In one video segment, an armed Border Guard soldier is shown beating Palestinian detainees as they lean against a wall with their legs spread. In another segment, a Border Guard soldier is shown forcing a Palestinian man to give him a military salute.

The footage, which appears to have been shot in July 2007 and August 2008, was sent to Yesh Din. Members of the group immediately turned the footage over to the Police Internal Affairs Bureau, and in a brief to the bureau, Natalie Rosen, an attorney with Yesh Din, asked for an investigation into the incidents documented and the prosecution of the soldiers involved.

“On innumerable occasions the unacceptable work methods of the Border Guard in East Jerusalem have been exposed, similar to the daily violence and degradation used in the West Bank,” Rosen wrote in the petition. “In addition, recently there is a growing sense that those who see and know of such incidents do not understand what is objectionable in them and do not inform the law-enforcement authorities.”

Rosen said that the embarrassing indictment filed in the case of the shooting in Naalin illustrates that even prosecutors minimize the gravity of these incidents. “Without a deterrent penalty that will reiterate the value of maintaining human dignity to the public, including IDF and Border Guard soldiers, these incidents will not only be repeated, they will become more and more serious,” she said.

The Border Guard commented that the policemen who were shown in the videos have been identified and that the Border Guard had sent their names, along with the footage, to the Police Internal Affairs Bureau.

“Our policy is no leniency with soldiers who act in contravention with the principles they learned,” the Border Guard commented. “This policy has proved to be effective and has cut down the number of complaints about abuse by dozens of percentage points.”

Reader responses to the article

We’re in an ongoing war. The Border Guard operates in Jerusalem, and from time to time, you have to show them who owns the land because this trash, the Ishmaelites, only understand force. In fact, the Arabs are very afraid of Border Guard soldiers, and that didn’t come out of nowhere. We have no other land, but they do—Angry.

The soldiers ordered them to do a military salute

Israelis are extremely cruel, forcing the Palestinian to give a military salute. The brutality of the Israeli soldier is boundless and the world is silent. This is really horrible—Boundless cruelty.

Source: www.nfc.co.il

Israeli Comments

August 14, 2008

By: Itzik Wolf