Israelske politikere protesterer, de sier IDF kan ordne opp selv.
Men Sami Peretz påpeker at det var nettopp israelske politikere som overstyrte IDF i saken med Elor Azaria i 2016. (HELE artikkelen nederst under Kilde).
Saken med Elor Azaria er skjellsettende i Isralels historie.
Her flyttet de ansvarlige politikerne, med Netanyahu i spissen, grensene for hva IDF kan gjøre:
Å henrette en forsvarsløs og uskadeliggjort fange med et hodeskutt.
Utviklingen i IDF viser at man har tatt signalet.
Både i Gaza og på Vestbredden vises hvordan IDF opptrer nå i 2024.
Skudeneshavn 25. april 2024
Jan Marton Jensen
U.S. Sanctioning an IDF Unit Is the Rotten Fruit of the Elor Azaria Affair
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| Netzah Yehuda base, in 2022.Credit: Emil Salman |
The U.S. administration is considering imposing sanctions on the IDF's
Netzah Yehuda battalion, due to what it perceives as human rights
violations by its soldiers in their confrontations with Palestinians.
The administration has for some months been taking action against violent settlers and other right-wing elements through the imposition of sanctions, but so far, this has been directed against civilians or civil bodies.
The significance of sanctions against civilians is that the U.S. does not have confidence in Israel's law enforcement agencies when it comes to Palestinian victims. But a sanction against a military unit demonstrates that the Americans do not trust the military either, believing that the army is too lenient in dealing with soldiers who committed offenses.
The U.S. intention has vexed the entire political system, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, to cabinet members Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot as well as opposition leader Yair Lapid, all of whom came to the defense of the battalion, telling the Americans that there is no justification for imposing sanctions on a military unit.
They submissively accept U.S. demands to send humanitarian aid to Gaza, to establish a dock in Gaza for offloading aid shipments and a demand to postpone a campaign in Rafah, but when the U.S. starts marking military units and imposing sanctions against them, this is perceived as intrusive intervention in the management of tactical military echelons.
This move undermines the IDF command hierarchy and casts a heavy shadow over the IDF's judicial system, portraying senior commanders as turning a blind eye to rogue soldiers. In fact, it presents the Netzah Yehuda battalion as a kind of militia or a military arm of the Otzma Yehudit party.
More than it impacts the unit itself, it puts the IDF's top brass to shame, presenting IDF leaders as people who have surrendered to political pressure. This pressure has increased in recent years and has been particularly exacerbated since the establishment of the current right-wing government, in which extremists such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir play major roles.
The fact that the Americans suspect that the IDF is buckling under pressure and is not acting with resolve against rogue soldiers obliges political echelons to put in order their relations with the army with regard to enforcing military discipline.
In fact, Israel's political establishment is contending with the rotten fruit of the Elor Azaria affair. Azaria was a soldier who in 2016 shot and killed a wounded terrorist, even though the terrorist was no longer posing a danger to anyone.
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Elor Azaria in court, May 8, 2017.Credit: Moti Milrod |
Azaria was contravening the rules of engagement and IDF values. Instead
of allowing the military to investigate and try Azaria, the incident was
taken out of the army's hands, becoming a public political affair. On
one side stood then-Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and Defense Minister
Moshe Ya'alon, with many politicians on the opposing side, including
Avigdor Lieberman, Naftali Bennett and Itamar Ben-Gvir (before he was
elected to the Knesset).
The former believed this was a serious incident which did not reflect IDF values. They expressed concerns that it could ignite the Palestinian arena. The latter tried to make political mileage of the affair among right-wing voters. They were joined by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who at first condemned the shooting but then lined up with his voter base.
Turning a military incident into a political matter in which politicians encourage a soldier who had erred, instead of letting the army handle the case, now returns like a boomerang to hit politicians. They are annoyed at the American intervention into the inner workings of the IDF, but they did just that in the Azaria affair, exerting political pressure while trying to take the decision on what to do away from the military.
Anyone poking his nose into professional and value-associated military affairs even though this is not his role, only so as to garner public support, should not be surprised when the U.S. does the same thing. Preventing American sanctions against an IDF unit requires primarily desisting from applying local political pressure on the army, while bolstering its independence in relation to command structure, justice and discipline.
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