A kinder, gentler tank? Not exactly. The Israeli military is working what it calls a "dust remover" tank--a tank with undiminished destructive capabilities, except for the environment. (Israeli military photograph)
The IDF is currently dealing with environmental damages caused by the dust created during the usage of tanks and other armored vehicles, as a part of its commitment to the environment.
The Quality Testing Department of the Technological Brigade of the Ground Forces believes that it has found the solution. They call it, the Dust Remover.
Don't you love the Aldoux Huxley type Quality-Testing vocabulary (is was Huxley, after all, who wrote Eyeless in Gaza), the self-congratulatory tenor of the prose, that dramatic pause-inducing comma just before "the Dust Remover"?
Imagine reading this from the perspective of, say, a Lebanese who's experienced the effects of Israeli tanks firsthand and with crushing regularity for most of the past 30 years, or a Palestinian in the West Bank and Gaza, where Israeli tanks have a longer (but less lethal, if you can believe it) history.
The dust the machines kick up has not been, it's relatively safe to say, these people's greatest concern. It gets worse:
The stirred up dust makes it difficult to breathe for humans close to the vehicles, and makes it impossible for small animals to move on the routes the vehicles passes through.
Are they serious? Is the concern really the little rabbits who scurry across tank tracks?
Of course it is. At least we know who matters and who doesn't. The implied message here may not be intended, but it reflects the Israeli military's attitude, so evident in Gaza earlier this year or in Lebanon in 2006, the more accurately for it: the human beings at the receiving end of tanks' lethality are worth less than the rabbits in their wake.
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"From now on, when we attack Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon and kill thousands of innocent civilians, we will no longer disrupt the lives of the little bunnies and other wild life in the area. We have a heart, after all." - Offcial Star Of David Souse
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