The
Israeli Lab and the Palestinian Guinea Pigs
By
Gilad Atzmon
"The Lab" is a new
groundbreaking Israeli documentary film that redefines our
entire understanding of the Jewish State, its aims, its identity
and its global destructive role. I honestly believe that this
film is the deepest and most important commentary on Israel.
In ‘The
Lab’, Director Yotam Feldman exposes the Israeli military
industry and its operation, he interviews some major
protagonists within Israel’s ‘security’ trade.
He elaborates on
the role of the industry within the Israeli society and economy
- in the last few years Israeli security exports reached an
unprecedented level of $7 billion a year. A full 20% of Israeli
exports are military or military related. Approximately 150.000
families in Israel are dependent on that industry. Israel is now
the fourth biggest military exporter.https://vimeo.com/65082874
The Lab from Yotam Feldman on Vimeo.
In the
last decade, every Israeli military operation led to an
immediate sharp increase in sales of Israeli military export
around the world: weaponry, systems, intelligence, strategies,
doctrines, knowledge and experience.
Feldman
provides us with a glimpse into a very organized universe. We
visit Israeli weapon fairs around the world but we also see
arenas filled to capacity with
foreign generals,
public officials and diplomats. They are all shopping for
Israeli military products. The message is clear, the 7 billion
dollars is just part of the story. Israeli military elite is now
deeply interwoven with the political and military elite of every
country around the globe. This emerging Israeli business buys
the Jewish state influence and support.
Watch Foreign
Generals shopping around:
https://vimeo.com/68429654Foreign Generals – A Segment from The Lab from Gilad Atzmon on Vimeo.
"The Lab"
makes it evidently clear that the Palestinian civilian
population in the West Bank and Gaza have become test subjects
for Israeli tactics, weaponry and fighting philosophy (‘Fighting
Torah’, Torat Lechima - as the Israelis call it). The
destruction of the Palestinians has now been transformed into a
very profitable industry. We are dealing here with nothing short
of highly calculated murder.
Through a
set of fascinating interviews, Feldman conveys a very genuine
picture of the Israeli death merchants. Feldman lets them talk,
he hardly interferes. They are sharp, they are genuine, they are
even funny at times, occasionally witty, and a few of them,
might even be charming if you did not know who they are. But
make no mistake, they are sinister, some of them are clearly
psychotic, they are mass murderers and they are free. They sell
destruction and havoc and do it very successfully.
Watch IDF Yoav Galant, the planner and executioner of Operation
Cast Lead, discussing ‘proportions’:
http://youtu.be/tI0Nq9YJa3c
Being
myself an Israeli-born and raised successful musician and
writer, I think I can recognize Israeli dedication, perseverance
and creativity when I see it, no matter into what service it is
pressed. (Perhaps I was lucky to be rescued by bebop.) Those
Israeli death angels’ talent is driven into the amplification of
human misery. The consequences are tragic.
Game Changer
It is far
from being a secret that a century of Palestinian struggle led
to practically nothing. The state of the Palestinian solidarity
movement is even more embarrassing. Feldman's "The Lab" is a
game changer, for it can explain decades of impotence.
We are
immersed in flawed terminology - ‘colonialism’, ‘apartheid’,
‘conflict’, ‘solution’, ‘Zionism’ are just few examples. Gaza is
now a vast Laboratory - the Israelis are the ‘scientists’ and
the ‘technicians’, the Palestinians are the ‘guinea pigs’.
Watching "The Lab" must lead all of us to fundamentally question
our notions. We are dealing with a premeditated war crime. The
notion of resolution (as in ‘two-state solution’), for instance,
is not applicable. It is clear beyond doubt that in the real
world the ‘scientist’ does not negotiate with the ‘guinea pig’.
The ‘scientist’ also doesn’t consider sharing reality with his
‘guinea pig’ in a ‘one democratic state.’ "The Lab" is a
glimpse into the Israeli mind: you clearly do not find much
compassion there.
For
decades we were foolish to examine the success and failure of
Israeli military operations in reference to Israeli military and
political ‘objectives,’ as we surmised them. We were clearly
wrong.
As we
learn from Feldman’s film, the real objective of Israeli
operations may as well be examining new doctrines and
operational systems in order to distribute them around the world
soon after. Ehud Barak, for instance, wasn’t exactly the most
sophisticated Israeli minister of defense, he clearly failed to
defend his people or even make them feel secure. However, he was
very successful in selling Israeli weapons and doctrines.
Tel Aviv
being subject to a barrage of Qassam rockets may be seen by
Israelis as devastating news, but from a military industrial
point of view, it was a golden opportunity to examine and
promote the Israeli anti-missile system Iron Dome. If I am
correct here, it becomes clear that like the Palestinians, more
and more Israelis are also becoming ‘guinea pigs’ in this ever
growing military laboratory.
One may
wonder how and when "the Zionist dream" transformed itself into
a military business. Only a few of us, writers and scholars,
have attempted to answer this question. The transformation of
the Jewish State into an oppression factory is apparently a
direct outcome of Israel’s supremacist ideology. If we want to
understand what is happening in the Jewish State, we must first
grasp the notions of choseness, Jewishness and Jewish identity
politics.
I guess
that enough Palestinians in Gaza do realise by now that they
have been part of an Israeli experiment. Every too often we
learn from Palestinian doctors that while treating casualties of
Israeli aggression they encounter new types of wounds. The Lab
explains it but it isn’t Palestine alone. We also witness a
growing similarity between the operational mode of police forces
around the world and the IDF treatment of the Palestinians.
Watching
Yotam Feldman’s "The Lab" explains it all. We are all
Palestinians. We are either occupied by Israel or by its proxy
forces around the world - those who are trained in Israel and
implement Israeli weaponry and tactics.
Gilad
Atzmon’s latest book is: The
Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics
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