“Come visit Israel, where you can stop by the Western Wall, tour the Holocaust Museum, view the Dead Sea Scrolls, and shoot live bullets at cardboard cutouts of Palestinian terrorists!”
Israel is becoming a destination for a whole new experience: it’s called military tourism, and there are half a dozen companies that run these popular fantasy camps—some on settlements in the occupied West Bank, others in Israel. They are also running these camps in the U.S. (see details below).
An excellent introduction to this latest recreational activity can be found in a heart-stopping two-minute roller coaster of a video (see below). Here is a transcript, with a few comments, to get things started.
The video opens with Sharon Gat, 
founder and CEO of one fantasy camp, Caliber 3. He is dressed in fatigues and sports dark glasses. Gat is speaking to a group of tourists—at the moment, a group from Hong Kong.
founder and CEO of one fantasy camp, Caliber 3. He is dressed in fatigues and sports dark glasses. Gat is speaking to a group of tourists—at the moment, a group from Hong Kong.
“The first demo,” he bellows in drill sergeant fashion, “is the reaction to a terror attack. But before we go into the demo, let me ask you a question: what is terror?”
The answer to his rhetorical question is visible: various posters hang in the makeshift target practice room. Some are menacing-looking men in ski masks or red-and-white kuffiyehs; others are innocent-looking men in clothes roughly the same color as Gat’s. Soldiers run out from between the tourists and shoot live bullets point blank at the men in kuffiyehs and ski masks.
Next we see an attack dog hanging onto the padded arm of a man in an orange jumpsuit and ski mask. Then the tour group, including a little girl in a ponytail, is seen walking through what looks like a weapon display, and wall covered with posters like the ones used in the target practice demo. Some are of “good guys” (Israeli-looking) and “bad guys,” (kuffiyeh-wearing) some are just outlines. These designate the middle of the target’s chest and forehead as A, neck as B, and outer areas of chest as C and D.
One of the instructors, Yoav Flayshman, speaks: “This place was founded, and still stands, for the purpose of training Jews and friends of Israel all over the world how to defend themselves and their families.”
What does that statement mean? Do all Jews need military training to defend themselves and their families? Are Jews worldwide at risk of terror attacks? What dangerous world do they live in? Or is the unspoken message, “This place exists for the purpose of rationalizing Israeli violence to the world by inventing a narrative of how Jews in Israel are innocent victims who must always be on the defensive”?
Read the whole article.
1 comment:
Got the idea from Church Militant.
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