In an attempt to protect themselves from prosecution abroad, IDF officers will hide their identity
The IDF is increasingly worried about the possibility of being prosecuted abroad for war crimes: Maariv published an article this morning (Hebrew), saying senior officers will have their identities hidden, noting specifically this was not due to ‘field security’ reasons, i.e. fear that the officers will become targets for assassination, but rather for legal reasons. A senior officer told Maariv this is done in order to “protect the officers from the legal point of view.”
Borrowing a longstanding Air Force tradition, soon Israeli media will be barred from naming all officers from the rank of Sgan Aluf (Lt. Col) and upwards, and will have to make do with an initial. The officers’ faces will, as is customary in the Air Force,be blurred or pixilated, to prevent their identification.
In recent years, attempts have been made to arrest senior IDF officers: Shaul Mofaz, former Chief of Staff, had to leave London in a hurry; Tat Aluf (Brigadier General) Aviv Kokhavi cancelled his studies there, for fear of arrest; Doron Almog, former commanding general, Southern Command, found a warrant for his arrest waiting for him when he landed in London. At the advice of the embassy, he declined to leave his plane. There have been reports that former Chief of Staff Moshe “Boogie” Ya’alon had to leave New Zealand in a hurry for precisely this reason. Ya’alon denied those reports.
The fear of legal retaliation is not confined to senior brass: IDF gunmen have raided Bil’in while masked in September 2009, and riot policemen removed their identifying tag and put on ski masks before attacking activists in Sheikh Jarrah just a few months back.
It is unclear at this stage how the IDF will deal with independent photographers taking pictures of its senior brass. It’s also unclear whether the military censorship will be involved, as Supreme Court decisions allow the censorship to deny publication only in cases of clear and present danger to state security.
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Barry the Non-Zionist
Comment deleted for non-compliance with +972′s comments policy, to wit being abusive.
sh
Allying with Halakha as explained by the likes of the author of Torat Hamelekh is also a dangerous game and we play it without a care in the world, so what the hell!
IDF, police, instead of being so ashamed of yourselves that you condemn yourselves to (uselessly) lurking in the shadows for the rest of your lives, how about just giving up the occupation, getting out of there and regaining your honour?
max
Wow, Yossi, since you seem to ignore it, here’s the link to the American precedence:
http://www.state.gov/t/pm/rls/othr/misc/23425.htm
“to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party”
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The democratic world isn’t so eager to be judged by the majority in the world, one wonder why
vickie
This is scary.
What do you have to hide from, if what you are doing is moral and legal?
It has a malignant carnival feeling to it.
I am truly speechless.
What kind of atrocities would people perpetrate if they couldn’t be identified?
This is scary.
Deïr Yassin
@ Barry you racist thug
Calling yourself ‘non-Zionist’ is as ridiculous as those Israël-Ûber-Alles that take Arabic pen names.
You’ve already been banned elsewhere for your “Mohammedans” though you left out the worst insults this time.
‘Mohammedans’ just as ‘kikes’ is not used among civilized people ….
No way to lock up this guy, and throw the key away ?
Engelbert Luitsz
Good to see that Israel joins the US in their battle against international law, just as Sudan and China. The pinnacles of democracy as everyone knows.
These same countries also have not ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions. On a clear day one could almost spot a pattern here.
max
Engelbert & Vickie, that’s ridiculous, and you know it.
In many countries anyone can raise a claim and cause trouble, without any penalty. The accused will suffer even when s/he’s later acquitted.
.
Engelbert, I can imagine what you’d have written had Geert’s acquittal happen in Israel
Engelbert Luitsz
Max, Geert Wilders can say what he wants. I think this whole circus was just a waste of money. But freedom of speech works both ways of course.
His days seem to be numbered though. He doesn’t have the support of other Israel-loving politicians anymore. So maybe he has done his job: creating xenophobic paranoia; and now the Christian Democrates can cash in with a kind of Wilders-light that would have been impossible without him.
Mike Seth
For fear of *false* arrest, you mean.
max
“this whole circus” is exactly what Israelis are worried about. Freedom of harassment.
max
Engelbert, in the context of the battle against international law, won’t you share with us the De Telegraaf revelations in regards to the Dutch flotilla?
Assuming the UN commission legalizes Israel’s blockade on Gaza, will you change your views?
Engelbert Luitsz
Max, The Dutch Telegraaf is as bad as the Jerusalem Post. The story was leaked to them as part of the tactics to vilify the whole operation, so people would only (and of course wrongfully) get associations with Hamas, instead of talking about the objectives and the importance of people like Hedy Epstein and Alice Walker.
The blockade is immoral and illegal and no pressure on any institution or country will change that.
In 2004, a regional group of Native Americans had to call on the state to repeal the 329-year-old Indian Imprisonment Act, which was passed in 1675 during King Philip’s War. It authorized the arrest of American Indians entering Boston. I don’t care if it’s “legal”; if it’s immoral we should fight it.
Engelbert Luitsz
But to get back on topic. Remember “Captain R” (initials!)? As the Guardian stated in 2005: “An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.”
A young girl who was lost and terrified. But apparantly it was legal according to Zionist norms.
max
Engelbert, you’re resorting to labeling instead of addressing content…
Do you claim that the info is wrong and that the source of the money isn’t as they report?
Do you claim that Hams isn’t heavily involved?
.
What have a couple of erring ideologists (probably also looking for name recognition) got to do with right and wrong?
What’s moral about opening the door for Hamas to get armed like Hezbollah? How many people in Gaza do you think will die after a missile hits Tel Aviv?
Mores have context.
.
I disagree with many parts of Israel’s actions, including some in regards to the blockade. But I find it ridiculous to claim that Israel has no right to defend itself. And that’s what the essence – though maybe not all details – of Israel’s actions is about.
A blanket condemnation is bound to be reciprocated by a blanket denial. Those suffering will not be helped. After all, 6 million people aren’t going to commit what they see as suicide.
Engelbert Luitsz
Well Max, I can turn you into a terrorist in no time by limiting your space, destroying your land and killing your kins. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t be a good human being in another context.
I’m looking forward to Nurit Peled-Elhanan’s book: Palestine in Israeli Schoolbooks: Ideology and Indoctrination.
The nefarious paradigm of too many Israeli’s has more to do with education than with some God given morality.
David
“…. IDF gunmen….”, mmmmmmh?
David
Engelbert plugs anti-Zionist/Jewish books by Israeli communists on his twitter account. The man is a border line anti-semite. Surfing the fine line of “Human Rights” and stated delegitimization of Israel.
Engelbert Luitsz
David, I also enjoy reading Michael Neumann and Arno Mayer, but I don’t twitter much.
max
I haven’t read the protocol, so I don’t know much about the case. Neither do you, besides what a newspaper claims: if this is what defines your view of morals, I pity you.
.
Tellingly, the paper mentions a correction about who heard the announcement that it’s a girl in a way that you didn’t detect it. The paper fails to mention that the officer was hit by a sniper during the event, and that 2 weeks before the incident, 3 soldiers were killed by a Palestinian who entered the nearby post.
.
In short: you read a report and accept it as truth. You’re obviously pre-disposed to anti-Israeli claims.
Soldiers in Israel go to jail for much less than this.
max
You may indeed be able to turn me into a terrorist. We’ll never know. But what if? Would that mean I’d be right?
.
Instead of waiting for a book, you can read studies comparing Israeli & Palestinian education systems towards each other.
The differences are huge; the “best” survey says that the PA is better than it was 10 years ago…
Of course, you won’t be able to read much self criticism from Palestinians – natural selection syndrome…
Engelbert Luitsz
“Soldiers in Israel go to jail for much less than this.”
The highest penalty for the slaughter on Gaza in 2008 went to a soldier who used a stolen credit card. Who are you kidding?
Engelbert Luitsz
There is no such thing as a “natural selection syndrome”.
max
“There is no such thing as a “natural selection syndrome”.”
You’re right, I should have said natural de-selection.
As in ‘See if you can fly from this roof’
David
Max, you are arguing with a far leftist anti-Semite who finds his fog/fig leaf solace in Marxism tainted anti-Zionisism/semitism.
Engelbert is a good specimen of a European Marxist-”Humanist” who are becoming more and more socially acceptable. In past threads he likes to toy with the Holocaust, he is a very naughty boy!
Engelbert Luitsz
David “Engelbert is a good specimen of a European Marxist-”Humanist” who are becoming more and more socially acceptable”.
Thanks, I rarely get a compliment, you made my day!
David
Comment deleted for non-compliance with +972′s comments policy, to wit being abusive.
Engelbert Luitsz
David, just in this thread you called me a:
- border line anti-semite
- leftist anti-Semite
- very naughty boy
- pedophile at recess at 972 (whatever that means)
And all of that because I liked Shlomo Sand’s book? You would have loved me if I had plugged the Torat Hamelech, wouldn’t you?
Deïr Yassin
Is there absolutely no moderation on 972 ?
How can a scumbag like “David” keep writing his SHIT here ? I’m fed up with thugs calling everyone anti-semitic. FED UP !
Is this supposed to be another ynetnews or Jpost-like site ?
David
YASSIN
if you cared to research the above authors suggested by Engelbert, you will see that they are all from a particular camp. It is these sort of posters who fail to declare their true intentions but work with the classic innuendo, namely discredited “academics” who love to see history through what is sadly a Marxist world view, often incorporating Holocaust doubt, watering down of Nazi ideology, and at the same time playing the Human Rights card , not afforded to those exposed to the same ideology before 1989. We need to be aware of Communists anti-semitism.
This is an old hat.
Engelbert Luitsz
DEÏR YASSIN I understand your emotions. But if people like David are censured, readers of this blog would not really understand why the topics matter. We are not Don Quixotes fighting windmills, we are opposing real people, real policies, that are expressed by some who care to post comments. I thank them for that. Personally I can’t be hurt by ziobots like them. No person with a sane mind can take them seriously, but they express a state of mind that is important in imperialist thinking. Please let them expose themselves as they are.
max
Engelbert, I’m surprised. I’d have thought that post-Srebrenica you’d be less receptive to simpleton theories…
However, surveys show that conservatives – right and left – tend to digest facts in strange ways, and history tells us that Dutch have sometimes a peculiar way of atoning for their acts after damage was done.
Engelbert Luitsz
I am not one of those Dutch Max, i’m surprised you think I would be.
Proudly anti-Israeli oppression of the native Palestinians
Anti Semitism? Ashkenaz are not even Semites and the Palestinians are. Zionists definitely live in an alternate universe where right is wrong and vice versa.
I am definitely not anti anybody and an advocate for human rights whatever the persons persuasion.
Last but not least: Engelbert you are a diamond in amongst the rough here.
Deïr Yassin
@ David
Don’t paternalize me !
I know Shlomo Sand, Arno Mayer and Nurit Peled-Elhanan very well, thank you. Probably far better than you. ‘Discredited academics’ you say ? Mayer is a professor at Princeton, Sand taught at EHESS in Paris where he also wrote his thesis before going back to Israel. He could have a job in any European University if he wanted. Peled-Elhanan is a professor too. ‘Discredited academics’. What are you ? Reading your posts, I’d say you didn’t made it through high school ! And they are all JEWS, so the old anti-semitic song is really boring.
I’ve read you shit here enough to know that you have no arguments but ad hominem and essentialising your opponents.
And of course as other ‘Hasbardim’ your primary concern is to take the attention away from the misdeads of that colonial state called Israel.
Engelbert Luitsz
More generally, I wish Israel could be a country where Spinoza, Einstein, Freud would feel at ease. And that would be by definition a country that can’t be racist. All great achievements have been made by interaction with the other.
I am not a jew, I have never been to Israel, or to Gaza. I just see suffering that is not necessary on the Palestinian side. Take the trip and see who they are, as Miko Peled did. It’s scary at first, but then you see that they are human beings just as you are, with the same desire for love and security. And with no urge to kill anyone.
max
Israel is less “colonial” than Hamas “Mohammedan”. As far as names go, Jews came back to old places with Hebrew names.
He also loves to provoke, and following any theory of history as The Truth is risible.
.
Sand is a prof. of French history, not Jewish history. His knowledge of Jewish history is the same as the knowledge of a marine biologist in desert mammals. Regardless, genetic research proved he was wrong, and explains why his “theory” lacks statistical and comparative base.
.
Arno Mayer is great: he brought physics law into history studies
.
What have these people got to do with the discussion? Are you Hasidic Jews following their Rabbi?
max
Engelbert, I’m sure you do. I do.
But when we open the newspapers, or visit the local prison, we know that many don’t.
Dreaming may be dangerous, as you’d know after you leave your house door open too often.
Yossi Gurvitz
Deir Yassin, there is some moderation, but the moderator has been away from a computer screen in a place with little cellular connection. Termination with extreme prejudice to begin in 3..2…1…
Yossi Gurvitz
Yup, David, gunmen. The equivalent of the Hebrew “hamushim”. To wit, people wearing uniforms and carrying guns, but have little to none discipline, particularly fire discipline, and who rarely have a problem with harming civilians.
Deïr Yassin
Talking about the IDF: according to UN, Israel used unnecessary force against protesters on Youm al-Nakba. In Lebanon.
Still waiting for a report on the killings in the occupied Golan on Nakba AND Naksa Day.
As usual, Israeli officials are reacting like a spoiled child:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/un-israel-used-necessary-force-against-protesters-on-nakba-day-1.371640
Shoded Yam
@Yossi,
re. “…To wit, people wearing uniforms and carrying guns, but have little to none discipline, particularly fire discipline, and who rarely have a problem with harming civilians.”
.
They sound like rent-a-cops. My wife and I live in Southern California. We were driving around Northridge one day, when Miki spotted one of those security company signs on someones front lawn, that read; “Armed Response”. So she asks; “what does “Armed Response” mean?” I replied; Armed Response? That means men who are NOT police, will come to your house with guns.”
Saed Butrus
Comment deleted for not upholding +972′s comment policy, as well as trollish behaviour.
Borg
Comment deleted for not upholding +972′s comment policy, as well as trollish behaviour.