Taking the piss out of war games in Hebron

by: Yifat Appelbaum

Israeli soldiers in Hebron sometimes do exercises to practice for combat situations. Ok, I can accept that. They need to always be on their toes in case there is a terrorist, right? *wink wink nudge nudge* But when they do it around Palestinian homes it is just a form of harassment, the purpose of which is to scare and intimidate the residents. Remind them who’s boss, so to speak.

Last night we were walking down the street at about 9pm and we saw about 10 Israeli soldiers playing their war games in the street. They were prancing around, running, ducking, hiding and pointing their guns at all of us. But you have to put your foot down when they enter onto Palestinian property and start doing this thing in people’s front yards.

When they entered a yard, we followed, wondering if they were going try to force their way into the house. I asked the commander how he would feel if 10 armed Palestinians started raising hell at the front of the door to his home. He told me he could not talk to me. So I let him sniff a rose my friend Issa had given me. Because everyone needs to stop to sniff the flowers, even if you are a commander performing a military exercise, right?

At this point, one of our activists, lets call him “Snufkin” decided to take the piss out of the war games and began dashing about, performing somersaults on the ground in front of the soldiers, hiding, pointing an invisible gun all over the place and yelling “where are the terrorists.” He climbed up on walls, got on a roof, where he was joined by another “soldier.” They waved their guns around and then Snufkin jumped off the roof, ran down the street and dropped down with his stomach to the ground in front of an Israeli police jeep which had just pulled up.

This performance continued for a few minutes and the soldiers left the Palestinian yard and went out onto the street where they sat huddled in a corner watching the parody of their military exercise.

The cop questioned Snufkin for a few minutes and then let him go. I guess there’s no law against taking the piss around here, thankfully.

I wish I had photos or video of this but unfortunately I don’t.