Thread by @RBrulin

A 2018 bestseller about Israel's "targeted killings" COULD have led to intelligent, constructive public discussion about morality / legality of "our" uses of force vs "the terrorists"

THREAD about how the discourse of terrorism is pure ideology, impervious to fact & evidence
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The book, by @ronenbergman , is "Rise & Kill First." It is a history of Israel's uses of "targeted killings" in its fight vs "the terrorists." The book is a bestseller. It got rave reviews everywhere in the US press. Bergman gave dozens of public talks & interviews about it
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Book contains STUNNING revelations: in early 1980s very senior Israeli officials (Dagan, Eitan, Ben-Gal & Sharon) conducted huge car bombing #terrorist campaign that killed hundreds of civilians in Lebanon. Since 2018 these revelations have NOT been mentioned ONCE in US media
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Bergman describes this Israeli terrorist campaign over 11 pages. He even reveals that, in Fall of 1981, then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon PERSONALLY used this terrorist group to conduct a 2-week car bombing campaign that killed at least 100 civilians:

https://twitter.com/RBrulin/status/1443935200082280450?s=20

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Bergman writes Sharon conducted this terrorist campaign to provoke PLO into resorting to terrorism, which would have given ISR justification to invade Lebanon (in name, of course, of the righteous fight vs "terrorism.") Somehow THIS has been deemed NOT NEWSWORTHY by US media 5/

Bergman also describes how Dagan (who later became Mossad chief) & Eitan were personally involved in building the bombs used by the FLLF (the fictitious group secretly created by these @IDF officers to hide their role in this terrorist campaign) & did so in an Israeli Kibbutz 6/

Countless of these car bombings were covered at the time in the international press, incl. on front pages of NYT or WaPo. There is absolutely NO question that these were terrorist attacks (car bombs in market places & busy streets, in front of schools, theaters, etc...) 7/

Several of these attacks are listed in main "global terrorism databases" (RAND & START). They were listed, it should be noted, at a time when the identity of the FLLF remained a mystery (although Palestinians & Lebanese people always insisted that ISR was behind these attacks) 8/

If we accept idea that indiscriminate car bombings that killed 100s of civilians are "terrorism" regardless of identity of the perpetrators then there is NO doubt that the FLLF bombing campaign was a terrorist campaign, and that Dagan, Eitan, Ben-Gal & Sharon were terrorists 9/

This is of course where we get to the "very difficult discussions" that the publication of "Rise & Kill First" could & should have provoked (but didn't, since the US media has remained absolutely silent about these revelations for nearly 4 years now ): 10/

(Thread continues here:

https://twitter.com/RBrulin/status/1474020775963381760?s=20

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