Tom Hurndall is one of the two activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who, like several thousand Palestinians since 2000, was murdered by the Israeli army.
Tom Hurndall is one of the two activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who, like several thousand Palestinians since 2000, was murdered by the Israeli army.
The hearings on his death have been telling. Because I’m still reading Anthony Hall’s ‘American Empire and the Fourth World’, I can’t help but think that they showcase the nature of warfare by colonists against indigenous peoples and the whole nature of American-style warfare, warfare in which internationals like Tom Hurndall and Rachel Corrie became ‘collateral damage’: killing them was not the intent of the Israeli army, it was just irrelevant.
This is shown by the dialogue recorded in the trial of Idier Wahid Taysir, the Sargeant who is being tried for manslaughter. Taysir told the court the following:
“I told him that I did what I’m supposed to; anyone who enters a firing
zone must be taken out. [The commander] always says this”.
The story, reported in the Guardian, continues:
Sgt Taysir told the army investigators he had opened fire at Mr Hurndall
because the Briton was on the edge of the security zone, carrying a
weapon and wearing camouflage clothing.
In fact, he had not entered the closed zone, had no gun and was wearing
a bright orange jacket.
The prosecutor asked the sergeant if Mr Hurndall had a weapon.
Sgt Taysir replied: “No. That’s the truth.”
“So you gave a false report to the company commander?” the prosecutor
asked.
“I did not give a false report. He might have had a weapon under his
clothing. People fire freely there. The [Israeli army] fires freely in
Rafah.”
The prosecutor continued: “But you told him that you saw a weapon?”
“Right.”
“So you lied?”
“I said it.”
The prosecutor then asked: “After that, you also reported that the man
fired in the air and at you, right? Why did you report that he fired at
you?”
The sergeant replied: “Because I had already fired without getting
approval [from the company commander]. Everything was under pressure and
a result of fear. They tell us all the time to fire; that there is
approval. All the troops [in Rafah] fire without approval at anyone who
crosses a red line.”
There are a number of things to be drawn from all this, lessons about the nature of military organizations and their ethic of secrecy, for example, and its incompatibility with democracy. But instead I want to just draw your attention to the nature of standing Israeli military orders in Rafah. In Taysir’s words: “I did what I’m supposed to; anyone who enters a firing zone must be taken out.” The phrase from the Vietnam War internal documents that that Chomsky has cited recently is “anything that flies against anything that moves.” There’s also the quote by Powell about how the US declared open season on MAMs (military-age-males) in Vietnam. The US has declared open season on MAMs (marriage-aged-males) in Iraq. In Fallujah, they first refused to let people out, and then proceeded to treat everyone who didn’t leave as a military target.
I don’t like the loose use of the term ‘genocide’, but this is a genocidal method of warfare. What other descriptor is appropriate for these ‘free-fire zones’? The result of this kind of warfare, developed above all in the Americas and especially the US, was the genocide of the indigenous peoples (t)here.
Hitler himself modeled his East European campaigns on the US genocide of the indigenous peoples, as Ward Churchill documents in the book linked above. So long as ‘free-fire zones’ persist anywhere in the world, we won’t be able to say that horrific chapter of human history is closed.
