December 10, 2012

Israel doesn't kill stone throwers...not on camera anyway

Here's a turn up in YNET.  Israeli soldiers in the West Bank were confronted by stone-throwers.

A video that surfaced over the weekend shows Palestinians stoning Israeli security forces, eventually forcing them to run for cover - similiar to the incident in Hebron.
Six IDF soldiers equipped with shields and crowd-dispersal means found themselves ambushed by a crowd of stone throwing Palestinians in the West Bank village of Kafr Qaddum. YNET people spoke to "S" and "T":
According to S., orders to open fire address situations of a clear and present danger and only if there is a person with the means and intent to kill. "But what is an angry mob throwing stones and sometimes rocks at you if not a life threatening situation?
I wouldn't order opening fire at a crowd of people but we can't have a situation where you stand in front of a person with a rock and start to ask yourself is this person life threatening. If I shoot at him I go to jail."
T's testimony was a tad more telling:
T., a combatant in an infantry brigade, also claims that soldiers are not equipped to handle the complex situation on the ground. "There's nothing more humiliating for a combatant than to see his friends run," he says.

He criticizes the army for sending such a small group of soldiers to Qaddum on Friday at a particularly volatile time.

T. says the cameras on the ground undermine the forces' efforts. "A commander or an officer sees a camera and becomes a diplomat, calculating every rubber bullet, every step. It's intolerable, we're left utterly exposed. The cameras are our kryptonite."

I see, so cameras are a constraint.  I don't know how Freudian the guy was being regarding kryptonite.  It's the only thing that can kill Superman.  Does this Israeli soldier really think that not being able to kill is the same thing as actually being dead?

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