A MERKAVA FOR FIFTY OF US???

NOVANEWS

On Tuesday we went to another non-violent demonstration in the buffer zone, in Attatra, near Beit Lehiya, organized by Local Initiative and the Popular Campaign for Security in the Buffer Zone. There were no shots fired. Oddly. They’re saving their munitions for farms and homes in Rafah, and their bullets for the people they’ve expelled from ’48 into Gaza.
There were not many of us, perhaps 50 total. We stopped 150 meters or more from the border. Organizers are scared of another corpse and of making home visits to another family. They understandably don’t want to tell another set of parents that their boy died in the buffer zone.

Credit: Max Ajl

We heard what sounded like an Apache whirring over the horizon, just beyond the sand hillocks on the Israeli side of the border. The kids pointed out a surveillance plane against the brilliant sky. I could not see it. Three jeeps, churning up the sand, showed up and soldiers got out, conferring with one another.
They apparently decided not to shoot. We were pretty far from the border. Then we heard a tremendous grinding mechanical sound, like metal tearing. It was a Merkava. This was our quiet demonstration. The Merkava’s turret wandered around; it spent an inordinate amount of time pointed directly at us, and also at the knot of people, press and teenagers, 5 or 6 meters away. Intimidation.
There is something scary and simultaneously pathetic about the IDF’s response. Three army jeeps, a Merkava tank, an automated gun-tower, a surveillance drone, and, I think, an Apache, to deal with 50 unarmed civilians carrying a banner, video cameras, and their flag. What’s scary is that their rules of engagement permit them to open fire on children’s legs with live ammunition.
What is pathetic is that they are scared. But what is also scary is that their fear will translate into more crippled and more dead, until live ammunition is banned. [And even then…]. And that won’t happen amidst the media blackout. This is the problem with non-violence in a situation of such unequal strength. People keep dying until the symbolic costs become too high, when they threaten to translate into real costs: political support, economic support.