Published: 2 April 2016
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Israel’s first prime minister argued that only the death penalty would deter Jews from gratuitous killing of Arabs - ‘Some Israelis think Jews are people but Arabs aren’t, so you can do anything to them. And some think it’s a mitzvah to kill Arabs…’ A cabinet discussion 66 years ago contrasts disturbingly with recent very different cabinet discussion about a soldier who killed a wounded Palestinian terrorist in Hebron after he no longer posed a threat.
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[By November 1948 the IDF had been accused of atrocities in a number of towns and villages, to the point where David Ben-Gurion had to appoint an investigator. Israeli poet Natan Alterman (1910–1970) wrote about the allegations in his poem Al Zot ('On This'), published in Dvar on 19.11.48, about a soldier on a jeep machine-gunning an Arab. Two days later Ben-Gurion sought Alterman's permission for the Defence Ministry to distribute the poem throughout the IDF. One stanza:
Let us sing then also about "delicate incidents " / For which the true name, incidentally, is murder / Let songs be composed about conversations with sympathetic interlocutors / who with collusive chuckles make concessions and grant forgiveness.]
And see:
Why Israelis are defending IDF soldier who shot Palestinian attacker – Ben Caspit – Al-Monitor 28.03.16
Something is happening to the Israeli public under the media radar, and something is happening to the IDF. And it doesn't bode well for the State of Israel.
Revisiting the IDF’s rules of engagement, in light of Hebron shooting – Judah Ari Gross – The Times of Israel 31.03.16
Debate over video showing soldier killing disarmed Palestinian centres around army’s open-fire protocols — but what are they?
Murder as heroism March 30, 2016
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