Unofficial t-shirts reveal IDF mentality

[Robocommie]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072466.html

Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009

The office at the Adiv fabric-printing shop in south Tel Aviv handles a constant stream of customers, many of them soldiers in uniform, who come to order custom clothing featuring their unit's insignia, usually accompanied by a slogan and drawing of their choosing. Elsewhere on the premises, the sketches are turned into plates used for imprinting the ordered items, mainly T-shirts and baseball caps, but also hoodies, fleece jackets and pants. A young Arab man from Jaffa supervises the workers who imprint the words and pictures, and afterward hands over the finished product.

Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques - these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty. The slogans accompanying the drawings are not exactly anemic either: A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription "Better use Durex," next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him. A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills." A "graduation" shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, "No matter how it begins, we'll put an end to it."

There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, "Bet you got raped!" A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies - such as "confirming the kill" (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim's head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants. In many cases, the content is submitted for approval to one of the unit's commanders. The latter, however, do not always have control over what gets printed, because the artwork is a private initiative of soldiers that they never hear about. Drawings or slogans previously banned in certain units have been approved for distribution elsewhere. For example, shirts declaring, "We won't chill 'til we confirm the kill" were banned in the past (the IDF claims that the practice doesn't exist), yet the Haruv battalion printed some last year.

The slogan "Let every Arab mother know that her son's fate is in my hands!" had previously been banned for use on another infantry unit's shirt. A Givati soldier said this week, however, that at the end of last year, his platoon printed up dozens of shirts, fleece jackets and pants bearing this slogan.

"It has a drawing depicting a soldier as the Angel of Death, next to a gun and an Arab town," he explains. "The text was very powerful. The funniest part was that when our soldier came to get the shirts, the man who printed them was an Arab, and the soldier felt so bad that he told the girl at the counter to bring them to him.

[Wanted Man]

Yeah, it's old news. Read it and was thoroughly disgusted almost a year ago. Reading it again doesn't change much.

[RadioRaheem84]

Some Israel supporters spend a ton of time and money making people believe the IDF are humanitarian soldiers protecting their country but when I see stuff like this, it makes me sick to my stomach. How do they apologize for this?

[The Vegan Marxist]

Yeah, this has been known to be going on for a while now. Here's a video reporting on it:

+ YouTube Video

[Robocommie]

This kind of stuff is exactly why I cussed at the television when I watched Netanyahu tell the United Nations that they had just tried so hard to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza.

[Red Commissar]

The IDF has a very jingoistic behavior among its supporters. Even the way they use their women in recruitment and PR campaigns shows what segment of the population they are playing to.

[FreeFocus]

Oh, come on comrades. The IDF is comprised of poor working class lads just like you and I. Even if one of these poor working class lads is wearing this shirt, all we have to do is try to organize them and give them some Marx or Lenin to read so that they'll understand their class and position in society.














Fuck these monsters.

[Robocommie]

It makes me wonder where Israel will be in 50 years. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon demonstrated that they are not the unstoppable military juggernaut that won the Arab-Israeli wars, and they're beginning, more and more every day, to alienate their European allies. This affair with the Mossad agents in Dubai, for example.

[The Douche]

In my barracks in basic training there was a murual painted on the wall by the drill sergeants, it depicted and air assault and some US soldiers killing arab men set in an arab town. Not really suprising...thing was, none of the arabs had weapons, at the end of my training I made a half-joking comment about that to my senior drill sergeant...he said "just wait til you go to iraq, then you'll get it".

I don't believe most soldiers run around killing innocent people, him, maybe, but anyways, just an anecdote. Most people could never understand the perverse nature of the military, especially the combat arms branches.

[Robocommie]

In my barracks in basic training there was a murual painted on the wall by the drill sergeants, it depicted and air assault and some US soldiers killing arab men set in an arab town. Not really suprising...thing was, none of the arabs had weapons, at the end of my training I made a half-joking comment about that to my senior drill sergeant...he said "just wait til you go to iraq, then you'll get it".

I don't believe most soldiers run around killing innocent people, him, maybe, but anyways, just an anecdote. Most people could never understand the perverse nature of the military, especially the combat arms branches.

Do you think it's an unavoidable consequence of having professional, full-time soldiers?

[The Douche]

Do you think it's an unavoidable consequence of having professional, full-time soldiers?

I think its more complicated than a yes/no answer.

The combat arms (I am a recon infantryman) attracts a certain kind of person. I mean, really, you have to be a little different to choose to be the actual fighting arm of the military. And there are common personality traits that exist amongst those people (for instance, almost everybody in my unit knows that I am against the war, I even have a hammer and sickle tattooed on my arm, people know I am an anarchist but we are still close friends).

The existence of a professional army provides a space for these people, and since they are surrounded by similar ideas it is easy for those ideas to seem normal and become validated.

If there was no army these people would certainly still exist, but their behavior would not be encouraged in the way it is in the army, and it certainly would not be institutionalized like the military does.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Yeah, I've got a former friend who's in the Army right now, & apparently he read an article that posted on myspace about one of the drone bombings in Pakistan by the U.S. military, & he ended up responding to it saying that he would've loved to see the filthy Pakistani children & dead-beat women get bombed. It's becoming REAL hard to even support our own troops in getting the fuck out of there.

[Scary Monster]

Fuck These IDF and zionist parasites have no shame? How do the general Israeli population feel about Arabs? This shit pisses me off to no end The crazy thing is, the IDF is cartoon-like in the way they present themselves-making t shirts that depict shooting a pregnant woman in her stomach. Their extreme hatred for innocent Palestinian women and children i just cannot fathom..It makes me sick

[Scary Monster]

Yeah, I've got a former friend who's in the Army right now, & apparently he read an article that posted on myspace about one of the drone bombings in Pakistan by the U.S. military, & he ended up responding to it saying that he would've loved to see the filthy Pakistani children & dead-beat women get bombed. It's becoming REAL hard to even support our own troops in getting the fuck out of there.

And to think, some argue that our US soldiers are/could be allies of the working class! There is no way you can convince a jingoist, racist soldier to join the working class' cause. Fucking backwards pricks.

[The Douche]

And to think, some argue that our US soldiers are/could be allies of the working class! There is no way you can convince a jingoist, racist soldier to join the working class' cause. Fucking backwards pricks.

In my barracks in basic training...

Slow your roll, buddy.

[Scary Monster]

Slow your roll, buddy.

What? Many soldiers are backwards pricks. Not insulting you, but the ones that dont mind killing Arab civilians, and even boast about it. Most soldiers ive come across are exactly like that. One bragged about how they like "blowing shit up" in his Abrams tank, when he said how he blew up a house. Of course, he didnt state how much of a threat it was, or why he did it, because he wouldnt be allowed to state details. That one came from an army recruiter.

[The Douche]

What? Many soldiers are backwards pricks. Not insulting you, but the ones that dont mind killing Arab civilians, and even boast about it. Most soldiers ive come across are exactly like that. One bragged about how they like "blowing shit up" in his Abrams tank, when he said how he blew up a house. Of course, he didnt state how much of a threat it was, or why he did it, because he wouldnt be allowed to state details. That one came from an army recruiter.

Many are, because thier job requires them to dehumanize the enemy, and because they are taught that people against the war are against them, and your language proves it.

I think blowing things up is fun to. And yes, people ask to hear my war stories, even other leftists, luckily mine don't involve blowing people up or killing anybody.

He "wouldn't be allowed to state the details", hahaha, okay. Either you made this up (not accusing you of that) or he made it up to impress you (most likely since it was a recruiter).

[The Vegan Marxist]

Many are, because thier job requires them to dehumanize the enemy, and because they are taught that people against the war are against them, and your language proves it.

I think blowing things up is fun to. And yes, people ask to hear my war stories, even other leftists, luckily mine don't involve blowing people up or killing anybody.

He "wouldn't be allowed to state the details", hahaha, okay. Either you made this up (not accusing you of that) or he made it up to impress you (most likely since it was a recruiter).

Actually, I know quite a lot of people that believe that details are strictly forbidden by the State or those in command within the Military unit, & so they refrain from asking any real questions when they are talking to military officials or combatants. This is what happens when one watches too many war movies.

[The Douche]

Actually, I know quite a lot of people that believe that details are strictly forbidden by the State or those in command within the Military unit, & so they refrain from asking any real questions when they are talking to military officials or combatants. This is what happens when one watches too many war movies.

Yeah, people think soldiers aren't allowed to talk about their job, but most soldiers love telling war stories.