http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?id=48563&mador=4
Ha'aretz, June 13, 1999
Killing a POW is killing a POW
By Gideon Levy
One version of events, which is not necessarily
less reliable than any other version, will be
missing from the bench of the High Court of
Justice when it meets today for deliberations on
the petition against Lieutenant Colonel Erez's
appointment to command the elite Naval Commandos
unit. This is the version of the victim, the
shackled guerrilla - we will never know the truth
from his point of view.But the well-oiled public
relations machine of the Israel Defense Forces has
taken care to distribute its version of what
happened in 1993 during a Naval Commando operation
between a refugee camp and guerrilla base on
Lebanon's seashore. Senior officers, lawyers and
military correspondents well-accustomed to
spreading the IDF version of events have already
rallied to flood the public debate with
information about the circumstances of the
incident, the motives of the petitioner, Erez's
qualifications and the seriousness of revoking his
appointment. They are awfully good at this.On two
hard facts there is no dispute. First of all, the
"terrorist" was unarmed (perhaps he was a refugee,
a passerby?), and second, he was shot in all the
parts of his body, after he was taken prisoner.
Lt. Col. Erez shot a shackled and unarmed man and
ordered another fighter to shoot him as well, and
apparently the man was killed. Thus, it must be
said immediately: Killing a POW is killing a
POW.But Erez and his friends are dispensing
information on the incident that is supposed to
justify the shooting. Senior officers were quoted
on Friday in Ha'aretz as saying that Erez's act
prevented "a massacre of his soldiers," no less.
Erez shot the prisoner to prevent him from warning
other guerrillas in the area, and thereby allow
the Israeli force to retreat unharmed.
This, of course, is a supremely worthy aim. But
was killing the POW the only way to save the
soldiers from the massacre that did or did not
await them? Erez's commanders did not permit him
to take the prisoner into captivity, he claims,
but it is not clear why. He preferred not to
disobey them and preferred to kill the prisoner
without permission. Had they taken him into
captivity, they are now explaining in the IDF, the
prisoner might, God forbid, have petitioned the
High Court. Twelve kidnapped Lebanese are now
sitting in Israeli prisons for more than a dozen
years and the High Court has not lifted a finger,
but this claim is still useful to create an
atmosphere of terror.A great many irrelevant
claims are being tossed about in this storm.
Various strange innuendos, which can be understood
only by those who are in the know, have been
spread about the motives of petitioner Ami
Hollander, a lawyer and Naval Commando veteran.
But what difference do his motives make, whatever
they are? Whenever a scandal is exposed, the
personal motives of the whistle-blowers are
involved. So what? Do his motives change the
matter's severity?The timing of the petition, six
years after the fact, is also offered as an
argument against disqualifying the appointment.
This, too, is only of the weakest relevance. Lt.
Col. Erez is about to be appointed commander of an
elite unit, and it is precisely those who admire
commanders of elite units who should understand
that the qualifications for filling such a command
are different than those for ordinary postings.
Therefore, there was indeed room for submitting
the petition at this time.
Another annoying argument by Erez's friends in the
IDF is that the High Court should not interfere in
IDF appointments or in its operational missions.
Until now, only the IDF has dealt with the
incident: One hand investigated the other. This is
exactly the place where the High Court must get
involved, if indeed the appointment is improper,
just as it must intervene in other improper
actions by all branches of government.
The last time the High Court of Justice intervened
in an IDF appointment, in the Nir Galili affair,
the court saved the IDF from shame. Then, too,
there were those who tried to cast doubt on the
motives of the young woman who submitted the
petition. Now IDF officers are saying that what
Galili did was much worse. Does this mean that
they see sexual harassment as worse than killing a
prisoner?
The argument against High Court intervention in
operational missions is no less scandalous than
the argument against its intervention in
appointments. In operational missions, no matter
how daring, law and morality must be maintained,
and the High Court is responsible for these.Erez's
qualifications, which the IDF defenders also took
care to distribute, also have no place in this
discussion. However brilliant, daring and even
moral Erez may be, the only question on the agenda
is how he performed in the moral and operational
test on the seashore of Lebanon. Whether or not he
is "a born fighter," the question is whether he
killed a POW unnecessarily. In his deposition, he
wrote that when he returned from the mission he
felt like a personal and professional failure. It
is not clear what he is referring to: the failure
of the mission that was cut off almost before it
got underway because of the stray bullet and the
guerrilla who was captured, or the killing of his
shackled prisoner. His declaration of his
innocence and pure intentions is also meaningless;
in question is his military morality, not the
purity of his motives.The High Court will have to
determine whether the man who ordered a prisoner
killed is worthy of heading his unit. Only if it
is proven that he had no alternative other than to
shoot his prisoner, which on the face of it looks
unlikely, can he become commander of the Naval
Commando. In any other case, the High Court will
have to have its unambiguous say about the officer
who ordered the killing of a shackled man
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