by Richard A » Sat Feb 10, 2024 10:47 am
They do not believe the rules apply to them. This is a country that has long considered UNRWA to be a hostile entity and the entire UN to be not much better. It's interesting that what the soldiers were dismissed for is sharing the videos on the web, not their behaviour per se.
This is deliberate humiliation. And it is handed out for two reasons. One is the obvious one, to send a message. You do this to our people, you massacre our kids at a festival, you rape our women, you burn our homes and we will fuck you. Fuck international law - we will fuck you. All of you. With a big fucky thing. Good and hard. You guys in the West Bank, Lebanon and other places that don't like us - Have You Got That?
That would be understandable, were it not for the second reason. A mentality that Palestinians are lesser beings. Not just the ones that attack Israelis - all of them. There are some interesting videos out there of a couple of guys who went around Israel and Palestine and asked people from both camps what they thought of the other one. There were liberal, typically secular, Israeli Jews who said openly that non-Jews were the same as Jews, with the same rights. But many said, no - above all, not in Israel. That this is their land. And it dates from well before 7 October. An Israeli Jewish settler who decides to seize a Palestinian farm at gunpoint - nothing is done. Because both he and the IDF who are the main law enforcement agency in the West Bank consider it to be their land, not the Palestinians'. (Many of the Palestinians they interviewed did not have exactly liberal views of Israelis either, mind you.)
And note that the soldiers dismissed were reservists, so it's not like it's the end of their career. And they're certainly not heading for any Israeli version of Fort Leavenworth. This is PR, nothing more.