Israel's Pickle

Rafah border crossing. Photo by Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh, Jerusalem Post.

This story, from the Jerusalem Post, with the above illustration, is grotesquely upsetting and yet in a very dark way unspeakably funny:

Terrorists in Gaza attempted to attack IDF soldiers with an explosives-laden donkey on Friday, the military said. 

IDF forces operating in the Rafah area near the Gaza-Egypt border located the donkey suspiciously approaching their position and were forced to open fire at it, causing the explosives to detonate. 

No injuries were sustained to the soldiers. 

The military expressed its regret over the "shocking" incident, and condemned terrorists in Gaza for strapping bombastic devices to innocent animals as a means of attacking Israeli forces. 

"This cruel incident is the most recent attempt by Gaza terror organizations to make such an abominable use of animals as explosives couriers," the IDF said on its website. 

It's partly because of the artlessly bad military-style writing, the way the soldiers "located" the suicide donkey rather than just seeing it, and the way it "suspiciously approached" them instead of ambling, donkey fashion, in their direction, that the picture is so vivid and movie-like: I see the IDF kids sweating and tensing, clutching their Uzis, and the donkey wholly unconcerned, but not turning back, and the kids maybe closing their eyes as they blow it away. And the hilarious misuse of "bombastic".

I'm even a little suspicious myself: How did the terrorists train a donkey to sidle up to the troops? What exactly was the military expressing "regret" over? Are you sure that donkey was armed?

But the other thing is how this story encapsulates what's wrong with the Occupation, where, after what is it, 47 years, young soldiers have to be terrified of an unescorted enemy donkey. They don't even know where they are.

They also blew up the El-Wafa Rehabilitation Hospital for long-term injuries and disabilities the other day, though they knew nobody inside was armed and couldn't explain why they had done it.  Annie Robbins at Mondoweiss was arguing, convincingly to my way of thinking, that that's the reason for the invasion, because they don't know, in spite of the famously fearsome capacities of Mossad, where they're supposed to be bombing:

Israel is likely in a pickle. Its stated goal for this invasion is to stop the missile fire (and dismantle Hamas’s control of the strip). To do that it must locate Hamas’ weapons arsenal and thus far, it appears it is clueless as to where they are. Israel doesn’t know the extent of weaponry Hamas has amassed, either in quality or quantity. All the blowing up of civilian infrastructure, including homes and hospitals, won’t end the rocket fire because it’s extremely unlikely any central stash of weaponry is stored in homes, schools, hospitals or mosques. The weapons are probably underground which is why it requires a ground invasion to find them. This is what “deal with the tunnels” means when Obama says  “the current military ground operations are designed to deal with the tunnels”.

They've managed to become as ignorant of the Occupied Territories as the Blackwater goons were of Iraq. What do they think they're accomplishing? Israel has a "right to defend itself", we are constantly told. Does it have a right to kill hundreds of people, and animals, in a pure panic attack? Shouldn't it try getting some therapy instead?

Cross-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.