Haaretz/Levy: IDF ceased long ago being 'most moral army in the world'
- From: mugglefuggle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 02:29:30 -0700 (PDT)
Haaretz Daily
Last update - 08:21 22/03/2009
IDF ceased long ago being 'most moral army in the world'
By Gideon Levy
What shock, what consternation. Haaretz revealed grave accounts by
officers and soldiers describing the killing of innocent Palestinian
civilians during the war in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman
was quick to respond that the IDF had no prior or supporting
information about the events in question, the defense minister was
quick to respond that "the IDF is the most moral army in the world,"
and the military advocate general said the IDF would investigate.
All these propagandistic and ridiculous responses are meant not only
to deceive the public, but also to offer shameless lies. The IDF knew
very well what its soldiers did in Gaza. It has long ceased to be the
most moral army in the world. Far from it - it will not seriously
investigate anything.
The testimonies from the graduates of the Oranim pre-military course
were a bolt from the blue - accounts of soldiers butchering a woman
and two of her children, shooting and killing an elderly Palestinian
woman, how they felt when they murdered in cold blood, how they
destroyed property and how there was not even fighting in this war
that was not a war.
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But this is neither a bolt nor blue skies. Everything has long been
known by those who wanted to know, those who, for example, read Amira
Hass's dispatches from Gaza in this paper. Everything started long
before the assault on Gaza.
The soldiers' transgressions are an inevitable result of the orders
given during this brutal operation, and they are the natural
continuation of the last nine years, when soldiers killed nearly 5,000
Palestinians, at least half of them innocent civilians, nearly 1,000
of them children and teenagers.
Everything the soldiers described from Gaza, everything, occurred
during these blood-soaked years as if they were routine events. It was
the context, not the principle, that was different. An army whose
armored corps has yet to encounter an enemy tank and whose pilots have
yet to face an enemy combat jet in 36 years has been trained to think
that the only function of a tank is to crush civilian cars and that a
pilot's job is to bomb residential neighborhoods.
To do this without any unnecessary moral qualms we have trained our
soldiers to think that the lives and property of Palestinians have no
value whatsoever. It is part of a process of dehumanization that has
endured for dozens of years, the fruits of the occupation.
"That's what is so nice, as it were, about Gaza: You see a person on a
road ... and you can just shoot him." This "nice" thing has been
around for 40 years. Another soldier talked about a thirst for blood.
This thirst has been with us for years. Ask the family of Yasser
Tamaizi, a 35-year-old laborer from Idna who was killed by soldiers
while bound, and Mahdi Abu Ayash, a 16-year-old boy from Beit Umar who
was found in a vegetative state, another victim of recent days, far
from the war in Gaza.
Most of the soldiers who took part in the assault on Gaza are youths
with morals. Some of them will volunteer for any mission. They will
escort an old woman across the street or rescue earthquake victims.
But in Gaza, when faced with the inhuman Palestinians, the package
will always be suspicious, the brainwashing will be stupefying and the
core principles will change. That is the only way they can kill and
engage in wanton destruction without deliberating or wrestling with
their consciences, not even telling their friends or girlfriends what
they did.
Regarding the statement of one soldier, who said "As much as we talk
about the IDF being an army of values, let's just say this is not the
situation on the ground, not on the battalion level," the IDF has long
ceased to be an army of "values," not on the ground, not in the
battalion, not in the senior command. When an army does not
investigate thousands of cases of killing over many years, the message
to the soldiers is clear, and it comes from the top.
Our Teflon chief of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, cannot wash his hands of
this affair. They are bloody. What the soldiers of the preparatory
academy described were war crimes, for which they should be tried.
This will not happen, save for the grotesque spectacle of "principled
probes" in an army that killed 1,300 people in 25 days and left
100,000 homeless. Military police investigations will not lead to
anything.
The IDF is incapable of investigating the crimes of its soldiers and
commanders, and it is ridiculous to expect it to do so. These are not
instances of "errant fire," but of deliberate fire resulting from an
order. These are not "a few bad apples," but rather the spirit of the
commander, and this spirit has been bad and corrupt for quite some
time.
Change will not come without a major change in mindset. Until we
recognize the Palestinians as human beings, just as we are, nothing
will change. But then, the occupation would collapse, God forbid. In
the meantime, prepare for the next war and the horrific testimonies
about the most moral army in the world.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072821.html
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