So Who Is Guilty?

In October 2004, an Israeli army captain unloaded the magazine of his automatic weapon into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl who was laying on the ground dying after being shot from an army outpost in Gaza.  And,

The Southern Command court on Tuesday acquitted Israel Defense Forces Captain "R" of all charges relating to the killing.

Such a judgment warrants further discussion:

It isn't exactly clear why the acquittal of Captain R. is a "certificate of honor" for the army, as the chief military prosecutor claimed Tuesday, or how it "confirms the high moral standards of the IDF," as another high-ranking officer said.

What a puzzling collection: Here we have a dead 13-year-old girl, an innocent company commander, and a super-moral army? Yet again, the IDF has appeared out of the fog of its "operational activity" and told us citizens about morals?

It must be the same moral army that does nothing to intervene while 10 settler youth beat and rob an 88-year-old Palestinian man trying to harvest his olive trees which have ended up on the wrong side of the Apartheid Wall. 

While on the topic of the Israeli army, isn't it just a bit odd that the day after Condi Rice told Israel to let up on the checkpoints, a Palestinian youth at a checkpoint is found with an explosives belt?  And to top it off, why do the reports in Hebrew and the ones in English differ?  I'll let Dorothy from New Profile explain.

There are several things to be said about the report regarding the "explosive belt".  One odd factor is that the English and Hebrew websites of the report differ.  Both Ha’aretz and Ynet in Hebrew as well as this evening’s news on channel one TV claim that the so-called "explosive belt" was a dummy rather than real.  But both newspapers’ English websites have it as real.

Doesn’t matter.  The entire incident was likely orchestrated. 

During the past year or 2 there have been several incidents reported of youngsters trying to get through the Huara checkpoint with explosives, and of having been caught.

The question that warrants asking is "why would anyone try to get explosives through a checkpoint?"  There are so many easier and surer ways to get from the West Bank into Israel proper, and Palestinians (as well as internationals and Israelis opposing the occupation) know these. Moreover, the Huara checkpoint is not into Israel, but between Palestinian communities.  Finally, anyone familiar with the Huara checkpoint must find it a particularly odd choice to try to send explosives through it, even when on youngsters.  The Huara checkpoint is one of the nastiest, as is well known to Palestinians (but not to the average Israeli reader and those elsewhere in the world unfamiliar with the situation here, and who are likely to believe propaganda).  So even if one were to stupidly choose to go through a checkpoint with explosives, Huara would be one of the least likely checkpoints to attempt getting through.

However, given that yesterday Condi Rice insisted that Israel ease up on checkpoints and allow Palestinians greater freedom of movement, it is not surprising that the Israeli government and military would try to stave off eliminating them.  And what better way to do that then  by dramatically showing how essential checkpoints are by having a supposed suicide bomber try to get through one.

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[J. L.]

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