By Alessandro Robecchi ( "Il manifesto", 04/01/09)
Good morning, shalom. I'm a phone operator of the Israeli army, on duty 8a.m. to 9p.m. Boring job. I've been given a list of Gaza's numbers, I call them and say: folks, we're going to fire a missile on you in the next 5 min. The lads from the air force will see to all the rest.
It's a new job, much talked about by the media around the world. At the beginning, there was some confusion about whether I was working on behalf of the IAF or the Propaganda Bureau, and I had to do without luncheon vouchers for three days. How nasty.
According to our propaganda, we can kill a bearded man in his house, without waking up the children sleeping in the adjoining room. Sometimes they won't wake up at all. Thus, no humanitarian trouble, the only problem is that the house walls collapse. I know we're not the ones who invented the "intelligent" missiles, but the nonsense comes handy when you fire them.
Well, I call these Palestinians, but the thing is much more difficult than it looks. Sometimes the line is busy; sometimes they don't hear the ring as we're bombing another house nearby. Sometimes I don't even call them, or else I start either doing phone pranks or wilfully dialling wrong numbers. After all, calling or not calling makes no difference, what's important is the media talking about it.
Suddenly my superiors made up their mind: I was working for the Propaganda Bureau and immediately got the meal tickets. At any rate, it's not a hard job, and I even risk becoming famous: I'm setting aside all the articles speaking about how good we are at warning people before killing them. This stuff is quite rewarding.
Sorry, too much talk; time to get back to work.
Hello? Who am I speaking to? Tell your mom to come to the phone...is dad in? What room is he in? Ok, tell mom you have 6 min. to leave the house. Actually, four...maybe only one...hello? hello?
Translated by Adib S. Kaawar
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“. . . we can kill a bearded man in his house, without waking up the children sleeping in the next room. Sometimes, they won’t wake up at all. Thus, no humanitarian trouble . . . ” What a perfect statement of callous disregard for human life. He sounds like an American soldier! As he says (I assume it is a man saying this, but, since modern women have lost all feminine instincts for mercy and forgiveness, it may well be a womon) the phone call itself doesn’t matter, and is as good as a sentence of death, because it is seldom possible for the “notified” family to exit the house in time. But it makes good propaganda! Christ’s forgiveness of those who were crucifying him, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” doesn’t apply here. They know EXACTLY what they’re doing!
correction! it was translated by Diego Traversa of http://www.tlaxcala.es, which Adib is a member.