Answers for Shocked Parents, Concerned Citizens an / Yonatan Boemfeld
What goes through the Mind of a Soldier When He Takes the Chopped-Off Head of a Terrorist and Sticks It on a Stake and Pushes a Cigarette into his Mouth? – Answers for Shocked Parents, Concerned Citizens and One IDF Spokesman
The heavy screen that has protected us from the unpleasant things happening one hour's drive from Tel Aviv is slowly lifting. Behind it stand IDF soldiers. They fire on streetlights, on solar heater water-tanks, and on innocent people. They abuse civilians, and take bribes at checkpoints. Drivers of armored vehicles run over cars parked on the streets, and a company commander confirms the death of a 13 yr old girl. The soldiers abuse corpses, and even take photographs with them as souvenirs. The list is unfortunately long, disgusting, and painful. Long enough to silence those who will again condemn, weed out, and isolate those "few" "maniacs", “deviants", etc.
According to a newspaper report published yesterday "a suspicion that navy personnel executed a wounded fugitive is being investigated". The IDF spokesman announces that there were "flaws in the force's performance", and I smell another headache. After all, we are not just talking about the testimonies presented by "Bestelem". We are talking here about an internal investigation of an IDF elite unit that is based on the testimonies of the warriors who were at the place of action. They are talking about one of their own, shooting a fugitive Palestinian when he was helpless.
Anybody with eyes to see can understand this is no coincidence. Such cases are not out of the ordinary, but rather the norm. There is no such thing as a "clean unit". There is no such thing as "my son is not like that". If the son didn't actually have his photo taken with the corpses he knew that others were, and chose to keep silent about it. And I don't blame him. I too was silent during my army service.
It's hard to deal with this reality. It's hard to accept the price Israeli society pays for every soldier that is sent to serve in the Palestinian cities. The price is heavy; the destruction of basic values, of human codes of behavior, of humane norms. What thoughts pass through the head of an IDF warrior when he takes the chopped-off head of a terrorist, sticks it on a stake and pushes a cigarette in its mouth? My generation is smoking itself to death in India because they can't deal with the truth that only they know, that only they experienced as the horrible routine of the checkpoints.
The recent succession of reports in the media is a red warning light. We have sinned the sin of pride. We thought we were the biggest, the strongest, the undefeated. Now we eat ourselves from the inside. And anybody who says different is like an alcoholic who denies his illness.
Among the long sentences of the IDF spokesman (that are meant to inspire security in our hearts and complacency in our heads), one sentence stands out that shocked me: “commanders on all levels have a significant role in situations that demand the resolution of dilemmas and the discussion of them, the creation of an open atmosphere and the sharpening of awareness of the duty to report.” The company commander who confirmed the death was the commander of an entire company. Why, for God's sake, is he supposed to be immune from the same moral deterioration that occurs to his soldiers? Because of the three stripes on his shoulder? – There is no immunity. There are no deviants. There is one reality, impossible and insane: A reality that is destroying Israeli society from the inside.
