If somehow you missed the viral internet uproar over IDF soldier Mor Ostrovsky's posting of a picture of a Palestinian child with the back of his head in the crosshairs of a snipers rifle, it can still be found online. Once exposed, the Israeli Defense Forces issued a denial that Ostrovsky's photo was symbolic of the IDF mission or purpose.
Unfortunately, as has been repeatedly emphasized, that denial is a falsehood. Today further proof surfaced when 549 pictures posted on the Instagram account of Osher Maman, a soldier in the elite Golani Brigade, surfaced in Ali Abunimah's blog post for Electrovic Intifada.
***** to see the post http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah
In his Instragram post Maman shows images of himself mishandling weapons and breaking military law. In addition he posts racist and genocidal comments about Palestinians and Arabs as captions for some photographs. The Instagram account has been scrubbed since the posting of the pictures online.
People may express surprise and/or outrage but really in all honesty no one should be surprised or take any IDF denials and image scrubbing at face value. This is exactly what the immorality of colonialism does to the young soldiers expected to carry out the enforced injustice. The faces of young soldiers like Ostrovsky and Mamon could be seen in our own history engaging in giving small pox infected blankets to Native Americans at Fort Pitt as means of ethnic cleansing.
There is a striking similarity to how Americans just moved onto Native American land and built settlements as a means of taking the land and Israeli use of settlements to take all of Palestine. We had Indian reservations the Israeli's use Gaza the same way.
In my lifetime you could see the effect of colonial immorality in the conduct at My Lai during the Viet Nam War or more close to the present Abu Grahab and Afghanistan or even Obama's belief in his justification for use of drone strikes and the listing of 200 children killed accidentally as collateral damage. Colonialism has a way of making life cheaper to the point it is no longer considered exactly human for both sides.
At the end of his blog Abunimah pointed out that the Israeli Army had once again called the incident severe and in no way symbolic of either the IDF philosophy or mission. Perhaps Maman, in his own words called the lie a lie when he posted a caption to a picture that read, "Join the IDF and look like a boss."
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