Israel's School for Assassins

by Stephen Lendman

Israel trains its security forces to extrajudicially execute defenseless Palestinians, along with eliminating any alleged threat to its ruthless rule.

According to the Middle East Monitor (MEM) and other reports, it's using Palestine Technical University as a military training base, teaching soldiers to be assassins - much like at America's longstanding School of the Americas, based at Fort Benning, GA.

Its reputation as a school for assassins prompted a name change to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).

Established in 1946, School of the Americas Watch (SOA) calls it a "combat training school," teaching soldiers how to torture, repress, exterminate poor and indigenous people, overthrow democratically elected governments, assassinate targeted leaders, and suppress popular resistance when it erupts. 

Its graduates leave a "trail of blood" throughout the hemisphere, returning home with new skills on brutalizing, disappearing, and massacring people targeted by repressive regimes for elimination.

Israel operates the same way against defenseless Palestinians. Unrestrained brutality, including extrajudicial executions, reflect official policy - innocent victims blamed for state crimes.

Tulkarem, West Bank near the Green Line is home to Palestine Technical University (PTU). Israel confiscated part of its land for a military training camp - at the same time terrorizing its student body.

Youths on campus report soldiers pointing weapons directly at them, threatening to shoot. Toxic tear gas is used often, harming hundreds.

So is live fire on defenseless students and staff, campus facilities stormed, indiscriminate damage inflicted.

Hundreds of students were injured. OCHA reported 726 from October 1 through November 30 - dozens from live fire, many more from potentially lethal rubber/plastic coated steel bullets, toxic tear gas and stun grenades.

MEM reported over 20 student arrests - entirely for political reasons, denying their legitimate right to protest peacefully.

Through late November, "the university had been forced to evacuate the premises on at least 10 occasions over the previous weeks, 'due to (toxic) tear gas or (chemically-treated) skunk water, reported MEM.' "

PTU is an agricultural school for around 7,000 Palestinian students. It lost land earlier - after Israel's June 1967 Six Day War, stolen again for Israel's Apartheid Wall, now more land taken to train soldier assassins.

Israel "built a firing range, including 'mounds of earth, a winding channel of concrete…and concrete blocks and slabs,' " MEM explained.

Training on campus land close to students threatens their safety. Israel prohibits PTU from building a protective wall - for student body security and to prevent clashes.

Israeli forces undergoing training at PTU are used to violently confront student protests no holds barred. They risk being executed or seriously injured with live fire or other forms of regime brutality.

According to MEM, "(o)n November 29, dozens of students were injured," one requiring intensive care. Last week, seven were shot with live fire on a single day.

PTU is more of a war zone and school for assassins than academic institution. MEM quoted one student, saying soldiers storm the campus with military equipment.

"They were shooting live bullets at the students. They started to get inside the university more and more. They threw skunk water on the library." 

"The students who were there were getting hurt by bullets. So many students have had a gun shot. It affects our psychology, we become more afraid when we are doing our exams. We hear the sound of the bullets and we smell the gas. It became normal for our body to smell gas."

"There is no University anywhere else in the world with a training field of an occupation army inside its campus."

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

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