A video clip in which an Israeli sniper filmed himself shooting an unarmed Palestinian across the Gaza fence and then celebrating drew international outrage last night. The two Palestinian targets in the video appear simply to be walking around near the fence.
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman justified the killing 30-year-old Yaser Murtaja by Israeli snipers even though he wore a flak jacket clearly marked PRESS. Lieberman said: “I don’t know who is and who isn’t a photographer . . . We won’t take any chances.”
The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem is calling on soldiers to disobey “patently illegal” shoot-to-kill orders against unarmed protesters in Gaza. The Israeli policy in Gaza has not been the result of one illegal order, but doctrine of collective punishment endorsed by the entire political and military leadership of the county. Thus, refusing orders to attack nonviolent protesters arguably amounts to a mutiny against the state. In Israel, simply following international law is a radical act.
The Israeli IDF spokesperson released photos of some of the Palestinians shot dead in Friday’s Gaza massacre, suggesting they were “terrorists” because they were affiliated with Hamas. This dubious propaganda campaign eliminates distinctions between civilians and combatants and is an incitement to state terror.
US officials have defended Israel’s massacre of civilians in Gaza as a ‘response’ to terrorism – even before it happened. And afterward, the US “sheriff”, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, again kicked her high heels, blocking a draft UN Security Council statement which called for an “independent and transparent investigation” of the violence. The only answer to official support is grassroots pressure.
Conservative British Jewish organisations are trawling Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn through the mud of ‘anti-Semitism’ for a Facebook response in 2012 to a London street mural portraying oppressive bankers. The campaign is about one thing: preventing criticism of Israel inside a major British political party.
David Muial, an Israeli who took part in the bloody lynching of Eritrean refugee Habtom Zarhum in October 2015, got a sentence of community service this week for “abusing the helpless”, even as Ahed Tamimi, the 17-year-old Palestinian who slapped an Israeli soldier, got 8 months in prison.
Israeli justice is defined by two events on Monday: the military parole board further reduced Elor Azarya’s prison sentence for killing an incapacitated Palestininian suspect, and a military appeals court rejected Ahed Tamimi’s appeal for an open trial on charges of slapping an Israeli soldier occupying her home.
The Israeli Knesset ethics committee has suspended Member of Knesset Haneen Zoabi for a week for having used the word ‘murder’ to describe actions of Israeli soldiers against Palestinians. She says that she cannot comfort an “insulated” Israeli society by allowing it to regard its oppressive actions as “just.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s AIPAC speech was about ‘the good, the bad and the beautiful’. All about equality and justice – but not for Palestinians.