[Peace-discuss] Troops' brutality

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The antiwar movement seems sometimes to want to ignore how the troops
we pay for in the Middle East actually conduct themselves in regard to
subject populations.  --CGE]

	Israel shaken by troops' tales of brutality against Palestinians
	A psychologist blames assaults on civilians in the 1990s on
	soldiers' bad training, boredom and poor supervision
	Conal Urquhart in Jerusalem
	Sunday October 21, 2007
	Observer

A study by an Israeli psychologist into the violent behaviour of the
country's soldiers is provoking bitter controversy and has awakened
urgent questions about the way the army conducts itself in the Gaza
Strip and West Bank.

Nufar Yishai-Karin, a clinical psychologist at the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, interviewed 21 Israeli soldiers and heard confessions of
frequent brutal assaults against Palestinians, aggravated by poor
training and discipline. In her recently published report, co-authored
by Professor Yoel Elizur, Yishai-Karin details a series of violent
incidents, including the beating of a four-year-old boy by an officer.

The report, although dealing with the experience of soldiers in the
1990s, has triggered an impassioned debate in Israel, where it was
published in an abbreviated form in the newspaper Haaretz last month.
According to Yishai Karin: 'At one point or another of their service,
the majority of the interviewees enjoyed violence. They enjoyed the
violence because it broke the routine and they liked the destruction and
the chaos. They also enjoyed the feeling of power in the violence and
the sense of danger.'

In the words of one soldier: 'The truth? When there is chaos, I like it.
That's when I enjoy it. It's like a drug. If I don't go into Rafah, and
if there isn't some kind of riot once in some weeks, I go nuts.'

Another explained: 'The most important thing is that it removes the
burden of the law from you. You feel that you are the law. You are the
law. You are the one who decides... As though from the moment you leave
the place that is called Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] and go
through the Erez checkpoint into the Gaza Strip, you are the law. You
are God.'

The soldiers described dozens of incidents of extreme violence. One
recalled an incident when a Palestinian was shot for no reason and left
on the street. 'We were in a weapons carrier when this guy, around 25,
passed by in the street and, just like that, for no reason - he didn't
throw a stone, did nothing - bang, a bullet in the stomach, he shot him
in the stomach and the guy is dying on the pavement and we keep going,
apathetic. No one gave him a second look,' he said.

The soldiers developed a mentality in which they would use physical
violence to deter Palestinians from abusing them. One described beating
women. 'With women I have no problem. With women, one threw a clog at me
and I kicked her here [pointing to the crotch], I broke everything
there. She can't have children. Next time she won't throw clogs at me.
When one of them [a woman] spat at me, I gave her the rifle butt in the
face. She doesn't have what to spit with any more.'

Yishai-Karin found that the soldiers were exposed to violence against
Palestinians from as early as their first weeks of basic training. On
one occasion, the soldiers were escorting some arrested Palestinians.
The arrested men were made to sit on the floor of the bus. They had been
taken from their beds and were barely clothed, even though the
temperature was below zero. The new recruits trampled on the
Palestinians and then proceeded to beat them for the whole of the
journey. They opened the bus windows and poured water on the arrested men.

The disclosure of the report in the Israeli media has occasioned a
remarkable response. In letters responding to the recollections, writers
have focused on both the present and past experience of Israeli soldiers
to ask troubling questions that have probed the legitimacy of the
actions of the Israeli Defence Forces.

The study and the reactions to it have marked a sharp change in the way
Israelis regard their period of military service - particularly in the
occupied territories - which has been reflected in the increasing levels
of conscientious objection and draft-dodging.

The debate has contrasted sharply with an Israeli army where new
recruits are taught that they are joining 'the most ethical army in the
world' - a refrain that is echoed throughout Israeli society. In its
doctrine, published on its website, the Israeli army emphasises human
dignity. 'The Israeli army and its soldiers are obligated to protect
human dignity. Every human being is of value regardless of his or her
origin, religion, nationality, gender, status or position.'

However, the Israeli army, like other armies, has found it difficult to
maintain these values beyond the classroom. The first intifada, which
began in 1987, before the wave of suicide bombings, was markedly
different to the violence of the second intifada, and its main events
were popular demonstrations with stone-throwing.

Yishai-Karin, in an interview with Haaretz, described how her research
came out of her own experience as a soldier at an army base in Rafah in
the Gaza Strip. She interviewed 18 ordinary soldiers and three officers
whom she had served with in Gaza. The soldiers described how the
violence was encouraged by some commanders. One soldier recalled: 'After
two months in Rafah, a [new] commanding officer arrived... So we do a
first patrol with him. It's 6am, Rafah is under curfew, there isn't so
much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the
sand. He is building a castle in his yard. He [the officer] suddenly
starts running and we all run with him. He was from the combat engineers.

'He grabbed the boy. I am a degenerate if I am not telling you the
truth. He broke his hand here at the wrist, broke his leg here. And
started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left. We are all
there, jaws dropping, looking at him in shock...

'The next day I go out with him on another patrol, and the soldiers are
already starting to do the same thing."

Yishai-Karin concluded that the main reason for the soldiers' violence
was a lack of training. She found that the soldiers did not know what
was expected of them and therefore were free to develop their own way of
behaviour. The longer a unit was left in the field, the more violent it
became. The Israeli soldiers, she concluded, had a level of violence
which is universal across all nations and cultures. If they are allowed
to operate in difficult circumstances, such as in Gaza and the West
Bank, without training and proper supervision, the violence is bound to
come out.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said that, if a soldier deviates from
the army's norms, they could be investigated by the military police or
face criminal investigation.

She said: 'It should be noted that since the events described in Nufar
Yishai-Karin's research the number of ethical violations by IDF soldiers
involving the Palestinian population has consistently dropped. This
trend has continued in the last few years.'

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007