By Gilad Atzmon 

A discourse analysis 

A few days ago, Noam Shalit, the ?father of? slammed the Hamas for 
holding his son for no real reason. Miraculously, he managed to forget 
the fact that his son Gilad was actually a combatant soldier who served 
as a post guard in a concentration camp and was captured in a fortress 
bunker overlooking Gaza. 

Father Shalit called upon Hamas to: ?stop holding us as hostages of the 
symbols of yesterday's wars". He also claimed that the Hamas is engaged 
in no less than 'imaginary resistance'. Seemingly, these are some very 
bold statements from a father who is supposed to be very concerned with 
his son?s fate. 

Gilad Shalit saga is no doubt an exemplary case-study of Israeli 
identity. In spite of the fact that Gilad Shailt is a soldier who was 
directly involved in the Israeli military crime against a civilian 
population, the Israelis and Jewish lobbies around the world insist 
upon presenting him as an ?innocent victim?. The leading slogan of the 
Shalit campaign reads ?Gilad Shalit, Human being, JEW?. And I ask 
myself is he really just an ordinary a ?human being? as the slogan 
suggests or rather a chosen one as implied by the ?Jew? predicate? And 
if he is just a human being, why exactly did they add the ?Jew? in? 
What is there in the ?Jew? title that serves the Free Shalit campaign? 

Apparently the usage of the predicates ?Human being? and ?Jew? in such 
a proximity is rather informative and meaningful. Within the post-
holocaust Jewish and liberal discourses ?human being? stands for 
?innocence? and ?Jew? stands for ?victim?. Accordingly, the Shalit? 
campaign slogan should be grasped as ?FREE Gilad Shalit the innocent 
victim?. 

One may wonder at this stage, what does it take for a combatant soldier 
serving as a post guard in a concentration camp to become an ?innocent 
victim?? Apparently, as far as Israeli discourse is concerned, not a 
lot. It is really just a matter of rhetoric. 

It is rather notable that within the Israeli militarized society, the 
soldier is elevated, his blood is precious in comparison to ordinary 
Jewish citizens. Israelis adore their military men and grieve every 
loss of their armed forces with spectacular laments. Considering the 
IDF being a popular army, the Israeli love of their soldiers can be 
realized as just another fashion of their inherent self-loving. 

The Israelis simply love themselves almost as much as they hate their 
neighbors. In Israel a death in action of an IoF combatant would 
receive far more attention than a death of a civilian who was subject 
of so called ?terror?. Similarly, in Israel an IDF POW would gather the 
ultimate media attention. Ron Arad, Ehud Goldwasser and Gilad Shalit 
are household names in Israel, the names and faces are familiar to all 
Israelis and others who are interested in the conflict. Considering 
Israel being in a constant state of war, the collective-over caring 
concern for the military man is rather enigmatic or even peculiar. 

Within the Israeli narrative, the soldier is grasped as an innocent 
being that is ?caught? in a war which he is doomed to fight against his 
will. The Israeli combatant ?shoots and sobs?. Within the Israeli 
deluded mindset and historical narrative, the Israelis ?seek peace? and 
it is somehow always the ?others? who bring hostility and violence 
about. This outright self-deception is so imbued within the Israeli 
self image, something that allows the Israelis to launch and initiate 
one war after another while being totally convinced that it is always 
the ?Arabs? who attempt to throw the Israeli into the sea. 

In that sense, the Israeli ?War Against Terror? should be realized as a 
battle against the terror within. The constant battle against the 
?Arabs? is an outlet that resolves the Hebraic self-imposed anxiety 
which the Israeli cannot handle or even confront. In that very sense 
throwing white phosphorous on women, the elderly and children acts as a 
collective Valium pill, it brings peace to the Israeli mind, it 
smoothes the terror within. Killing en masse resolves the insular 
Israeli collective state of fear. This explains how come 94%(http://news.hosuronline.com/NewsD.asp?DAT_ID=722
 of the Israeli Jewish population supported the last genocide in Gaza. 
The consequences are devastating. The total majority of the Israeli 
Jews not only say NO to ?love thy neighbor?, they actually say YES to 
murder in broad daylight. 

In their deluded mindset the Israelis are pushed into ?no choice? wars 
?against their will? in spite of the fact that they are ?innocent 
victims?. In fact, this delusion or rather cognitive dissonance stands 
at the very core of the Israeli unethical existence. The Israeli is 
submerged in a self-notion of blamelessness, it is somehow always the 
other who carries the guilt and the fault (i). This total discrepancy 
between Israeli self-perception i.e., ?innocence? and Israeli 
manifested practice i.e., barbarism beyond comparison, can be realized 
as a severe form of detachment on the verge of collective psychosis. 

The case of Shalit embodies this discrepancy very well. Time after time 
we are asked by Israeli officials and Jewish lobbies to show our 
compassion to a combatant soldier that was serving as post guard in the 
biggest jail in history. An American right-winger, for instance, would 
probably have enough decency in him not to demand our compassionate 
empathy towards a USA marine that was injured while serving as a post 
guard in Guantànamo Bay. Similarly, not many would dare demand our 
compassionate empathy towards a German platoon who performed a role 
similar to Gilad Shalit?s in an East European concentration camp in the 
early 1940?s. Moreover, could anyone imagine the kind of Jewish outrage 
that would be evoked by an imaginary campaign by a right-wing, white 
supremacist slogan that reads ?Free Wolfgang Heim, Human Being, 
Aryan?? 

As much as I understand Noam Shalit?s deep concerns regarding the fate 
of his son, I must advise him with the hope that he takes it into 
consideration. His son Gilad is not exactly an innocent angel. If 
anything, like the rest of the Israelis, he is an integral part of the 
Israeli continuous sin. He was a soldier in a criminal army that serves 
a criminal cause that launches criminal wars. I honestly suggest to Mr. 
Noam Shalit to consider changing his rhetoric. 

He should drop his righteous preaching voice and replace it with either 
dignity or a desperate call for Hamas' mercy. You either acknowledge 
your son?s deeds and be proud of it as a nationalist militant Jew, 
alternatively, you may beg for Hamas? kindness. If I were in his place, 
I would probably go for the second option. Noam Shalit better drop the 
word hostage of his vocabulary. Neither he nor his son are Hamas? 
hostages. If anything they are both held hostage by a Jewish 
nationalist project that is going to bring the gravest disaster on the 
Jewish people. They are both prisoners of a criminal war against ?thy 
neighbors?, the Palestinian civilian population. 

Considering the crimes against humanity repeatedly committed by Israel, 
all that is left for the Jewish state is just rhetorical spin that 
indeed becomes more and more delusional and ineffective. Thus, it didn?
t really take me by surprise to find out that Noam Shalit is not just a 
concerned parent, he is also a profound post-modernist polemicist. 
"Resistance against what? Against whom?? wonders father Shalit, trying 
to dismiss the Palestinian cause altogether. You Hamas are taking us 
?hostages of symbols that at best belong to yesterday's wars, to 
yesterday's world, which has since changed beyond recognition." 

Mr. Shalit, I would like you to tell us all what has changed ?beyond 
recognition? (except the landscape of Gaza)? Please enlighten us all 
because as far as we can see, you yourself still live on stolen 
Palestinian land, making the Biblical call for plunder into a 
contemporary devastating reality. As far as we can see, your sons and 
daughters are still engaged in murderous genocidal practices as they 
have been for the last six decades. 

Mr. Shalit, I suggest that you wake up and the sooner the better. 
Nothing really changed, at least not in the Israeli side. The only 
change I may discern is the cheering fact that you and your people do 
not win anymore. Yes, you manage to kill children, women and old 
people, yes, you have managed to drop unconventional weapons on 
civilians dwelling in the most populated area on this planet and yet, 
you fail to win the war. Your military campaigns achieve nothing except 
death and carnage. 

Your murderous genocidal actions attained nothing but exposing what the 
National Jewish project is all about and what the Israeli is capable 
of. Your imaginary power of deterrence is melting down as I write these 
words and Hamas rockets keep pounding Southern Israel. Yet, the Jewish 
state has secured itself a prominent position as the embodiment of 
evil. If there is a ?change beyond recognition? to be detected is the 
fact that after Gaza we all know who you are and what you stand for. 


-- Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. 
He is the author of two novels: A Guide to the Perplexed and My One and 
Only Love. Atzmon is also one of the most accomplished jazz 
saxophonists in Europe. His CD, Exile, was named the year's best jazz 
CD by the BBC. He now lives in London and can be reached through his 
website: gilad.co.uk.

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