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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Death of Palestinian mother, two children investigated |
Current rating: 0 |
by Haaretz, via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
07 May 2002
Modified: 09:09:05 PM |
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Preliminary investigation into Sunday's killing of a Palestinian mother and her two children in Jenin by an IDF tank crew: "inexcusable and unjustifiable." |
Tank crew under fire for children's deaths in Jenin
The IDF's preliminary investigation into the killing Sunday of three Palestinians by a tank east of Jenin, has uncovered serious failings on the part of the soldiers involved. The investigation has revealed that troops from the army's armored division opened fire on the Palestinians without first ensuring that the targets were indeed terrorists. All this was preceded by the mistaken assumption that the soldiers had come under attack from an incendiary device.
Yesterday, Colonel Dan Hafetz held an investigation into the incident, in which a Palestinian woman and her two children, aged three and four, were killed. It very quickly became clear that the initial version of events issued by the IDF was erroneous, and that the tank had not come under attack. The investigation revealed that the explosion heard by the members of the crew was caused by a malfunction in the tank's track. The noise made by this created an explosive effect, which led to one of the soldiers sustaining moderate injuries.
In accordance with the regulations in force while operating inside the West Bank, immediately after coming under what they saw as an attack, the soldiers opened fire toward "suspicious areas." The policy is aimed at preventing terrorists from detonating further devices and, according to an IDF spokesman yesterday, the policy had proved effective many times in the past.
Soldiers involved in the incident testified they had spotted suspicious characters in a nearby cornfield, despite having only a partial view of the area. Nonetheless, they opened fire with machine guns and light weapons, killing the woman and her two children. The soldiers said they believed the figures were terrorists leaving the scene.
An army spokesman apologized again yesterday for "this tragic event, in which innocent people lost their lives." Senior security sources were highly critical of the soldiers' actions, saying that their rashness was "inexcusable and unjustifiable." The sources added the soldiers should have first ensured the targets were indeed terrorists before opening fire. "The automatic manner in which soldiers open fire is a certain way of ensuring casualties. This is a dangerous policy what must be reconsidered." |
See also:
www.haaretzdaily.com
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Comments
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encouraging, but remain skeptical |
by mr. critical
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
07 May 2002
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That the IDF is investigating itself and is willing to release information like this is encouraging. However, without independent verification of these facts they should be treated skeptically. The IDF clearly has a political motive for appearing even-handed in its investigation, which it can do without telling the whole story but merely by scapegoating isolated soldiers. Motive is not proof, of course, but independent investigation of the events in Jenin would go a long way towards addressing this concern. |
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A Mission Too Far |
by Haim Weiss
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
07 May 2002
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Haim Weiss, Who Was Once Glad to Serve in the Israeli Army, Tells His Defense Secretary Why He Will Not Go To the West Bank
Haim Weiss
Dear Ben Eliezer
I must put in writing the reasons that have led me to one of the most difficult decisions of my life - to refuse the call for reserve duty in the areas of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], and the Gaza Strip.
This decision was difficult for two reasons. First and foremost is a matter of principle: I believe that living in a democracy offers equal parts privilege and obligation, and that it is my duty to adhere to the decisions made by majority rule, barring exceptional circumstances. The second reason is that over many years of reserve duty, I have not only served a very important cause, but also formed close bonds with the soldiers in my company and battalion. It is extremely difficult to imagine them serving on dangerous missions while I sit at home.
Despite this, the current situation leaves me no choice but to refuse. The citizen's conscience provides a critical foundation for the checks and balances inherent in a democracy. Israel has done more than grant citizens full rights to protest against injustices. By including the concept of "a clearly illegal command" in the code of military law, it has obliged its soldiers to refuse to carry out orders that are immoral or opposed to the values on which a democracy is based.
As I see it, this concept means that when a soldier is issued with a command opposed to his moral values, he must refuse to obey it, report the event, and ensure that such orders will not be repeated. A soldier who does not do so cannot escape being held morally responsible by claiming that he only carried out orders, but can expect to be tried for his actions. This law indicates that the military and the state see the soldier as an autonomous moral being, who must carry out commands only if they pass his moral scrutiny.
The most critical question that arises is "what exactly is an illegal command?" What is immoral as opposed to just inconvenient or unpleasant, and into which category does the current situation in the territories fall?
An order to fire on a child standing before a roadblock is clearly illegal. But if the order is to shoot above his head to chase him from the roadblock, does the emotional damage the shooting causes the child make the order illegal? Is it illegal to continually enter Palestinian citizens' homes in the middle of the night? Is it illegal to prevent the free movement of Palestinian citizens? Aren't the searches, the humiliation, our many mistakes, an indication that our treatment of the Palestinian population under our rule is clearly illegal?
Military law does not define what a clearly illegal order is, but leaves it to the soldier. My interpretation of the law does not limit it to orders involving attacking, killing or injuring people. Rather, it includes any command that, when obeyed, leads to humiliating human beings, robbing them of self-respect, and depriving them of the basic human rights protected under the UN declaration of human rights, a document signed by Israel.
I used to believe there was a purpose to my presence in the territories. I believed the solutions I offered would prevent problems. Today, I believe my presence cannot solve those problems and that the orders issued are illegal because they deprive the Palestinian population of its basic rights and freedoms.
Prohibiting Palestinians from travelling along roads without providing alternative routes, the never-ending delays at roadblocks, the many hours required to travel short distances, the humiliation, the destruction of homes, the incessant searches, the need to aim weapons at innocent women and children - all these actions turn the Israeli Defence Force into an immoral occupying force, and in these I refuse to participate.
These actions on the part of the IDF provide no protection to Israel. They protect only the settlements built on conquered territory, where Israel has no right to establish settlements. The friction with the Palestinian population is caused by the need to provide settlers with freedom of movement, not by the need to prevent suicide bombers entering Israeli territory. As long as Israel continues to hold the settlements, it will be forced to act immorally toward the Palestinian population.
In addition to the great harm we are causing daily to Palestinians, we damage ourselves as a society. Our society is based on moral precepts in Judaism, which states that "loved is a person created in God's image". Instead, we are raising a generation of violent young people immune to pain and human suffering, a generation who don't see in the Palestinian a human being, only part of a mass to be avoided and feared. We are raising a generation that stops pregnant women, old people and children from getting to hospital.
I am very sorry that things have reached this point. I would be very glad to serve the IDF on any mission entrusted to us, as long as its objective is not connected with subduing the Palestinian population under our rule.
Sincerely,
Captain Haim Weiss
Haim Weiss, 32, is a captain in the tank corps and served in the IDF for four years during his military service. He is completing a PhD in Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian
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Israel Leans on Supporters of Objectors |
by Ben Lynfield
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
07 May 2002
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JERUSALEM - Until recently, Yaffa Yarkoni was one of Israel's most beloved singers. Since the modern state of Israel was formed in 1948 and through subsequent wars and crises, she has rallied national morale. She was even about to be honored last month with a prestigious gala tribute in Tel Aviv.
But then Ms. Yarkoni crossed a red line: She criticized the Israeli army's behavior in its recent West Bank offensive and came out in support of a controversial group of reserve soldiers who refuse to serve there. "We are a people who suffered the Holocaust. How can we do such things?" she asked.
Retribution was swift. The Israel Artists Association cancelled the tribute, saying the seats would be empty anyway. Leading youth movements, which sang her songs, called for a boycott of her works. Only one pop star, Gidi Gov, came to Yarkoni's defense.
Within days, Limor Livnat, the education minister, urged the attorney general to prosecute for incitement Hebrew University professors who backed the conscientious objectors.
The reservists started out as a group of 50 three months ago. They published a document saying they were ready to defend Israel but not "dominate, expel, starve, and humiliate an entire people" and termed the fighting with the Palestinians, depicted by the government as a war for survival, as "the war for the settlements."
Their numbers have swelled to 443. The success or failure of the embattled reservists to gain more influence promises to affect whether Israel leaves or stays in the occupied territories. Similar refusal to serve in Lebanon during the early 1980s helped prompt the government's decision to pull troops out of much of that country in 1985.
The objectors, whose group is called The Courage to Refuse, have been increasingly shunned in recent weeks by the Israeli media, which is largely caught up in the patriotic consensus of the country. The popular Channel Two television station has a ban against interviewing them. Forty-one soldiers are currently in jail for refusing to serve, the largest number in two decades.
It is on university campuses that the ideological and moral challenge they pose is reverberating most forcefully. Elli Hazan, spokesman of the right-wing Lavi party at the Hebrew University arguing against the petitioners: "Refusal to serve is the first sign of the society falling apart," he said. "Everyone will do whatever he wants, and there will be no laws. We are waging a just war, defending our homes."
Mr. Hazan conceded, though, that the petitioners "are having an impact, they have prompted discussion." He is trying to organize a petition of right-wing academics to counteract the professors who back the reservists.
The reservists have in mind nothing less than catalyzing a full withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the dismantling of the settlements there. They say they are unfazed by the popularity of the military's West Bank offensive, Operation Defensive Shield, launched after a string of suicide bombings by Hamas.
"The price of the current quiet is total oppression [of the Palestinians]. As people are asked to do worse and worse things, support for us will increase," says Haim Weiss, a captain in the armored corps.
In a society where the military is the most revered and powerful institution, their website has a radical whiff: The entire system in the West Bank is evil, they argue, and therefore it is not possible to simply avoid carrying out individual illegal or immoral orders as the mainstream left urges. "We have created an entirely hallucinatory reality in which the true humans, members of the Nation of Masters could move and settle freely and safely, while the sub-humans, the Nation of Slaves were shoved in the corner and kept invisible and controlled under our Israel Defense Forces boots," wrote Sgt. First Class Assaf Oron. Another reservist, Capt. Dan Tamir wrote of how he had reached the realization that his work as an intelligence officer on a seemingly innocuous project to "reorganize civil neighborhoods" in the West Bank actually amounted to "preparing the ground for the establishment of ghettoes." That pushed him to sign the petition.
Gideon Ezra, the deputy minister of internal security, says the reservists could harm the state "by damaging our deterrent capability." But in Mr. Ezra's assessment, "they don't enjoy a lot of support and are not impacting on the army."
The biggest disappointment for the refuseniks has been the lack of support thus far from the moderate left. Most of the legislators from Meretz, the only Zionist opposition party, say that opposition to the occupation should be expressed through political protests and not by refusing military service.
Gad Barzilai, a Tel Aviv University political scientist, says the fate of The Courage to Refuse depends on the course of military action. "If the military campaign will become tougher, longer, more costly this might enlarge the scope of dissent. It all depends on the nature of the conflict."
Copyright © 2002 The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/
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