everyday reality, we are attempting to influence public opinion in the country and in the world, and thus to bring to an end the destructive occupation, which causes damage to Israeli society as well as to Palestinian society.

The word machsom is Hebrew for "barrier". A barrier manned by armed service personnel is never going to be a happy scene. But most of us who live here and have experienced terrorism first-hand understand why they are there and what they achieve each day, and look forward to when they will no longer be needed. At Machsom Watch, they don't agree with us. Then again, we have the impression they pay more attention to the influence-public-opinion part of their mission than to the cognitive challenge of grappling with what brings those barriers to be there and what they aim to do.

So here is a reminder from yesterday of why the Machsom phenomenon exists and what it does. There's not much ideological in the sentences that follow. But for those of us who relate to barriers in their common, non-ideological sense, what happened yesterday has considerable significance.

As Ynet tells it ["Man hurls bag containing four pipe bombs at security forces after being denied entrance to Israel; none injured"], a Palestinian Arab approached the IDF's Hashmona'im checkpoint yesterday around 2 pm. If you're not familiar with Israel's very compact geography, we're speaking of a controlled crossing that is next to the Haredi community of Kiryat Sefer/Modi'in Elit. It's a short way from the second most important of the highways that run from Tel-Aviv and the airport up to the national capital, Jerusalem and no more than 20 minutes drive from our Jerusalem home.

Roth - Another day, another attempted murder-by-knifing

This knife, smaller than the one seized today,
was grabbedfrom another Palestinian Arab
at another security checkpointin a
previous terror attack [Image Source]

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
09 January '12..



A Palestinian Arab female arrived at the Bitunya security checkpoint south of Ramallah, near the edge of the city of Jerusalem, this morning. This Hebrew report says she came armed with a 30 cm knife that she pulled out of its concealed location and, blade unsheathed, threw herself at one of the Border Police.

One of the alert service personnel at the checkpoint then fired a warning shot into the air. Another leapt onto her, got her under his control and took her away for interrogation. No one was seriously injured, and the woman - evidently with murder on her mind - will be able to try this again in the future should the passion so move her. A Palestinian Arab news agency reports it briefly ("Israeli forces detain woman at Ramallah crossing") but it would be a mistake to think this is heading for the mainstream news because no one was killed.