‘I know how the brainwashing works’
Bornajoo on October 20, 2014
Maalot School Massacre image, 1974
Recently
Jerome Slater passed along the following statement from a London friend
named David, saying, “I think it should be widely read.” The writer
requested anonymity because of relatives in Israel. He comments on our
site as “Bornajoo.” –Editor.
I
was born into a poor Jewish family in the slums of the East End of
London in the early 60’s, one of four brothers. My father was an Indian
Jew and my mother an Iraqi one. They met in India and moved to London in
1960. We lived right in the middle of the Haredi community in Stamford
Hill. I was sent to Hebrew and Jewish studies classes nearly every
evening until I was around 13.
My
first visit to Israel when I was 5 years old just a year after the Six
Day War. I was taken to the Wailing Wall and the Old Town in Jerusalem
which was only in Israel’s possession less than a year at that point.
When I was 11 years old my first cousin was killed in the Maalot School
Massacre of 1974. After that point we grew up hating the Arabs even more
than before, there was Jewish influence all around me. There was no
crack where the light could get in, it was a closed bubble and no other
thoughts were possible. So I know how the brainwashing works.
Then
my older brother who went on holiday to Israel when he was 19 (I was
17) visited our family who lost their daughter/sister in Maalot. The 3
brothers (not surprisingly) all had careers in the army.
Instead
of coming home they convinced him to join the Israeli army. So he
enlisted and was trained in the Golani regiment. These same cousins
tried to get me to join up. They told me that “you get a gun, you can
kill Arabs!” That’s when I realized what the cycle of hate is. Just as
these cousins were hurting at the loss of their sister and could only
think about Arab blood, then so did each Palestinian who had his
brother, father, uncle killed by the Israelis.
Less
than a year later Ariel Sharon sent my brother to Lebanon to fight in
the 1982 “war”. While he was there I decided to go and travel around
Israel for a few months on my own. I literally went everywhere. It was
this trip that first opened my eyes and made me realize that the story
wasn’t quite adding up. I will provide just a few examples of many:
–Waiting
at a bus stop in Netanya I saw dozens of Palestinians walking in from
the West Bank (the days before the Wall and checkpoints) to wait around
in the heat for Israeli building contractors to come and pick them up to
go and work on some building site for a cash pittance. I still remember
the way that they were chosen and poked with a stick and herded onto an
open backed pick up truck. It reminded me of images from a previous era
in Europe. Then I noticed that it was the Palestinians (both Israeli
and occupied) working in the toilets, cleaning the streets, doing the
hard slog on building sites, cleaning tables….they were the convenient
sub-human slave class.
–While
in a hostel in Eilat I was sharing a room with an Israeli and a German.
The Israeli told us that we should hide our wallets and passports well
because there were Arabs working in the hostel who would try and steal
them while we slept. He suggested putting them under our pillows. When
we woke up the German realised his cash and passport was gone – and so
was the Israeli. We called the police. When they arrived they rounded up
the 3 young Palestinian boys who worked at the hostel and began
punching them and beating them right in front of us. I was shocked and
deeply upset. The whole time we were trying to explain that it was the
Israeli who was the real culprit but the poor Palestinians had to take a
beating until the police finally understood what we were telling them.
–Later
when visiting my family in Haifa my cousin said to me (I’ll never
forget these words) “Why you don’t come and live in Israel? We can open a
car wash. It’s a good business here. You just need a piece land, 1
machine, 2-3 buckets, 1-2 Arabs….”. Well at least the Arabs made it to
number 4 on the list.
–While
visiting my uncle in Ashkelon, who was a police commander in Gaza, I
told him that I was not feeling comfortable about the way that the
Palestinians were being treated. He said to me that these Arabs are
simple naïve people, it’s impossible to give them their own country.
They are too stupid to have their own country. It was better for them to
work for us here. We give them jobs and security. What else do they
want?
I
think that to be honest my uncle, who was actually a nice man in all
other ways, summed up the attitude of the majority of the Israeli public
at that time and was the attitude of so many I was speaking to. They
felt that they could deal with the Palestinians with impunity. It was
already an apartheid state at that time. Since then they have learned to
steal more of their land and kill them with impunity. And they wonder
why and how they have ended up with the situation today with Hamas et
al.
I
spent a couple of months on a Kibbutz in the Gilboa region and while I
was there a friend and I wanted to go hiking in the hills and visit some
Palestinian towns and villages. Even the moderate lefty Kibbutzniks
told us that we were crazy and we would probably be killed. We ignored
them and went off for a few days. We went to Jenin, we hiked, we hitched
rides, we visited several small towns and villages and also went to
Nablus. All of the people we met were warm, kind, gentle, lovely and
hospitable human beings. To be honest it was a breath of fresh air after
living with the hard, aggressive and brash Israelis for so long. These
were just normal human beings with the same dreams, hopes and
aspirations as the rest of us. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a friendlier,
kinder and more hospitable people. After that I regularly visited the
Palestinian areas on my visits to Israel, which are more or less
impossible now. If anyone asked I always told them the truth that I was
Jewish. My head is still attached to my body.
After
spending a few horrid months in Lebanon and with just 6 months to go of
his army service, my brother decided to desert and come home. We hid
his rifle in a place which would be revealed after he got home, we
picked up some clothes and bought an air ticket from Cairo to which we
were going to get the bus. But he made one mistake. He told our cousins
about what he was going to do and to say goodbye. Unfortunately they
called the military police and had him arrested. He was sent to a hard
labour prison for 6 months and then had to complete his final 6 months
after that which was increased by a further 3 months. When he finally
got home we heard some of the horror stories of the Lebanon “war” or
should I say slaughter. I wont go into details but numerous crimes were
committed and there was no mercy, rules or justice for a whole number of
innocent civilians. So when I see the slaughters in Gaza I know that
the purpose is to pummel the population into submission. Infrastructure
is purposely destroyed, civilian casualties are purposely high. The aim
is to place the poor wretched inhabitants into a state of utter hell to
create a sense of hopelessness and disillusionment with their leaders.
This is what they did in Lebanon and what they have done 3 times in
Gaza.
I
am very open with my own views which have changed considerably since my
early brainwashed days. However I am NOT popular with any of my Jewish
family and friends in Israel or here in the UK. I travel to Israel a
couple of times a year. I have loads of family there and many friends. I
have noticed that the Israelis have become increasingly more racist and
right wing, especially since the influx of Russian immigrants and the
Netanyahu governments. Even my 74 year old auntie said while the Gaza
slaughter was going on that “they should kill them all, they are all
worms!” I find it increasingly more difficult to have a proper debate
because it ends up with you being shouted at and it feels extremely
threatening. I have been told to leave quite a few Israeli houses in my
days. When I read Gideon Levy’s description of what he has to deal with I
have nothing but total respect for him and his courage and bravery. My
brief and insignificant experiences there gave me a glimpse of what he
must endure just to try and do his job and report the TRUTH.
My
frustration is sometimes unbearable. It leads to anger. Why can’t they
see that if you treat other human beings in this oppressive, brutal and
humiliating way that apart from being morally and ethically disgraceful
it can only lead to a radical reaction? I was telling them 30 years ago
that if I was one of them and was treated like that I would be making
bombs to kill Israelis (that didn’t go down too well). Why is it that
they have learned to dehumanize these poor people to such an extent that
they can now just drop 1 ton bombs on apartment blocks and kill anyone
with impunity because “a terrorist was seen nearby”? There is no
feeling, no empathy at all for these poor people from most Israelis.
When one group of humans loses the ability to feel empathy for another
group of humans then genocide is just a step away. The current
Israeli regime has betrayed everything I stand for as a Jew. We have to
be better than everyone else. But these days Israelis and other Jews
are, as an excuse, increasingly comparing their own brutality to the
supposedly even worse brutality of other regimes. The very fact that
this is being used as an argument only demonstrates just how severe the
moral and ethical decay really is.
I
have predicted nearly every move that Netanyahu is going to make when
so-called peace discussions are about to take place; either
announcements of more settlements or a provocation to bring about a
reaction which in turn provides the smoke screen for slaughter. Why is
it that just a few of us can see it but the majority of Israelis cannot
see that they are being brainwashed by fear, fear of Hamas, fear of Iran
and now conveniently ISIS.
My
prediction for the future? This might sound too far fetched…but I
honestly believe it’s more of a possibility than anything else IF this
government or an even more right wing version stays in power. There will
be no two state solution and there will not be an inclusive one state
solution. Israel has no intention of giving up land, they want to annex
all of it. I believe that they will find a “legitimate” way to
“transfer” as many Palestinians as possible under the pretext of
security. It will be based on terror cells operating in the West Bank
and ISIS or similar group will be implicated. Some bombs may go off.
This will lead to an increased military presence and eventually the
expulsion of the Palestinians from those areas which they will say is
“crucial for security”. They want to do this in order to achieve the
Greater Israel which is the goal they have always wanted to achieve
regardless of how many Palestinians they have to kill or remove in one
way or another. After all we have seen a 1000 acres of West Bank land
being stolen as punishment for the kidnapping of the teens. Any excuse
will do, inch by inch, yard by yard, acre by acre.
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