Shocking revelaqtions from inside Israeli society

Israeli youths are subject to widespread state-sponsored segregation and denial in the community from the very childhood so that they are in dark about the realities on the ground, according to revelations by an Israeli-Canadian journalist who herself has been reared up in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Now a Middle East correspondent for an independent video news agency, Tarachansky grew up in one of Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements before embarking on a life changing journey that brought her to question the widespread segregation and denial in Israeli society, according to ciibroadcasting.com.

Tarachansky Lia Tarachansky has told a recent seminar hosted by the Afro-Middle East Centre (AMEC) in Johannesburg that the regime of Israel had nurtured a mental and physical system that did not acknowledge the existence of the indigenous Palestinians. She said she had lived in a settlement all her life, but only really came to know about Palestinians and their plight whilst living in Canada.

“Our settlement is surrounded by Palestinian villages on all sides, but it was only when I returned from overseas that I really discovered that Palestinians exist. It was also the first time that I consciously heard the Muslim Call to Prayer despite the fact that for years it has been called out 5 times daily,” she said.

Regarding the militarization of Israeli society, Tarachansky believes that the process of indoctrination begins very early. “Childhood in Israel is under fire. Children are taught numeracy by counting the number of tanks.”

She added that from Grade 9, school pupils are introduced to a military martial art called Krav Maga. She further cited many examples of how Israeli soldiers and militarism are glorified by the popular media.

Despite this, the journalist reported that fundamental shifts were occurring in Israeli society. “The discourse is changing,” she said.

Tarachansky cited recent social justice protests across Israel where the original demands for an improvement in the cost of living were extended to include co-existence and peace.

She said increasing numbers of Israelis were coming to recognize their historical responsibilities. “Whilst even the term Nakba was a taboo in Israel before, today the Palestinian catastrophe can no longer be swept under the carpet.”

Tarachansky said that Israeli leaders privately acknowledge the psychological effects of decades of occupation on Israelis. In response, she says, they have devised mechanisms for automating and depersonalizing aspects of the occupation. These include remotely controlling attacks on Gaza from nerve centers dozens of kilometers away and subcontracting supervision of checkpoints to private security companies.

Israel, she says, is also effectively profiting from the ‘expertise’ it has gained in controlling the Palestinians and has developed million dollar industries around it. Tarachansky pointed to lethal weapons such as sonic boom devices used for crowd control during the recent wave of Occupy protests worldwide.

“These technologies were first tested on Palestinians under occupation,” she said.

Regarding the global BDS movement, Tarachansky said boycott strategies were beginning to take effect and renewed Israeli publicity campaigns proved that the government was beginning to feel the pinch.

“The biggest threat to Israel today is its growing delegitimization,” she concluded his remarks.