quote : " I would still think that baby-sitting settlers or terrorizing Palestinians would be a waste of time and counterproductive towards the supposed goal of actually protecting the country. "
Once your in the IDF your not supposed to think politically .........its verboten .
And once again .....what choice do you have ?
Back to the OP ....
http://972mag.com/a-once-in-a-decade-show-trial/121768/
Want to put a soldier on trial once every 10 years? Go ahead. Between each show trial, just make sure to remember who is actually responsible: those who sent the soldiers to rule over human beings and who contrived a reality in which 19-year-olds shoot 20-year-olds in the head with the knowledge that 99 percent of the time they won’t even be reprimanded. It is for this overall reality that individual soldiers in the field need not answer, but rather the Military Advocate General, chief of General Staff, and successive ministers of defense.
For that reason, statements we’ve seen from the likes of Liberman and Netanyahu are the epitome of hypocrisy. They want to protect the soldiers? Seriously? Instead they hide behind the soldiers’ and deny their own responsibility, all with the knowledge that there is zero chance they will ever have to face justice themselves.
I don’t know how Sgt. Azaria’s trial will end, but a show trial of a non-commissioned officer is a rather marginal episode in a reality of systemic state violence against a civilian population with no political representation, rights or protection. From behind a mask of lies they warn us that if Azaria isn’t convicted, the army will turn into a street gang. That’s an interesting semantic choice: if so, why aren’t the gang leaders sitting on the defendant’s bench alongside their sergeant?
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