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Popcorn, Hookahs & Applause:
Israelis Cheer-On Mass Murder

ROBERT MACKEY, The New York Times

 

 

 



Last Wednesday night -- July 9, 2014 -- as he stood on a hilltop outside the Israeli town of Sderot and watched the bombardment of Gaza on the plain below, a Danish newspaper reporter snapped an iPhone photo of about a dozen locals who cheered on their military from plastic chairs while eating popcorn.

Allan Sorensen, a veteran Middle East correspondent for Denmark’s Kristeligt Dagblad, then uploaded the image to Twitter with a sardonic caption that described the macabre scene as “Sderot cinema.”

The image of the Israeli spectators was taken after 9 pm local time on Wednesday, the reporter said, about the same time that what was intended to be a “precision strike” from Israel’s military killed at least eight of their Palestinian neighbors, seated in similar plastic chairs at a beachside cafe in Gaza, waiting to watch the World Cup semifinal between Argentina and the Netherlands.

As his image reverberated around the social network, where it was shared more than 10,000 times, the reporter was surprised by the response. It was, he said in a telephone interview from Israel, “nothing new.”

Similar scenes, of Israeli spectators gathered on the high ground above Gaza to view the destruction below, were documented in a Times of London article and a video report from Denmark’s TV2 during Operation Cast Lead in 2009.

Explaining that he has also previously witnessed Palestinians cheering news of bombings that killed Israelis, Mr. Sorensen said that in a war, “this is what happens.” Civilians and fighters on both sides, he said, “go through a process of dehumanizing the enemy.”

Despite the willingness of some residents to stand in the open watching the war unfold, Sderot is well within range of rockets launched by Islamist militants in Gaza and has been hit in recent days.

When he was a candidate for the American presidency in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama visited the town and saluted “the brave citizens” of Sderot while standing in front of a collection of spent rockets that had been fired at them from Gaza. He was also presented with an “I Love Sderot” T-shirt that channeled the dark humor of the residents, with the image of a heart on its front pierced by a rocket.

While some partisans of Israel on Twitter accused the Danish reporter of fabrication, the same scene, captured in photographs by several other journalists in recent days, was also witnessed by Mr. Sorensen’s colleague Nikolaj Krak, who wrote: “The hill has been transformed into something that most closely resembles the front row of a reality war theater. It offers a direct view of the densely populated Gaza Strip. People have dragged camping chairs and sofas to the top of the hill. Several sit with crackling bags of popcorn, while others smoke hookahs and talk cheerfully.”

When the bombs find their targets, Mr. Krak reported, “cheers break out on the hill, followed by solid applause.”

Mr. Sorensen, who stressed that he has “a complete understanding of what the people of Sderot have been going through for 14 years,” attributed the particularly vitriolic response to his Twitter report to the climate in Israel since three young religious students were kidnapped and murdered in the occupied West Bank last month.

The journalist called the “extreme incitement to violence from very right-wing Israeli groups unprecedented” in the many years he has been reporting from the region.

An Israeli blogger, David Sheen, reported that a far-right rally in Jerusalem on Monday was marked by calls to kill Arabs and send Jews opposed to the bombardment to Gaza.


[Courtesy: The New York Times]
July 17, 2014
 

Conversation about this article

1: Mary Mathias (New York, USA), July 17, 2014, 12:28 PM.

Yeah ... I can now clearly see how threatened Israelis feel from their Palestinian neighbours. And why it is so necessary to bomb the latter, and obliterate them ... exactly the way the Nazis did to the Jews. Are the Nazis unwittingly becoming apologists for the Nazis? ... if you know what I mean.

2: Trevor Harding (Wisconsin, USA), July 17, 2014, 12:31 PM.

I know exactly what you mean, Mary. I'm beginning to understand the Nazis now. No, I don't sympathize with them, but I now know what was behind their madness.

3: Bilas Gupta (New Delhi, India), July 17, 2014, 12:34 PM.

I know what I'll be doing the next time the Israelis 'cry wolf' and ask for sympathy when it is their turn to be blown up into smithereens by their equally mad neighbours. Thank you for showing me how to have a good time.

4: Harjas Kaur (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), July 17, 2014, 12:38 PM.

It breaks my heart twice over to see Jews (to take but one example) commit atrocities. One would think that they would be more compassionate than the others, having suffered so much themselves. Alas, not true. They have proved over and over again that they too can be as bad as their former tormentors.

5: Henry Reed (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada), July 17, 2014, 12:43 PM.

The Chosen People? My foot!

6: Baljit Singh (Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada), July 17, 2014, 12:52 PM.

No matter how bad the Jews may have been, they did not deserve the atrocities committed by the Nazis. No matter how bad the Palestinians may have been, they do not deserve the atrocities committed by the Israelis. Period.

7: Fran James (London, United Kingdom), July 17, 2014, 1:00 PM.

Hey, chaps, read your Bible lately? I think there's line in there that says: As you shall sow, so shall you reap. No wonder you're forever either dodging bombs or lobbing them, despite the fact that you are the most affluent and privileged people in the region. You had a choice: you could've sorted things out with your neighbours and lived better than any other country in the world. Instead, you now live like rats, occasionally coming out of your holes to ... look at other rats. Good. Keep at it. It keeps the world entertained. But remember, don't call us; we'll call you.

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Israelis Cheer-On Mass Murder"









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