In the initial attacks against Gaza, Ahmed Owedat and his family was forced out of his home to save their lives. When he returned thanks to the cease fire, what he found was his life turned upside down.
Furniture destroyed, electronics smashed, human feces, but most disturbing of all, anti-Palestinian graffiti, written in English.
In his home, the messages “Fuck Hamas,” “Burn Gaza down” and “Good Arab = dead Arab” could be found, along with a Star of David painted in blue. His life savings gone, his home smashed, he, like so many in Gaza, will be struggling to rebuild.
And his is not the only case. A few miles north, the Beit Hanoun girls’ school found a similar situation. Rotting food, urine and fecal smells everywhere, and graffiti saying “You will be fucked here” and “Don’t forget it’s time for you to die” all written in English.
Were these messages for the Palestinians, who do not speak English as a general rule? Not likely. Israel’s official languages are Hebrew and Arabic, both of which are common for a Palestinian to understand.
The soldiers who wrote the messages instead were focused not on the Palestinians, as likely other graffiti was written but not understood by the people who encountered it, but instead on the world audience. The crudity of language, especially the use of “fuck” in both places, does not lend itself to a second language application. This was meant to incite emotion, to dehumanize the victims, and to be understood on a mass media scale. However, it does fit in with earlier incidents, like those from the occupation of Hebron, where allegations of the IDF engaging in this form of vandalism, in English, was widespread, with reports that it was encouraged by senior officers. Indeed, the terrorist organization Jewish Defense League uses English for its graffiti mainly due to its international scope, as seen in this graffiti written by JDL members in Hebron, West Bank.
The current Israeli coalition government, led by the partnership of the right-wing Lukid and the fascist Yisrael Beiteinu parties, is right now struggling with a shift of power caused by the promotion of Carmel Shama-Hacohen to the ambassadorship of OECD and UNESCO giving added power to the moderate Yesh Atid party. The handling of a minor incident of graffiti is likely to never even take notice in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. But the reality is, it should. It denotes a military culture of anger, even hatred, but one designed to be seen on the public stage. And the only way to root out such corruption is from the top.
The use of graffiti in wartime to state messages against the enemy is common. But this is not wartime, nor is it usual. The use of a non-native language to the region, one used primarily for international trade by the citizens in the area, is not accidental. This is part of the culture created, the culture of dehumanizing the Palestinians by the Israeli military. The use of English is not for them, but for us, those of us in the United States and the United Kingdom. We must not forget the human cost of war, and if we let these messages of hate take root, then we have lost some of our own humanity in the process.
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