It cannot be much of a surprise to anyone with half a brain, but it’s now official. The 91-year-old Ibrahim Abu Sayed, his grandson Hossam and young family friend Ismail Abu Oda, who were blown away by Israeli tank shells in Gaza on September 12, were not terrorists after all. Even the IDF now admits it, although of course it still insists that these deaths were not the fault of the killers themselves. It was Hamas, and an imprudent, virtually suicidal gesture on the part of one of the victims, that are to blame. According to Ha’aretz: “Soldiers manning one of the IDF’s permanent lookout posts noticed three men on agricultural land at the edge of the no-go zone that the military imposes along the border fence. One of them, apparently the 21-year-old, was seen lifting a loaded rocket-propelled-grenade launcher, and seemingly aiming it at the border fence and in the general direction of an IDF patrol. The force commanders estimated the man was a terrorist preparing to fire the rocket, and an IDF tank opened fire on the group, killing all three.”
That was not the initial IDF explanation, which was that the victims were actually terrorists planning an attack, who were foiled by the quick action of IDF heroes, who killed the villains before they struck at innocent Israelis. The Jerusalem Post headline blared: “IDF foils attempted terror attack at Gaza border fence”, dutifully repeating the IDF claim to that effect. (The article included the almost comical information: “The IDF did not report any soldiers injured in the incident.”).
Apparently, the identity of the three victims made this “terrorist” accusation untenable. So the new improved version is that terrorists left behind a loaded weapon, and one of the three civilians picked it up and pointed it at an IDF position.
So let’s recap. An IDF tank fires shells at three entirely innocent human beings going about their daily business. The IDF immediately releases a false report accusing the victims of being involved in a “terror attack.” The Jerusalem Post dutifully regurgitates the IDF lie, adorning it with a pseudo-journalistic imprimatur. When the identities and ages of the victims become known, casting doubt on the IDF story, the IDF casually releases a new version of the events, completely inconsistent with the first. This latest version is more carefully crafted so that it is virtually impossible to disprove, being based on what some anonymous soldier supposedly claims to have seen. To any rational person, it is quite clear that various soldiers and officials were involved in criminal wrongdoing, including outright murder and disseminating false stories to justify that murder. Yet there are no recriminations, nor even the slightest embarrassment. The JPost does not bother to correct its prior error in crediting the initial lie and to uncritically replace it with the new one. No one cares anymore.
What is the real story? Why were these three lives snuffed out? Was it retribution for a recent “rocket” launched from Gaza that fell harmlessly in Israel, or perhaps for the recent murder of four settlers by Palestinian gunmen on the West Bank? Was it just a reminder to Palestinians that they exist at the whim and pleasure of Israelis, who can withdraw permission to live randomly and arbitrarily? Or was it simply boredom on the part of troops who were prepared to confront intense combat conditions and instead were faced with long stretches of tedium?
Regardless of the answers to these questions, this is how it is done, over and over and over, in innumerable instances for the past 43 years, and even before the Occupation. The cold-blooded murder of innocents, rationalized by lies, committed by those who have complete immunity from any punishment for taking human life. Events such as this confirm that there is more than a grain of ironic truth in Marty Peretz’s recent comment. Muslim lives are indeed cheap, but only in the eyes of those perpetrators who casually take them and their enthusiastic and unapologetic cheerleaders like Peretz himself.
Two related reports by B’Tselem. The first notes that the end of Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza in January 2009 did not bring an end to Israeli murder of Gazans. By August 31, 2010, Israel had killed an additional 100+ Palestinians. The second, issued a few days ago, accuses the Israeli military of failing to investigate the vast majority of cases in which Palestinians are killed by IDF troops, and absolving the soldiers of guilt in every case that is investigated.
