The Best Time Of Our Lives
Aug. 17th, 2010 12:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaA story broke out yesterday, regarding former female soldier of the IDF, Eden Abergil, who posted photos of herself on Facebook with detained Palestinians tied and blindfolded captioned:
"Army... Best Time Of My Life :) "
This has been making headlines two days in a row, who would have thunk it, that a stupid young woman's narcissism and obtuseness would raise more awareness about the inhuman treatment of Palestinians by the IDF than Breaking the Silence ever could, or the picture and story of a crying Palestinian boy
The worst thing about this is, of course, that she has no idea that she did anything wrong.
This quote really encompass the way the Army desensitizes us from feeling any compassion towards those we've been indoctrinated to not view as human:
"Good will" is actually supposed to be in "Good faith", but the translations sometimes go a bit too literal, in good faith, as in without the intent to cause any harm.
Of course, she didn't want to hurt anyone, she didn't consider the props of her military experience as remotely human.
Of having any will of their own. Of having any ability to consent to these photographs or to being the backdrop of this person's best days and on what was most likely their worst.
The real problem is, it's hard for me to lay the blame solely on Abergil's shoulders, in her point of view she treated the Palestinians with decency and perhaps, compares with the horror stories that have come out of Hebron, Gaza and the villages around the West Bank settlements, she really did.
The problem is, that this is a norm. The fact that this is a norm, dehumanising prisoners, treating them as props, having absolutely no perspective as to what it means to be in a position in which you are sitting with a bunch of blindfolded and tied up men, taking pictures for your amusement and treating that time as beautiful, is a terrible truth we have to contend with.
The truth is that the IDF does terrible things. Things that traumatise Palestinians and Israelis alike.
Call me naive, but when I read about soldiers who attack Peace Activists handing out flyers I'm inclined to believe that this kid is feeling that he's being judged by them (and he is by virtue of being part of the IDF that is under critical scrutiny by us Peacniks) and lashes out at what he perceives an attack on his Brothers in Arms, his meaning for living at the moments. National Pride may be a part of it, but that's a very rationalised argument and one usually given in retrospect.
Aside from that, there is a gender angle here of course, because this is a female soldier and female soldiers, are very much fetishised. PR campaigns for the IDF will always use pretty blonde soldiers, this article from Sociological Images (Potentially NSFW) paints the picture much better than I ever could.
Female soldiers should be "like men", but not too much, because they need to be desirable as well.
These are the acts of a "proper" female soldiers. You can bet that if it were a male soldier, the amount of air time and articles written on this would be drastically less. Not that the act would have been any less terrible, but it would be perceived as less, after all, this is not something new.
For me personally, my time in the Army was a time of great boredom and the making of friends. Some of my closest friends are people I met in during my service. I have many friends who did not serve.
I feel no shame in having done my time, had I known then what I know now, I would have refused and caused a great deal of pain and disappointment to my family.
"Army... Best Time Of My Life :) "
This has been making headlines two days in a row, who would have thunk it, that a stupid young woman's narcissism and obtuseness would raise more awareness about the inhuman treatment of Palestinians by the IDF than Breaking the Silence ever could, or the picture and story of a crying Palestinian boy
The worst thing about this is, of course, that she has no idea that she did anything wrong.
This quote really encompass the way the Army desensitizes us from feeling any compassion towards those we've been indoctrinated to not view as human:
"I still don't understand what's wrong," [Eden Abergil] told Army Radio on Thursday, saying that the "pictures were taken in good will, there was no statement in them."
"Good will" is actually supposed to be in "Good faith", but the translations sometimes go a bit too literal, in good faith, as in without the intent to cause any harm.
Of course, she didn't want to hurt anyone, she didn't consider the props of her military experience as remotely human.
Of having any will of their own. Of having any ability to consent to these photographs or to being the backdrop of this person's best days and on what was most likely their worst.
The real problem is, it's hard for me to lay the blame solely on Abergil's shoulders, in her point of view she treated the Palestinians with decency and perhaps, compares with the horror stories that have come out of Hebron, Gaza and the villages around the West Bank settlements, she really did.
The problem is, that this is a norm. The fact that this is a norm, dehumanising prisoners, treating them as props, having absolutely no perspective as to what it means to be in a position in which you are sitting with a bunch of blindfolded and tied up men, taking pictures for your amusement and treating that time as beautiful, is a terrible truth we have to contend with.
The truth is that the IDF does terrible things. Things that traumatise Palestinians and Israelis alike.
Call me naive, but when I read about soldiers who attack Peace Activists handing out flyers I'm inclined to believe that this kid is feeling that he's being judged by them (and he is by virtue of being part of the IDF that is under critical scrutiny by us Peacniks) and lashes out at what he perceives an attack on his Brothers in Arms, his meaning for living at the moments. National Pride may be a part of it, but that's a very rationalised argument and one usually given in retrospect.
Aside from that, there is a gender angle here of course, because this is a female soldier and female soldiers, are very much fetishised. PR campaigns for the IDF will always use pretty blonde soldiers, this article from Sociological Images (Potentially NSFW) paints the picture much better than I ever could.
Female soldiers should be "like men", but not too much, because they need to be desirable as well.
These are the acts of a "proper" female soldiers. You can bet that if it were a male soldier, the amount of air time and articles written on this would be drastically less. Not that the act would have been any less terrible, but it would be perceived as less, after all, this is not something new.
For me personally, my time in the Army was a time of great boredom and the making of friends. Some of my closest friends are people I met in during my service. I have many friends who did not serve.
I feel no shame in having done my time, had I known then what I know now, I would have refused and caused a great deal of pain and disappointment to my family.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-17 07:10 pm (UTC)"THEY ARE HUMANS TOO. WHY THE HELL CAN'T YOU REMEMBER THAT?"
no subject
Date: 2010-08-17 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-17 07:22 pm (UTC)I'll be writing a follow up on this, going a little deeper into the mentality that allows this sort of thing and the gender and racial double standards imposed on this woman.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-17 07:32 pm (UTC)"Did absolutely no-one understand what was wrong with Abu Ghraib?" Because this definitely looks like an entry from the "Doomed to repeat history" department, where I suspect there are a lot of people getting their advanced degrees based on how they treat their chosen Other.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-17 07:35 pm (UTC)As I mentioned above, I'll be writing a follow up to this.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-18 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-18 03:34 am (UTC)