Girls at War (a good read, recommended)

[shaayecanaan]

http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/77378/girls-at-war/?all=1

'Moriya, who is 19, was wearing blue balloon pants, a turquoise-and-silver nose ring, and a silver Star of David around her neck emblazoned with Meir Kahane’s famous emblem—a thumb rising out of a tight fist. Roni is 14. Her nail polish was blue, and she was wearing a Snoopy T-shirt and a wooden pendant etched with the Hebrew words: “Kahane was right.” They’re fighters, these girls, each in their different way. “We called him after Benjamin Zeev Chai,” said Moriya of her 6-year-old brother. Benjamin Kahane, the son of Meir Kahane who was killed, was her father’s best friend, she said. A lot of her father’s friends were killed, she said, as she handed Benjy a candy. One of them is still in prison for killing a Palestinian.

“I was depressed all this week. I can’t smile,” she said. It had been only seven days since the murder of the Fogel family, who lived down the road. The mother, Ruthi, was Roni’s teacher. As Tamar, the Fogels’ 12-year-old daughter, told reporters, around midnight she came home from a Bnei Akiva youth meeting to find her mother Ruthi lying in a pool of blood and her home the site of a massacre—her mother, father, two younger brothers, and 3-month-old sister all slaughtered with knives. Two of her younger brothers survived.

“This week was crazy,” Moriya told me taking me inside to the living room to see her Facebook page on the family computer. “Look my friend writes: ‘Don’t be sad. Don’t give the thugs what they want.’ ”

Then Roni said that the day after the murder, everyone in Tapuach went down to the junction and threw rocks at Arabs. “We all wanted revenge. We just won’t cry and feel sorry for ourselves. We will do something about it. You know? If someone comes to kill you, then you kill them first, says the Torah.” Tapuach was notorious for “price tag” vengeance—which is nothing new in outlying settlements where Jewish vigilantes have been known to take the law into their hands. What was new to me was the vigorous and organized participation of adolescent girls.'

[MADem]

1. A thumb rising out of a tight fist....

In the Middle East and South West Asia, that gesture does not mean "Thumbs up!" It's sort of like the middle finger in USA, or two fingers in UK and Eire...probably the closest verbal expression is "Up yer ass!"

I have no idea if Kahane meant it the same way or not.

[shaayecanaan]

2. its not the thumbs up expression...

Its the clenched fist, much like the socialist or black power salute, although I doubt that Kahane was attempting to emulate either of those.

[MADem]

3. What about that rising thumb??? That does indeed look like a clenched fist to me!!!

I think the article writer didn't do a very good job describing the thing! When I see "tight fist/rising thumb" I think thusly:

[Scurrilous]

4. Thanks.

:thumbsup:

[shaayecanaan]

5. I thought it might make a good break

from the Arutz Sheva spam posts that have recently dominated the board.

[Violet_Crumble]

6. Thanks for posting it. It did make a nice break from that n/t

[azurnoir]

7. Thanks it shows the flip side of something we hear about often enough here

children being taught hate, it is not just Palestinian children

[oberliner]

8. Did you read the article?

Do they teach about Arabs at school?

“No. In my class one girl didn’t have a brother. One didn’t have parents because of the terrorism,” she said. “It’s not all about the hate. It’s a different reality we are born into, so the hate came with the reality.”

Tzuriya was 9 when the Second Intifada began and the family was then living on the other hill by the tall cedars. One night seven years ago, at the end of Passover, her father went out to play basketball. She and her mother and siblings heard voices speaking Arabic. Then shooting. Her father slipped back into the house. The settlement defense sirens went off. “The terrorists killed the family who lived behind us. The father, grandfather, mother, big brother,” Tzuriya remembered. One daughter and one son hiding under the table survived. “Every little thing that happens here scares me,” Tzuriya told me. “Even a noise.”

[azurnoir]

9. yes Oberliner I read it do you honestly think that there are not Palestinian children

that could tell the same stories?

It goes to show though that perhaps the children of both sides do not have to taught to hate they learn it by living

[oberliner]

10. Of course there are

But your comment seemed to be about something else.

That's why I wasn't sure if you read the whole thing.

It doesn't seem to say what you were suggested it did.

[oberliner]

11. This response might interest you

Excerpt:

In the end, it is a wonderful piece of writing and introspection into the Maaleh Levona girls. But it is, nevertheless, unfair and unbalanced. Kahane supporters stand out. Almost no other Yesha-educated teenager is highlighted. No true background is provided.

It will reflect not only on Yesha highschool girls but on Yesha in general. There should have been more in it but you'lll make your own judgment.

http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2011/09/this-800-plus-article-published-at.html

Be advised - it's from a right winger who believes he was referenced in the original piece.