http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3540085,00.html
Soldiers are not guilty
Troops deployed in West Bank must
put moral considerations aside to
do their job
Arnon Dgani
Published: 05.06.08, 09:31 / Israel Opinion
Another case of soldiers abusing
Palestinians was published Sunday
under the headline
"soldiers charged with
beating Palestinian senseless."
As could be expected,
the story included the usual IDF response,
expressing regret for the incident but
also making sure to remind us that
"the number of cases that reveal
normative failures is small and
we are working to prevent them altogether."
I wonder when a "small" number becomes "large,"
but I am not angry at the IDF's Spokesperson's Office.
I am more angered by readers
responding to the article,
like those who think that it
is
"simply terrible to hear such things,"
that we should
"put these soldiers in jail for five
years at least so everyone learns
their lesson,"
and the most infuriating one:
"We should start screening the
people recruited to the army."
To me it is clear that anyone who writes
such talkback has never served in the
territories and simply has no idea of
what goes on there on a daily basis.
The responders remind me of a
conversation I had with my reserve
duty platoon commander during
operational service about a year ago.
While I was walking on base,
my commander wanted to score
some points with me,
the platoon's "leftist" soldier,
and in order to prove what kind
of a good person he is and what
sort of values he imparts,
he turned to me and said:
"Arnon, you would be proud of me.
You should know that I reprimanded
soldier X for what he did with the
stone throwers."
My response to him is
what I would tell all the
talkback writers now:
I'm not sure that soldier
could have acted any other way.
The investigation into the latest
affair involving Kfir Brigade soldiers
will reveal that the Palestinian in
question looked suspicious to them,
refused to cooperate,
and possibly even swore at them.
It is very likely that these
soldiers were already after
eight straight hours of a
****ft where someone may
shoot them at any given moment.
The soldiers' cruelty had the
logic that guides any soldier
who ever told a Palestinian what to do:
Next time a cab driver will be
ordered to step out of his vehicle,
he will do it immediately.
We can't do it the nice way
We have been controlling the territories,
through our military, for more than 40 years now,
and the people who happen to live there
don't quite want us there.
If we want to continue holding
on to this territory, we cannot
do it the nice way.
We need to force neighbors
to approach the houses of
Palestinian suspects,
we need to keep detaining
the distant cousins of
wanted Palestinians,
we need to show our presence
through two roadblocks that do
not block a thing situated
between two Palestinian villages
(for your attention, Condoleezza Rice,)
and we need to perpetrate all sorts
of other unpleasant things.
Those who act "morally" under
such cir***stances are worse soldiers.
Everyone who thinks the solution
lies with longer prison terms for
troops should be looking for
someone else to punish.
The guilty parties are those
who send them to exercise our
sovereignty in the West Bank
and then become angry when
this job doesn't look good
in photographs.
The commanders are not at the fault either,
and neither is the government.
We are at fault.
Perhaps we will understand it
the day the IDF issues a response
that represents IDF troops and not
their image.
Something like:
"By beating the Palestinians
the soldiers did exactly what
reality on the ground required
them to do, as all IDF soldiers
do while carrying out their
missions in Judea and Samaria,
in line with the decisions of
the political leader****p,
which acts by virtue of
Israeli democracy."
Arnon Dagni,
a Middle Eastern history master's student,
is a member of the Breaking the Silence
organization
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