January 8, 2009
Tania Chernova’s Lesson for Israel
by Bill Levinson
Tania Chernova (the sniper portrayed by Rachel Weisz in “Enemy at the Gates”) was actually an American who went to Russia to rescue her grandparents during the Second World War. The Nazis, however, murdered her grandparents (not her parents as depicted in the movie). As a result,
After serving with the partisans, she made her way to Stalingrad, determined to kill as many Germans as she could. Many of the savage German reprisals led her to dehumanize the enemy. She called them sticks, fit only for breaking.
It is believed that Tania Chernova broke dozens of German “sticks” during her career. Not all Germans were Nazis; most were men who wore the wrong color uniform out of loyalty to Germany (as opposed to Hitler), or because they were drafted by Hitler. What, then, are we to say of Hamas terrorists who do not bother to wear any uniforms whatsoever while they, like the Nazis, orchestrate the murder of Jewish civilians? Our position is that they should be treated as “sticks, fit only for breaking.”
Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” claims that it is psychologically difficult to be a sniper. As opposed to a soldier who fires at a figure whom he can hardly see over open sights or, more recently, at a green image in a night vision scope, a sniper sees a human face through a telescopic sight. Although the uniform that goes with the face is that of an enemy, the person is usually not an immediate threat to the sniper or his comrades (as opposed to, for example, a Japanese soldier whose face was close enough to see in a banzai charge). The sniper must nonetheless squeeze the trigger and end that person’s life. When Tania Chernova learned that the Nazis had murdered her grandparents, though, it doubtlessly became very easy to define Germans as sticks for breaking.
Israel must similarly dehumanize Hamas until IDF soldiers find it equally easy to break its members like sticks, and until the civilized world regards Hamas as trash fit only for disposal like other waste. It should be relatively easy to do this by circulating pictures of victims of suicide bombings, beheadings, stonings, throat cuttings, and similar atrocities. We know there are X-rays of suicide bomb victims that show nails and other foreign objects in their bodies. The Left does this all the time when it shows pictures of dead or wounded Palestinians (usually outside the context of the violence that made them that way, such as IDF soldiers shooting in self-defense).
Israel’s biggest problem is its failure to manage its public relations, while the terrorists excel at propaganda. Israel must use the methods of the Yellow Press, Anglo-French propagandists of the First World War, and even Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler (who learned their trade from the aforementioned Anglo-French propagandists, and cited Germany’s failure to reply in kind during the Great War) to dehumanize Hamas and other terrorists.* The terrorists are already using these methods (e.g. portrayal of Jews with exaggerated noses killing Jesus and crucifying a Palestinian woman), so Civilization must answer them in kind and with compound interest. Individuals who choose to engage in terroristic violence, like the ones that tortured Americans to death in Mumbai while slaughtering Hindu “infidels,” or the perpetrators of the Ma’alot massacre, have forfeited their right to be regarded as human beings, and it is past time for Israel and other civilized countries to make this unequivocally clear to the world.
* It is to be noted that Nazi propagandists had to draw derogatory caricatures of Jews, because Germany’s Jews were among its most productive and intelligent citizens. In contrast, pictures and videos of Hamas members and supporters being themselves–e.g. lynching other Palestinians, setting off bombs, training children to be suicide bombers, calling for the overthrow of Judeo-Christian society and the implementation of Sharia law, and so on, could easily be enough to convince viewers that they are less than human.
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Posted by Bill Levinson @ 4:30 pm |
8 Comments »
1.
Unlike the Jews, those who belong to Hamas really are untermenschen. They are wild beasts and they do not display a level of behavior that qualifies them as members of the human race. In their declarations, attitude and manifest conduct, they are a deadly pathogen. And one should treat them as one does a deadly pathogen.
Comment by NormanF — January 8, 2009 @ 6:39 pm
2.
My feeling is that those who support Hamas, especially the media people who in no way recognize the right to any form of self-defence - protecting your family and friends by killing those who would kill them - make the worst form of friend or husband (or wife).
If I were the spouse of someone who truly believes that killing is NEVER justified, even if it means protecting your loved ones, I would seriously consider an immediate divorce. If you can’t trust your spouse to give his all as a normal human being, to protect you and your children, get rid of him (or her).
Comment by keelie — January 8, 2009 @ 7:12 pm
3.
Re: #1
The best way to describe Hamas is, “Homo sapiens by BIRTH, subhuman by CHOICE.” It stresses the fact that Hamas and other militant Palestinians are genetically no different than human beings, but their behavioral choices make them subhumans, dreck, and filth worthy of nothing but extermination like plague-carrying rats. Not because their race, or because Israel wants their land (it doesn’t), but because they choose to engage in mindless violence against their neighbors and also peaceful Palestinians.
There is nothing racist about this; when the Nazis started to bomb English cities, the British probably regarded their fellow Caucasians (”Aryans” by Hitler’s definition) in Germany as less than human, and they did to the inhabitants of Dresden what the Nazis were doing to the Jews, but without the courtesy of gassing them first. When the Nazis were removed, Germans could again behave like human beings (without fear of being picked up by the Gestapo), and they are now respected members of the international community. If Israel exterminates the Hamas vermin, preferably to the last rat, Palestinians will be able to act like human beings without fear of being honor-killed or strung up by a lynch mob.
Comment by Bill Levinson — January 8, 2009 @ 8:01 pm
4.
They should drop sleeping gas on the city of Gaza the same kind the Russians used when the terrorists took over in the theater in Moscow. Then teams go in shoot all the sleeping terrorists blow up the rockets in place. They go out. Everyone wakes up. Peskin cries. The world is happy.
Comment by Max — January 8, 2009 @ 10:37 pm
5.
Max, best suggestion I’ve heard all day. Its humane and Israel doesn’t risk house to house fighting. Forward your proposal to the IDF and have them get on it right away. The war can be ended sooner and every one but Hamas can claim victory. If Peskin is against it, even better!
Comment by NormanF — January 8, 2009 @ 11:11 pm
6.
Bill, there’s nothing racist about my description of Hamas. If they decide to become civilized, of course then my observation would longer apply. In more specific terms, as you observed, evil is a CHOICE. Hamas chose that path and should pay the price for it. Good people don’t have to because they have nothing to fear. Those that rebel against the absolute code of right and wrong that governs all human behavior in the world do have plenty to fear. Exterminating the Hamas vermin isn’t a detraction from the goodness of humanity; to the contrary it ought to be an object lesson that evil never pays. A world that rewards evil is not a just world and a just world rejoices in the merit of the righteous who dwell in it.
Comment by NormanF — January 8, 2009 @ 11:17 pm
7.
Re: #6
I think we are saying the same thing; if they CHOOSE to become civilized, they are no longer subhuman dreck that deserve to be treated like plague-carrying rats (noting that rats do not CHOOSE to carry the plague, so they are morally superior to Hamas terrorists). Plague-carrying rats do not “deserve” to be exterminated, nor do rabid animals, but it is a sad necessity. Hamas deserve to be destroyed, and I have no sympathy whatsoever for those who are now getting a taste of their own medicine.
Comment by Bill Levinson — January 8, 2009 @ 11:52 pm
8.
For added emphasis, the Torah emphatically commands Jews to show no mercy to Amalek. The modern sons of Haman deserve the exact opposite of the misplaced milk of kindness shown to them by Israel. That is the mercy of fools. The evil doers without exception must be wiped out. Only then is there justice and peace upon the earth.
Comment by NormanF — January 9, 2009 @ 2:30 am
http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=7499#more-7499
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