Racist and sexist Israeli military shirts show the mindset that led to war crimes in Gaza

# A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription "Better use Durex," next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him.
# A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills."
# After Operation Cast Lead, soldiers from that battalion printed a T-shirt depicting a vulture sexually penetrating Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh
# A "graduation" shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, "No matter how it begins, we'll put an end to it."
# There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, "Bet you got raped!"
# A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies - such as "confirming the kill" (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim's head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants.
# "Let every Arab mother know that her son's fate is in my hands!" had previously been banned for use on another infantry unit's shirt. A Givati soldier said this week, however, that at the end of last year, his platoon printed up dozens of shirts, fleece jackets and pants bearing this slogan.

These are terrible, terrible shirts.

I don't imagine these types of shirts are unique to Israel. I bet there are similar ones created by US soldiers in Iraq. But the shirts do point to an environment where mass war crimes can be carried out. They reflect a mindset where Palestinian life is disdained, when it's even acknowledged. One of the soldiers says it best in their testimony describing the killing of a mother and her two children: "the atmosphere in general, from what I understood from most of my men who I talked to ... I don't know how to describe it .... The lives of Palestinians, let's say, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers. So as far as they are concerned they can justify it that way."

www.philipweiss.org...
Dehumanizing them, so their soldiers can more easily brutalize them. The less psychological damage for their soldiers, the better!



[edit on 20-3-2009 by Cetaphobia]

reply to post by Cetaphobia


How reliable is this source? Why would an army issue t-shirts that are purple and bright teal along with desert fatigues? Wouldn't that make these soldiers more of a target?

Most armies have strict regulations on what their members wear, so this makes no sense to me at all. Personally, I think it's a load of rubish.

A pregnant woman is a pregnant woman, and a baby is a baby, no matter what nationality they are! Israelis have pregnant woman and babies as well! So, you are suggesting they would be desensitized to their own people?

reply to post by Blanca Rose


No,those t-shirts are meant to be worn when they're off duty.I don't know it but it makes perfect sense since,like you said,wearing them in the battlefield would only make em better targets plus soldiers are always meant to wear the same clothes.

Anyway,i wondered myself about the liability of the site but i also found this in sky news:

The revelations centre on t-shirt designs made for soldiers that make light of shooting pregnant Palestinian mothers and children and include images of dead babies and destroyed mosques. The t-shirts were printed for Israeli soldiers at the end of periods of deployment or training courses and were discovered by Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

sky news

From "Haaretz":

Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques - these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty.

haaretz.com...


To be honest i didn't have to look around much.I'm pretty sure i could find more if i wanted to.