It’s a hideous atrocity, sadistic, vicious, murderous, totally without any credible pretext. It’s another one of the periodic Israeli exercises in what they delicately call "mowing the lawn." That means shooting fish in the pond, to make sure that the animals stay quiet in the cage that you’ve constructed for them, after which you go to a period of what’s called "ceasefire," which means that Hamas observes the ceasefire, as Israel concedes, while Israel continues to violate it. Then it’s broken by an Israeli escalation, Hamas reaction. Then you have period of "mowing the lawn." This one is, in many ways, more sadistic and vicious even than the earlier ones - Noam Chomsky
Upon learning that two US citizens had been killed in Gaza during the course of “mowing the lawn” for Israel – methodically mowing down Palestinian civilian men, women and children with callous Einsatzgruppen purpose - it led to some reflection on the wilful ambivalence of the US stance to the phenomenon of what the Israelis term ‘lone soldiers.’ These are citizens of one society who feel compelled to go abroad and enlist in the armed forces of a foreign power. John Walker Lindh, a US citizen, gained worldwide publicity - fame or notoriety, it is call for the reader to make - when he was captured by US forces shortly after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. At the time he was a Taliban soldier resisting the invasion and who, for his ’lone’ stand, was later sentenced to twenty long lonely years in a US prison. The US media played host to a cacophony of voices, strident in their condemnation of him. He was on the side of the “terrorists” and as such had set his face against his nation, the US.
Nowhere has the term “terrorist” been turned into a taboo word with more amplified sonance than in the US. The T word became the new Nightmare on Elm Street. T became the cross like symbol thrust in the face of any modern day vampire whose life draining fang was nothing other than a dissenting opinion. The word “terrorism” was the discursive baton used to shroud the clarity of critique in the mist of mendacity.
Of course American exceptionalism ensures different strokes for different folks. And for all the moral panic generated around the T word, even 'terrorism' can be treated as an exceptional case if it is US friendly terrorism. This time the ‘lone soldier’ phenomenon was treated differently in the US media. Outlets outside of the traditional Jewish community while not gung ho in their praise of the soldiers’ inclusion in the ranks of a belligerent foreign power at the same time seemed bereft of any critical reflection. The US dead in Gaza received a treatment vastly different to that of John Walker Lindh, giving legs to the maxim that one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.
In the opening days of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza, the two US citizens, one a Californian the other a Texan, exercising a choice similar to that of John Walker Lindh were killed. What made them the 'exception' was that on this occasion the arms they bore were on behalf of a US strategic partner rather than an adversary. They both fought and fell in the ranks of the Golani brigade which took a leading role in the ground invasion.
Max Steinberg and Nissim Sean Carmelli it seems had “made Aliyah” some years prior to their death, took up residence in Israel and enlisted in the IDF. There is no particular reason to think they were more courageous than adventurous. Israeli commanders did not anticipate the type of Palestinian resistance that claimed more than 60 IDF lives. And the IDF invariably protects its own at the expense of everybody else. True, neither man turned up just to take part in a photo opportunity for the folks back in Texas and California. Both opted to go “back in” despite sustaining slight injuries in the opening moves (which may have been their ticket to the back lines had they opted to cash it in) and seemed prepared to face whatever risks came their way. Still, heroics do not shape the moral calculus for evaluating their actions. On the battlefield individual bravery and ethical integrity are often strangers to each other.
The accolade paid to Carmelli by a former IDF soldier who, forty years earlier, had fought and been wounded in the same Gazan street where the Texan died, that he was displaying a ‘dedication to the ideal that a free people have a right to defend themselves from barbarism’ is wholly misplaced in that it is a more fitting description of the Palestinian troops who killed both him and Steinberg. They were resisting the war of barbarism Israel had thrust into their midst, destroying their society, using F-16s to mow the lawn where their children played.
While the families of the dead Golani brigade members will never see them as anything other than upstanding young men who have now stepped into an eternal Valhalla, the requisite grades purchased with their blood, it seems much more logical to view these two men as terrorists, prosecuting a war of state terror against a defenceless civilian population. If Steinberg’s father’s account is accurate that his son ‘was focused, he was clear in what the mission was, and he was dedicated to the work he needed to be doing', there is little room for mitigation.
It is hard to make the case that Max Steinberg and Nissim Sean Carmelli are different in any ethically substantive way from Swedish members of the SS fighting in Soviet Territory during World War 2. Rune Ahlgren died in Latvia in 1944 while Walter Nilsson was killed the same year in fighting near Leningrad. Like the dead SS who predeceased them Steinberg and Carmelli were willing executioners in the drive for Lebensraum.
In the US the T word is always for somebody else, never meant to enlighten but to obscure. Time we were all spared the flimflam. Steinberg and Carmelli were terrorists who died terrorising the civilian population of Gaza. Palestinian troops killed them defending that population from massacre. The Palestinians were right.
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