Following reports of the shooting of two Israelis, by a Palestinian citizen and by the Hamas military wing <http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=766055>, this report comes from Haaretz:
< http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.661513>
Haaretz 17 June by Amira Hass -- *Had it not been for the cameras, the
eyewitness reports about the armed soldiers who beat a Palestinian
protester would have been dubbed as dubious 'allegations.' -- *The mistake
made by the armed soldiers< http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.660994> from the Netzah Yehuda battalion was that they allowed cameras to document their
bestiality and cowardice while attacking a brave Palestinian civilian,armed with a visor cap and T-shirt, last Friday. For this error, their commanders punished them.
< http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.661146> this week by meting out negligible disciplinary punishments. Their commanders couldn’t punish them for their crude assault, their loss of control, their arrogance or their abuse; you don’t punish a person for something that is the social norm, as well as a metaphor for the balance of power between Israel and the Palestinians ... Journalists’ reports, based on a clip from Palestinian television, stressed that the soldiers were filmed beating a Palestinian after they had already “gotten him under control.” The reports also emphasized the curses they showered him with. If there were a hidden camera at every arrest, we would have to admit that soldiers beating
Palestinians whom they have already “gotten under control” is not unusual. And curses? There are Palestinians who conclude, from their run-ins with soldiers, that Hebrew consists of only eight words. Five of them are curses, and the other three are “halt,” “scram” and “forbidden.” All eight are barked out, like the videotaped barks and growls of the Netzah Yehuda soldiers ... The Hebrew-language reports about the soldiers who beat a Palestinian in front of the cameras missed one obvious fact that arises from the video clip: Ghabashi’s courage. He went out to the soldiers to protest against the tear gas grenades they threw into his house in the Jalazun refugee camp while they were facing off with the young people from th camp, who demonstrate there every week against the occupation, the army,
the settlement of Beit El. Ghabashi knows very well what armed, nervous soldiers can do to a Palestinian who dares to argue with them and disobey them when they order him to get lost; curses, punches and arrest are the least of it. They could also have shot him, and then invented some excuse.The valiant Ghabashi represents a Palestinian norm.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.661513
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