Gun Baby Gun: A Bloody Journey Into the World of the Gun by Iain Overton Page A
Book: Gun Baby Gun: A Bloody Journey Into the World of the Gun by Iain Overton
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Authors: Iain Overton
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harder,’ it read. 32
But she was adamant, like all of those I met who had served with the IDF, that there were very specific rules governing engagement with the enemy here; any soldier who fired without a direct order would face a court martial and go to prison. And she really believed in what she was teaching – she had even married a sniper.
‘I got you in my sights,’ he used to joke with her.
The next day I headed to the West Bank, home to about 2.5 million Palestinians and 350,000 Jewish settlers. 33 The settlements are considered illegal under most interpretations of international law, but the Israeli government disputes this and gives the settlements its backing.
The Jews who have made their homes here are renowned for being well armed. After all, these communities live under threat from Palestinians who would use deadly force – rightly or wrongly – to shift them off these disputed lands. So I was heading to a military training camp run by Jews that schooled other Jews from around the world in counter-terrorism techniques, hoping to get an insight into some of the armed mentalities that framed this age-old conflict.
The owners of the training camp had called it Calibre 3, and, on arrival, an angry shouting filled the air – the instructors were running a training course. I went around the portable building site huts and peeked through the door. Behind it, a group of pre-teen American Jewish kids were finishing their lesson. The instructor, a towering man, his ripped muscles visible in his neck, was telling them how to stop a terrorist from stabbing you. Beside him a ten-year-old, his mouth full of metal braces, smiled and stabbed his mother with a foam dagger. She laughed and then gave me a fearful look, as thiswas not my course, and she did not know me. The enemy was everywhere.
I went outside and picked up a brochure for Calibre 3.
‘Our classic two hour instructor program,’ it read, ‘is designed for tourists of any age who would like to get a taste of Israeli methods of shooting and combat.’ The images on it were of men with shaved heads. They offered training to security personnel and to wide-eyed Jewish tourists out here on a visit to the old country.
Seeing me, Eitan, a short and trim man in military fatigues, came over. He was the head instructor and told me how Jews from ‘all over’ came here. Some stayed for as long as thirty days, he said with a thick Hebrew twang, during which they were taught sniper skills, handgun training, rifle handling. The basic aim was to teach them not to shoot ‘the good guys’, ‘only the bad guys’.
‘Come,’ he said, and we walked around the corner, past a line of high-topped earth mounds covered with camouflage scrub and oil barrels, and out onto a narrow range. On one side were fourteen tourists, all from the US, most in white T-shirts. At the end were paper targets: one of an Israeli soldier, the other of a man with a red keffiyeh, the headdress of the Arabs. Both images showed the men holding semi-automatic rifles, but it was clear which one was the good guy and which was the bad guy.
‘From my angle, weapons are designed for killing,’ shouted the instructor, a brick wall of a man with Thai boxing tattoos across his arms and up his neck.
‘Weapons are not for defending, weapons are for killing. If I want to defend myself, I wear a bulletproof vest, a helmet. But I use this,’ he said, lifting his Uzi sub-machine-gun. ‘This weapon is for killing.’
‘The last time I heard the word “killer”,’ he barked at the tourists, who were staring wide-eyed at this angry man, ‘I heard it with honour.’ I could not see, through his mirror Ray-Bans, if he was joking. I assumed not. ‘Because that killer killed terrorists,’ he said. He was definitely not joking.
The Americans were loving this. An eight-year-old girl in pigtails and a green halter top put up her hand when he asked the group who were the terrorists.
‘Arabs?’ she
But she was adamant, like all of those I met who had served with the IDF, that there were very specific rules governing engagement with the enemy here; any soldier who fired without a direct order would face a court martial and go to prison. And she really believed in what she was teaching – she had even married a sniper.
‘I got you in my sights,’ he used to joke with her.
The next day I headed to the West Bank, home to about 2.5 million Palestinians and 350,000 Jewish settlers. 33 The settlements are considered illegal under most interpretations of international law, but the Israeli government disputes this and gives the settlements its backing.
The Jews who have made their homes here are renowned for being well armed. After all, these communities live under threat from Palestinians who would use deadly force – rightly or wrongly – to shift them off these disputed lands. So I was heading to a military training camp run by Jews that schooled other Jews from around the world in counter-terrorism techniques, hoping to get an insight into some of the armed mentalities that framed this age-old conflict.
The owners of the training camp had called it Calibre 3, and, on arrival, an angry shouting filled the air – the instructors were running a training course. I went around the portable building site huts and peeked through the door. Behind it, a group of pre-teen American Jewish kids were finishing their lesson. The instructor, a towering man, his ripped muscles visible in his neck, was telling them how to stop a terrorist from stabbing you. Beside him a ten-year-old, his mouth full of metal braces, smiled and stabbed his mother with a foam dagger. She laughed and then gave me a fearful look, as thiswas not my course, and she did not know me. The enemy was everywhere.
I went outside and picked up a brochure for Calibre 3.
‘Our classic two hour instructor program,’ it read, ‘is designed for tourists of any age who would like to get a taste of Israeli methods of shooting and combat.’ The images on it were of men with shaved heads. They offered training to security personnel and to wide-eyed Jewish tourists out here on a visit to the old country.
Seeing me, Eitan, a short and trim man in military fatigues, came over. He was the head instructor and told me how Jews from ‘all over’ came here. Some stayed for as long as thirty days, he said with a thick Hebrew twang, during which they were taught sniper skills, handgun training, rifle handling. The basic aim was to teach them not to shoot ‘the good guys’, ‘only the bad guys’.
‘Come,’ he said, and we walked around the corner, past a line of high-topped earth mounds covered with camouflage scrub and oil barrels, and out onto a narrow range. On one side were fourteen tourists, all from the US, most in white T-shirts. At the end were paper targets: one of an Israeli soldier, the other of a man with a red keffiyeh, the headdress of the Arabs. Both images showed the men holding semi-automatic rifles, but it was clear which one was the good guy and which was the bad guy.
‘From my angle, weapons are designed for killing,’ shouted the instructor, a brick wall of a man with Thai boxing tattoos across his arms and up his neck.
‘Weapons are not for defending, weapons are for killing. If I want to defend myself, I wear a bulletproof vest, a helmet. But I use this,’ he said, lifting his Uzi sub-machine-gun. ‘This weapon is for killing.’
‘The last time I heard the word “killer”,’ he barked at the tourists, who were staring wide-eyed at this angry man, ‘I heard it with honour.’ I could not see, through his mirror Ray-Bans, if he was joking. I assumed not. ‘Because that killer killed terrorists,’ he said. He was definitely not joking.
The Americans were loving this. An eight-year-old girl in pigtails and a green halter top put up her hand when he asked the group who were the terrorists.
‘Arabs?’ she
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