Gaza crimes: The fish stinks from the head
Those IDF soldiers committing war crimes in Gaza are following their commanders’ ethos. And no one is even pretending to do anything about that.
By Yagil Levy • Translated by Sol Salbe
So the ever-so-innocent white tribe, the liberal secular community has a new cleansing ceremony of — the funeral of reserve combat soldier Shuvael Ben Natan, in which his brother Uriah called for blood vengeance. And just to ensure no one would confuse that with the more customary price tag practice on the West Bank, he clarified “You entered Gaza to take vengeance, on as many women, children, whoever you saw, as many as possible, that’s what you wanted. “God willing, may all the people of Israel merit to avenge you. Blood vengeance, not vengeance of burning houses, not vengeance of burning trees, not vengeance of burning vehicles. Vengeance of the blood of your spilled slaves!”
His comrades in the unit called Shuval “Shuvi haMadlik” [Shuvi the Igniter, but it also means Shuvi the cool one], because he set fire to a residential building in Gaza “for the ambience.” It is not for nothing that columnists wrote that the incident should shake out of our tranquillity. It’s easy to be shocked by brother Uriah — whose appearance is that of a hilltop youth, far from the image of the pre-state “finely coiffed, pure of heart fighters.” But there wasn’t much new in his text.
“How many Shuval Ben Natans who set out to take vengeance and murder children are there in the IDF?” wondered Sebastian Ben-Daniel. In my opinion, it is no less importnat to ask what the army is doing to cut off the ideological infrastructure that gives rise to the Shuvael Ben Natans, and the answer is almost self-evident. When Dado Bar Kalifa, commander of the 36th Division, penned the Order of the Day to his soldiers at the beginning of the war in which he pledged: “Vengeance shall return to His enemies and atone for His land with Him,” his order, based on a biblical verse preceded by the verse “For the blood of His servants shall rise,” barely received any attention.
Is there a fundamental difference between the calls of the brigadier-general and the bereaved brother? What would the average reader think when reading the text of the Brigadier General? That it means revenge against Hamas members, or does revenge mean killing innocent people? And what was the response to the brigadier-general’s call? It was ignored and he was appointed head of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate. So now he is the officer in charge of the army’s education systems.
It should therefore come as no surprise, then, that from the first weeks of the ground operation in Gaza, an unprecedented phenomenon has developed of fighters proudly documenting on social networks the war crimes they have been committing. The crimes included looting, destruction of property and home demolition, and the while demonstrating joy and pride. The activities and values displayed are identical to those of “Shuvi HaMadlik.” And what has the military done to eradicate the phenomenon? Almost nothing. The authority of the commanding echelon is paralysed. That’s why it’s easy to get excited about the chief of staff ripping the “Messiah” patch out of a fighter’s shoulder a year too late The moral authority that is supposed to be expressed in the work of the Education Corps has not only been paralysed, but it has fanned the atmosphere of revenge with collections of poetry.
So why shouldn’t Shuvi and his friends flow with the cool ambience? The work of documenting these crimes, easy work because the perpetrators display their handiwork openly, is done by international bodies and it is sent to The Hague. Therefore, it is also not superfluous to mention Shuvael’s past in the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, the ideological incubator for the discourse of vengeance and its fulfilment long before October 7. But Shuvael’s comrades in Netzah Yehuda will no longer be required to serve in diverse frameworks such as the Carmeli Brigade. The army is setting up a reserve battalion for them as part of the new brigade, which will triple Netzah Yehuda as part of the campaign to appease those who demand recruiting ultra-Orthodox. It is easier to be shocked by a grieving family than to demand a thorough correction in the army.
Translated by Sol Salbe, Middle East News Service
Haaretz Hebrew Original:
[original Hebrew heading: It’s easy to pounce on Shuvael Ben Nathan’s family — but no one demands a correction in the army]
