Whenever another story appears about a crime the Israel Defense Forces has committed in the territories – yesterday it was Hagar Shezaf’s story on the boy who was shot in the back in Al-Khader; tomorrow it will be a story about the shooting of a youth in Al-Rakiz – we are always immediately reassured: It’s not the soldiers. They are not to blame. You can’t fault them. It’s the situation.
But it is the soldiers.
Not only can they be faulted, but they should be tried and punished for their crimes. Absolving them of responsibility and guilt is another way of leaving the crimes orphaned, their perpetrators innocent and the entire society feeling vindicated.
At the basis of the argument for the soldiers’ immunity is the idea that they all enlist in the IDF when they are like chocolate soldiers – young, innocent lads who think they are enlisting in the Salvation Army, adherents of Mahatma Gandhi, disciples of Janusz Korczak. The thuggery and racism, hatred of Arabs and violence are foreign to them. They didn’t imbibe it at home or in school or in the society in which they were raised. They come into the army virtuous and pure, as lovers of justice, brotherhood and peace. And then they enlist and all at once everything changes.
They become monsters that shoot children, kick old women, sic dogs on people, assault the disabled. But they are the victims, if somehow you’ve failed to understand that. They are not guilty of anything, even when they shoot innocent people, even if they do so for no reason, as happens with sickening frequency.
So who is to blame? The ones who sent them there. The commanders are to blame, but they are not made to stand trial for the actions of their guard at the gate, who was after all an aberrant soldier who made a mistake. So the politicians are to blame. Which ones? The current prime minister and defense minister? What do people want from them? They, too, are caught in a situation they inherited from their predecessors. You have to go back further. Moshe Dayan is to blame. Yisrael Galili is to blame. Yigal Allon is to blame, or David Ben-Gurion, or let’s go all the way back to King David. No one is prepared to own the crime.
So maybe it’s the situation? It's a force majeure, a heavenly decree. There is no one left to blame, after all, and nothing to blame them for.
Back to the truth. Israeli soldiers commit serious crimes every day, some of them truly appalling. Before and after Elor Azaria these crimes have been “orphaned” to an unbelievable degree. No one is to blame for anything; no one is responsible for anything. You can kill and slaughter and not worry about standing trial. For lack of guilt and absence of public interest.
Even when they fire dozens of bullets at two students suspected of throwing rocks, even when they shoot at a taxi full of women, even when they open the door of a jeep in motion, shoot and kill and keep going, even when any mentally ill woman clutching a knife is shot dead without any preliminary effort to stop her, they are not to blame for anything. They kill and sometimes also murder – and they are above all suspicion, with greater immunity even than that granted to Knesset members.
Israeli soldiers have the greatest immunity in Israel, even more so than the settlers. Any soldier can do as they please in the territories – aside from stealing 20 shekels for a Coke. For that, they will be tried by the world’s most moral army, where they take such things very seriously.
It is easy to change this sick value system. It has to start with the soldiers, the direct perpetrators of the crimes. Just as in the criminal world, where no leniency is given to hired killers who are sent by others, the system of "anything goes" for soldiers in the territories needs to stop too. Palestinian Lives Matter. And whoever takes these lives with such terrible ease, as has been happening quite frequently in recent months, must be punished.
If soldiers were given lengthy prison terms for killing a child who was minding his own business, for maiming a shepherd or for fatally shooting a journalist, the IDF would change. And the security situation would improve, too.