The Jerusalem Post reports on the latest testimonies from Breaking the Silence. An anonymous border police sergeant describes the complicit atmosphere among IDF soldiers that makes Palestinians less than human and takes pride in their humiliation. Says a female IDF soldier: “Not all of them brutalize people, not all of them are full of hate, but the atmosphere legitimizes such things."
The soldier question is not named. Unnamed sources make reports from Breaking the Silence less credible, but there is no place in Israeli military society for those who speak out against fellow soldiers. Breaking the Silence has come under attack by right-leaning groups Im Tirtzu and Monitor as well as the office of the Prime Minister in attempts to discredit the watchdog agency.
While reports like these are nothing new, JPost's Larry Derfner is encouraged: "We can go on brutalizing the Palestinians. Inadvertently, we can go on brutalizing our daughters and sons, too. We just can’t do it in silence – which is what gives me hope."
Excerpt:
The most shocking testimony in the new Breaking the Silence report, I think, is number 95. A female Border Police sergeant describes how the guys would catch Palestinian kids trying to sneak into Israel to sell cheap little toys:
It was simply routine – emptying the children’s plastic bags and playing with their toys. You know, grabbing the stuff and throwing the toys among us like balls.
...
There are other accounts of a nine-year-old West Bank boy being shot to death by soldiers while he was running away (Testimony 9); of a Hebron man armed with nothing but his ID card being shot in the belly by a “psycho” woman soldier (Testimony 22); of an asthmatic Hebron baby dying after checkpoint soldiers delayed his passage to the hospital because his father grew angry (Testimony 30); of an elderly Gazan farmer being killed by a tank shell when he got “too close” to the border fence (Testimony 37); and story after story of soldiers eagerly punching, kicking, spitting at, terrifying, stealing from and laughing at helpless Palestinian men, women and children.
Click here to read the article.
Posted
at
4 Feb 2010 8:08 AM
by
